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William Wordsworth might be right that we are born, “
trailing clouds of glory
”, but we leave
trailing clouds of medical personnel.
At the beginning of the year,
Karen saw a doctor that wanted to cut her feet off, but
then
we saw
a podiatrist and she didn't want to cut them off. Of course, a podiatrist couldn't bill after that, so
maybe she's biased.
In the end, we went with the podiatrist because we can always cut her feet
off later if we want to, and for now they seem to be working okay.
That in itself is kind of amazing because in May, Karen’s feet hurt so much that she couldn’t
stand, walk, or even sit without agonizing pain which we thought was just a consequence of her
long-standing chronic pain disease.
Karen saw a neurosurgeon after an MRI revealed she had spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing
of the space the spinal cord runs through. He said that stenosis is generally classifi ed as moderate
to severe, but hers is "double severe," and he didn't understand how she was even able to walk
(to be fair, sh
e was
not really walking that well) but that she wouldn't be able to walk much
longer without surgery. Karen had some concerns about complications, as you might expect i
f
you had any knowledge at all about her last six years
. He brushed her off. She asked about going
to the Mayo Clinic since we
were
going to a wedding near there
in June
. He said he was trained
at Harvard which was as good as Mayo, and that's when Karen stopped listening and we left.
Nothing is as good as the Mayo Clinic. Except
that
weekend was horrible, so on Monday,
twisting my cap in my hands, I called them to schedule the surgery.
Scheduling tomfoolery ensued but by the end of May,
Karen had her surgery. It took about twice
as long as expected, but the surgeon said it went well.
He must have been right, because
immediately after the surgery, the pain in her feet was gone, and while he was in there, he fused
some vertebra so that Karen can stand up straighter than she has in years.
He said that he had
never seen nerve roots being crushed so much in a person that wasn't paralyzed.
She got a blood
transfusion and spent some time on the hospital’s inpatient physical therapy floor, came home,
was readmitted, but just in the very nick of time, was cleared for travel and we were able to
attend her nephew’s wedding in Iowa. It was a lovely trip. Iowa is a land of rolling hills,
genuinely nice people, and deep fried cheese curds.
This fall, I developed numbness and tingling in my hand. After two MRI’s and an EMG (a
procedure that feels like have grand mal hiccups) I added a Physical Therapist to my retinue.
And as I write this, I am waiting to (hopefully) see an ophthalmologist to arrange to have a laser
burn a hole in my iris.
And then, big fi nish, I am
planning
to
retired on the 1st of January after delivering mail for
almost forty years.
At this point, I showed the letter to Leah, and she said, “It’s pretty dark,” and I told her, “Duh,
I’m going to say ‘Merry Christmas.’” She still wasn’t impressed, so, Happy New Year.
