Wow---

I was just reading back on several of my older posts ----

I used to write alot. I am ashamed of the way that I just let it go. However, there are circumstances that helped me to do that, I didn't just get up one day and think "I quit". But that is essentially how it turned out in the end. I hate that.

This month, is the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of me NOT WORKING. I STILL HATE IT. I STILL DREAM OF THE DAY I CAN GO BACK TO WORK. I realize that each year that becomes a bit more unlikely, but still I pray and dream to do just that. Funny how this life of mine has turned out. Not really funny - actually pretty sad. I loved my work - I loved the place that I worked, I actually enjoyed doing the job. (Most of the time - I wasn't a nerd, there were days I would have gladly given it away, but I knew every second that I was complaining about it, I knew that I was blessed to have it, and that I loved it.) And while there certainly is no plan, no place - and absolutely no job, I still pray that I can have it all back again. Yes, I know I'm getting old - but I think I still have some good years left in me, if they can just get the damned pain in my upper back under control. That sounds so easy --- and the truth it, they know exactly how to do that --- once the fusion that has now been there for more than two years would just "take". All it is, is a matter of removing about nine screws. Again, that sounds so easy. My surgeon has been in there to do just that five times now. And five times I have been closed up - with various other screws removed, but the particular ones that I need taken out cannot be just yet, because my bones have not grown back together the way that they should have. I have been in this particular hell since October of 2014 --- when I had the first HUGE surgery that was supposed to fix me and allow me to get most, if not all of my life back. After a surgery that was more than 18 hours in length, and literally took out many, many of the discs in my spine, and put in TWO titanium rods the length of my entire back, along with 67 screws, after all of that particular hell ---  and omgosh, it was hell -- I woke up crying about the unbelievable pain in my upper shoulders. A place that I had never felt pain before. In the midst of all the stitches, the tubes, the hardware, and the horror of it all --- the thing that I could not tolerate was the pain in my shoulders. And I cannot tolerate it yet. It has not changed, other than to increase. It is unrelenting, it is sharp, it is dull, it is an electric-type pain like hitting your funny bone -- it is a  vice-like pain, like being squeezed every second of every day --- it is unbearable. And yet, I bear it. Somehow. With the help of several (but not nearly enough) pain medications. I cry, I carry on (inside), I suffer. I think about dying ---  but not about killing myself. I often think that it would be so much easier for me. But then I remember that my kids are not ready for that, just yet. So, I tell God one more time that I know it's not yet my time and to please, somehow -- help me to carry on this way.

At this time, we are waiting for April --- to see my surgeon again, and determine if things have improved, so he can try again. I am doing everything possible for that to happen. I am waiting on a Bone Growth Stimulator to arrive --- no, I don't have any idea what it really is, I only know that some have had luck with them. It's an electronic device that is hooked up to the area with electrodes for a certain period of time each day. I had never even heard of one until my last appointment with the doctor. Waiting now for insurance bs -- as usual. So, hopefully that will help. I have always been told by my doctors that smoking inhibits bones fusing, that goes way back ten years when I had neck surgery and that doctor told me that he wouldn't help me if I didn't quit. (I didn't quit back then and my neck fused just fine). I did quit this time, however. Finally --  after decades and decades of smoking, I am smoke free. It was a year in August. And hopefully, that will help my bones to grow back together. I will tell you sometime how I did manage to quit -- it was mostly due to an old blogging friend I used to have, Brenda at Soul Survivor. It was something she said to me a few years ago that worked.... but I don't think she is a friend anymore. I'm not sure of what I've done but apparently it was something. My memory these past few years has not been good for various reasons, another thing I will explain someday.

So, anyway --- my point is, my damned back SHOULD be growing together. I have just about had it, with pain, with this life, with all of it --- and it is time. Whatever lesson I should be learning, surely it is firmly in place and fully learned. IT IS TIME I'M FIXED.

Over and Out.

Hugs, y'all.

J.