I referred to it a little on the 12th but last week, on the 12th, I had a check-up with my orthopedic PA.
I’m not really sure why I even go. It’s not like there’s more surgery I will ever let them do to me, even if my neck discs are seriously degenerating.
The photo above is my back as it looked on x-ray on Wednesday, November 12.
It’s pretty crazy.
And that whole top curve wasn’t there when I was a teenager or young adult. I assume that is what 4 pregnancies (yes, there were 4 even though there are only 3 boys) and years upon years of laying-in-the-bed-depressed depression will do to me with my brand of scoliosis.
The only real comment the orthopedic PA made was that indeed, there is significant degeneration in the discs in my neck. Such that actually, there was a blank space where there should have been a disc at the base of my neck in front, actually.
That’s probably why my neck hurts when I transition from standing or sitting to lying down in the bed.
And maybe I should feign terror at the utter basic breakdown that is my spine, that is my body.
But to be honest, it’s just my normal. I’ve dealt with this since I was 6 years old, way back in the back brace days.
At least I’ve spent the vast majority of my life without the large lumbar hump that was on the left side of my back as a kid.
My orthopedic PA says she doesn’t measure degrees. She says she’ll know when she should refer me to her surgeon, and he’ll measure degrees then. She knows– rightly– that people obsess over degrees of curvature when– also rightly– degrees don’t necessarily mean a damn thing, especially when there’s rotation or some other such craziness going on.
She didn’t say this time, though, that she’d never see me needing surgery again.
Not sure I would do it though. I’d have to be in an awful– a very awful– amount of pain to agree to give up the mobility I have in my upper back and neck, and that’s what would happen with more fusions.
I’ve had probably 2% of progression in the last two years. She says that’s pretty stable for my particular situation. So much so, that she won’t worry about x-rays when I come back next year.
I did get another referral for physical therapy. I still know a lot of the exercises I was taught last year but I haven’t been super reliable about it since I got depressed and had very bad mental health in the Spring and summer. And of course, I did have a whole hysterectomy in May.
All you people with normal bodies, it must be nice.
When I look at this photo of my x-ray though, it makes complete sense as to why I have mental health issues AND why I have been the object of not-nice men.
Easy to prey on the already weakened.
As my oldest would say, “It is what it is.”
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