Result's of last week's 5-hour surgery: ALL positive

 I suppose it’d be safe to say after three nights in the hospital and a five hour surgery that my back problems are all behind me.

But that reaction might be either a bit rosy and open to anatomical  confusion. 

Think about it. 

Aren’t even future back problems all behind us and can the back ever be described  the front?

I’ll try and come  back to this.

Let’s cut to the chase. The doctor said the operation was a success. I’m fine, thank you. And that thank you is from the heart (bpm, 75). I can sense in my veins (bp 120/80) that your prayers and well wishes were all sincere. It warms my soul (body temp 98.7) to know you care.

The operation involved “unpinching” a clutch of nerves that developed after the beavers in my back began damming up my spinal cord. There were bone spurs, arthritis, etc.

It was so bad I needed a wheel chair to get into the hospital for the healing.

The surgery should allow the tangle of nerves to rush to their stations. 

I’m no longer feeling the disabling hip pain that’s for three years made every single step a torture.

It effected every aspect of my life. People were asking what’s wrong with me. Will we ever see the old Chris again?

I’m, grateful especially to Val, Josie, Lucy and especially Val. The repetition is deliberate. She’s deserving of additional praise and affection.

Now, I’m ready to work on my personal appearance punctuation. For too long people have looked at me, I believe, and have seen a hobbled man locked in a defensive crouch, a man too timid to cross a busy street on a drizzly day. I looked like a man determined to shorten the drop into the cushioned comfort of any nearby coffin.

I intend to resume being upright, enthused and as publicly erect as the law allows.

When people observe me, they’ll no longer see a man bent like a nagging question mark.

They’ll see an exclamation point.

And then they’ll know the old Chris’s back. 

• Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me!