Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Ding-dong! The Witch is dead
Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding-dong! The Wicked Witch is dead

—The Munchkins, Wizard of Oz

If the excruciating and demobilizing pain in my leg from the sciatic nerve pinch in my spine was the Wicked Witch, then ding dong the Wicked Witch is actually dead. The pain is gone. The surgery worked exactly as we knew it would on August 18th, 2025, just after my MRI. I'm up, I'm fully mobile, I can easily tell it worked because I can put full pressure on my left leg with no pain whatsoever in any position. I’m ready to not only walk, I’m ready to run, jump, and fall. Everything corrective anticipated by the surgery, at this point, has easily been observed. No trouble putting my afflicted leg and associated nerve in any position. I am jubilant to begin. My leg feels brand new.

Both the surgeon and my chiropractor warned me of phantom nerve pain, or a rebound in pain as a result of a nerve that has been damaged and in pain for any length of time. Well it didn’t have to be any length of time had we done the correction early. I blame the surgeon as incompetent staff at Fairfax Abysmal and will have my reckoning with that team sometime in the future. As for the phantom pain, I have already felt that happen. It's easy to detect. A pulse of pain in my leg occurs for no reason…in any part, down the length of my sciatic nerve. But it happens for no reason. I'm not putting any pressure on it, it just happens like a spasm. It's not even that painful, like a 1 or a 2 on the linear scale. Easy to ignore…it literally feels like a phantom…a whisper of the pain that was once there. It's not concerning at all. It does piss me off…as well, everyone knows everything about this extended situation pisses me off.

Before I start my full recovery to running and jumping and falling, however, the surgery to correct the condition in my back itself must heal. The surgery consisted of the discectomy on the left of the nerve root impinging discs at my L34 and L45. From what the surgeon and PA have told me they clipped the discs. But also, and perhaps more importantly they clipped a bunch of arthritis they found in there along the way. We’ve always suspected there was more going on then just the bulging discs…so of the bone protruding into the nerve that wasn’t observable on any of the imagery. And or, the impingement from the arthritis wasn’t showing in the imagery because it didn’t happen at rest. I had to have weight on the leg to really show the squeeze, however the imagery was static, not dynamic. There are dynamic MRI machines…but they are few and far between. I did not go down this path. I probably would have looked into it had the surgeon not believed there was utility in going in to do the discectomy. Nothing like using the “Mark-I Eyeball” to assess the situation in real time. Did he trim the herniated discs back? Yes. Did he find arthritis in the regions and clip that back too? Yes. And by clip, I got a bit more understanding of the tool he used in the surgery. It’s like a long skinny nail clipper that they insert through a small hole that they drill in the lamina of the spine. That’s the back portion of bone, not the vertebrae which is in front of the spinal cord. The clipper they use is called the Kerrison Rongeur which I love because rongeur means to gnaw like a rat. So essentially the surgeon was going into my back and gnawing on the bulging disc and associated arthritic bone pieces with a set of rodent teeth. This is not new technology. This instrument was invented in 1904 by Dr. Philip D. Kerrison to do early surgery in the ear while protecting the nerves. It was later adapted to do surgery on the spine. The whole idea is to have a clipper on one side of the instrument while the other side is just a tube that protects the adjacent nerve. I don’t know exactly which instrument my surgeon used as they have been adapted through time with many modifications. However, it is clear he gnawned away in my back like Willard, the hungry rat, having dinner. I’m happy this tool exists.

I do have to deal with the pain from the surgery. It's quite different from the nerve pain. It is significant but totally in the linear region of pain and can be defined as such. Without Motrin and Tylenol pain is probably in the 8 range unless I stretch the area but then it jumps to a 10, but not off the chart. It’s not excruciating. It’s just, “Oh my God I’m ripping my skin open”. I classify that as a 10. But it's localized to the region of surgery right on my lower back where Willard was eating. The rest of my body has no impact. I can walk and I could possibly run…I just don't want to run yet with a tender back. At 11 am on Monday, 72 hours after surgery, I can remove the sealed bandage and take my first shower. I've been warned (Jay C) that surgical pain will peak about 42 hours after surgery, that's today. However I know from experience, that surgical pain, after cutting through muscle tissue actually takes weeks to heal. My last surgery was open surgery to correct a lingual hernia. I vastly underestimated my recovery time and found myself home in bed after trying to heroically travel after the weekend, only four days after surgery. That didn't work out and I had to abandon my trip in the middle and return home in a hurry. We were celebrating Shade’s birthday with Ed and Hucker at Peddler’s. I was not in a good way…and we didn’t smoke cigars. The next day I had the choice to travel to Orlando (from Boston) or fly home. I abandoned the trip and went home to bed. Thanks again to Ryan H for bringing me back to the hotel.

I learned my lesson and I will take it very slow this time. I feel the surgical pain. In two weeks I will meet for my post op with the surgical PA and then, after receiving a clean bill of health that the surgical wound has healed properly…I’ll slowly begin retraining my body for my return to the soccer pitch. And in the Spring, perhaps a return to the Sierra Nevada mountains with Meatball with a planned 24 mile hike into Bench Lake, from the Nevada side. This is the spot Randy Morgenson lived his summers for 27 years. Please join us, if you have the motivation and the means.

I would love to talk more about the surgery because I simply have no recollection. In the past going under general anesthesia I was already in the operating room on the operating table. This time, the initial dose of medication was administered in the prep area. I met the surgical team, the surgeon, the PA, the surgical nurse, the anesthesiologist, and his nurse. In fact it was the anesthesiological nurse who administered the meds through my IV while still in the prep area. And I didn't even know it, or feel it coming. No counting backwards from 10. I was out and woke up in the recovery room. I actually found it quite rude. So I have zero memory of anything surgical except the pain in my back, and immediately after, the pain in my throat. It's standard practice under general anesthesia these days to always be intubated, which means a breathing tube down your trachea. For this surgery I had to lay flat on my stomach so the trach tube must have come out of my throat, then my mouth and wrapped up around my head. I do have bruises on my mouth as well. Whether it is standard or not, I feel like the anesthesiologic nurse was responsible for both acts of rudeness…the one of treachery where I was knocked out before I knew it and then the pain after surgery in my throat and mouth associated with what appears to have been a fairly rough intubation. Asshole. Calling the nurse an A-hole in this blog will probably get it censored by the AI police.

Anyway, the trach pain in my throat is annoying and feels like unnecessary pain. They do it as a precaution in case you throw up during surgery and then inhale your own puke. It's a complication of surgery that requires abusing the patient for our own good…and can be easily avoided by not doing it. I think I am also paying for the nice set of pressure cuffs they put on my calves during surgery to prevent blood clots. I am also supposed to wear them while laying in bed. I'm not laying in bed…so again it’s a wasteful protocol administered for our own good. Just like all those daily injections in Folsom to thin the blood to prevent blood clots. It’s a waste and somewhat of an abuse. I'm active, I'm up, I'm moving around. Even in my beloved wheelchair I was moving around and moving my legs. Sometimes it would be nice for the medical community not to treat everyone with the exact same protocol…it is without a doubt…incorrect to do so medically, and it is dehumanizing in many aspects. It's done for legal reasons and here is the dichotomy of that. The doctors clearly want insurance companies to pay for procedures that the doctors have to balance with their exposure to doing something wrong resulting in a malpractice lawsuit. So doctors are paying for malpractice insurance at the same time. They add protocol that we, the patient, has to pay for to insure they don't run the risk of something bad happening. Sometimes that means our own insurance pays for it. I think my insurance will cover the intubation. I don't think they are covering the pressure cuffs for my legs. I'll find out soon enough.

Regardless, it’s over. Finally, two months late, but the surgery is done and I would have to say, 100% successful. My surgeon is not putting any weight limits or movement limits on me. I can even take Motrin as they are confident there will be no additional bleeding in the aftermath of the procedure. I asked the PA these exact questions. This medical team is so confident in their procedure that their protocol is different from other doctors I have talked to…including Deep Throat. Nevertheless I will take it easy. I’ll let my body define what I’m capable of doing. I’m not planning anything like going to the gym or working out until at least two weeks have gone by.

Instead I will write this blog and contemplate the second half of this series of essays. I have no doubt I will be assembling a complaint against the treatment I received at Fairfax Abysmal. Whereas I am on the road to recovery the doctors involved in that treatment will have to answer some very important questions. In particular, the pain management doctor at Attica and the Neurosurgeon who denied the obvious on three separate occasions and thus sealed my fate to be removed and sent under threat of security intervention to Folsom for a two weeks stay to learn how to live in a wheelchair. For me, after finally achieving the required medical procedure, the Wicked Witch is truly dead. For the medical team at Attica, I can only say, it’s Goodbye to their Yellow Brick Road…and a plague on them. I’ll be reporting on my progress as I brick by brick, with the help of Chat-GPT 5, dismantle their roadway to the Land of Oz.