Monday Morning Back Report

Tomorrow it will be one week since I had back surgery. I guess I should count my blessings -- in the bad old days they would have fused my spine and I would have spent six months in recovery. As it is, I'm feeling a little better every day and I do fine so long as I don't stay in one position for too long. I tried to stop taking the painkillers on Saturday. That was a big mistake. They make me a little spacy (OK, more spacy than usual) but apparently they're what's keeping me from spending all day in bed. I also tried a short five-minute drive to the grocery store yesterday. Torture. The seats in my car are too low to sit comfortably and every single bump in the road jarred my spine. Once I got to the store I used a cart for support and was walking so slowly and carefully that people were staring at me. And yet, somehow, THREE PEOPLE still managed to bump into me. Three. Can you believe it?

The last collision was in the checkout lane. I saw her coming, too, but was unable to move out of the way in time. I just had a chance to say, "Oh, please don't bump into ... ARGH!" She was profusely apologetic, so much so that I soon felt the need to apologize to her. "I shouldn't even be out," I said. "I had back surgery this week." "Oh," she said, "Where did you have it?" This caught me just a little off-guard. She went from apologetic to inquisitive and it took my drug-addled brain a few seconds to switch gears. So I told her the name of the hospital and, because I was worried that she would interpret my pause as an indication that I was lying about having surgery and being in pain, I also felt obligated to tell her the name of my surgeon and to testify as to how great he is. So I'm standing in line at the grocery store, my legs getting number by the second, talking to a total stranger about my back surgery so that she'll feel better about bumping into me. Crazy.

I've been doing some work from home and I'm still hoping to get back to work on Wednesday. The only thing I'm worried about is the 15-minute drive to and from work. Oh, and the fact that I can't sit for more than 20 minutes. Coupled with the fact that about 95% of my job requires sitting in front of the computer. (I've had to get up four times just writing this post.) There's also the small matter of not being able to stand up for more than a half hour or so without my legs going numb. And the fact that I haven't gone a day yet since the surgery without laying down for at least an hour in the afternoon. Other than that, though ... I should be just fine.

Really.
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