It’s hard to keep an old bird down. This particular Turkey, having endured a pain in the neck that threatened to do some more serious damage, had the surgery needed to ensure facile typing fingers and restored sarcasm. I entered the hospital on July 10 and left on July 16. Now, I’ll be in a neck brace for 12 weeks.
The surgery itself was a triple discectomy in the cervical spine, followed by bone grafts and fusion of four vertebrae with titanium plates and screws.
There was never much pain, but I spent some extra time in the hospital because of a secondary infection of unidentified origin, which was treated aggressively with Vancomycin IV twice a day.
Now, I’m back home and bored. You see, there are some severe restrictions on my activities. It should be obvious that with a neck brace in place, I won’t be able to drive for the whole 12 weeks. Also, I can’t lift objects greater than 5 lbs. I can’t stoop or kneel. Just shoot me, already!
What I can do is walk and work, which should get me through this. Walking is my favorite form of exercise, anyway, and I should be capable of working several hours a day from my home office, which will stave off the boredom.
Furthermore, I can use the convalescence period as a good excuse to get a new, big screen HDTV for the family room just in time for football season!
