Member-only story
The Surgery That Did Not Happen
Is surgery the only option or may I heal myself?
My neck had been a source of issue for at least a decade and I dealt with it the best I knew how. Taking Valerian Root at night had helped me to sleep lying down and provided a rest for the loud pinched nerves that kept informing me of the issue.
Many years of drywall finishing, especially big tall ceilings; had worn out my neck vertebrae. I was aware of the missing bone in my neck and always moved with caution to keep the spine in its proper place. This had kept me pain-free and functional for most of the time.
Suddenly, however, new pain began to drive itself from my neck deep into my chest too. Without a pause, the pain was consuming me. There seemed to not be enough ice packs in the county and another pop of a Turmeric supplement was about to turn me yellow.
I thought it might be possible that I pulled a muscle in my chest while sanding the hardwood floors or maybe I burnt my lungs with the three days I spent varnishing the hardwood. If not, my heart was telling me of new trouble now too.
I had put my family through enough of a scare with my stubbornness and thrashing around in pain for over a week. I figured they would not be happy with me if I suddenly left this realm from a heart attack and never bothered to do anything about it. I decided at their last request to heed their advice and head out to the ER to make sure I was not having a heart attack.
There I sat in the Emergency Room listening to the doctor’s diagnosis. “Don’t worry about a pulled muscle. Your neck is broken and you need surgery!” Those are the exact words the doctor spoke to me when I said, “Okay, what about the pain in my chest?”
As I sat there listening to the doctor tell me the results of the CAT scan I did feel a bit of despair. He reported that I had more vertebrae with missing bone than in the last report I had a few years ago. He asked me many times if he could please write me a script for the pain to help me get through this until I could get the surgery needed to fix the neck.
