Welcome to another Grateful Heart Monday, a series in my blog dedicated to finding and focusing on the gratitude in life, which for today is for my partner Chris’s recent successful back surgery and for the one who performed it, Dr. Healey.
About a year ago, Chris began complaining about pain going down both of his legs. I thought it was just sciatica brought on by stress and tension. Over the months that would follow though, his pain grew stronger, causing him to walk with a waddle of sorts. Initially I joked about it, which I regret now, calling him a penguin. Little did I know there was a serious compression growing worse by the day upon a bundle of nerves in his low back. By late summer and well into the fall, his ability to walk any distance became seriously compromised. We often had to stop and sit on benches, which I know so very well from suffering from Fibromyalgia-related complications. When Chris finally caved in and went to see a back specialist, they attempted at first, as they always do, to see if medications might help. They didn’t of course, so they tried the second course of action for back pain, which is cortisone shots directly into the area where the pain was emanating from. Chris did that several times to no avail, which eventually led to back surgery being scheduled. Unfortunately, that surgery was delayed from January into late February due to both of us getting COVID.
When the day of his surgery finally arrived, I was holding onto a lot of irrational fears because my hypochondria often gets the best of me, even when it comes to other’s health, especially those I love deeply. Fears that included me thinking my partner would undergo the knife and never come out of it, that he might get paralyzed, or that there would be no benefit at all and he’d be put on permanently disability. Thankfully, none of those worries came to fruition.
Dr. Healey opened the area in Chris’s back with such precision and smoothed down the bone area that was pressing into his nerves so well, that Chris’s recovery was immediate from the time he opened his eyes after the surgery. The only pain Chris felt post-surgery was in the actual area where the surgery had taken place. But, all that pain that had been plaguing him going down his legs, all that numbness, and inability to walk normally was totally gone!
It’s now been well over a month since his surgery and I have seen such an incredible healing in Chris. The scar on his back is minimal now and the effects of the surgery have been only positive, which I’m so thankful to Dr. Healey and to God of course for helping my partner through something that I know initially caused him some fears as well.
I’ve known of many who’ve had back surgery over the years, and multiple ones at that, some of which regret having them because of now having permanent pain and damage from it. Thankfully, my partner isn’t one of them and is well on the road to living a great sense of normalcy again. I truly am grateful to Dr. Healey for being such an expert surgeon and grateful to God for guiding his hands so successfully and am dedicating today’s Grateful Heart Monday for them both having ultimately restored my partner’s back to a level he’s now able to function and live his life again.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
So glad your partner was one of the ones who benefitted. Good for you both.
My dear friend is now a quadraplgic since his 4th surgery.
An always risky venture to access one’s spinal area.
So grateful that you can now reclaim some of that brisk jump in your steps as you do your walkabouts.
Thank you for your comments Frank and I’m so sorry to hear about your friend. It most definitely is a risk anytime surgery is around the spine.