Five weeks after surgery #2 — mid October, 2006 — I was more mobile and could do more. This was, however, a dangerous development. It was hard for me to take it easy, stay on the couch when I wanted to be up and around, self-sufficient, and not rely on other people to do everything for me, all the activities that required bending, leaning, lifting, twisting, reaching up, reaching down, and on and on and on... Now that was doing more, I did X amount more than I should have and, unsurprisingly, bad things happened.

I was attaching a coax cable to the back of a DVR*, which shouldn't be difficult or dangerous. But one day, it somehow wrenched my back. I shouldn't have done it, squatting down, and leaning, but I did — and that same, familiar feeling of something "going" happened immediately and I was back where I was 5 weeks ago. Off to another MRI. Yay.

When I got the report from my MRI, I didn’t even need to look at it. I knew my body well enough to know what bulging disc pain feels like. I was afraid that the new bulge we saw at L3-4 in my prior MRI had gotten worse. What if my L3-4 disc was on its way, about to burst? Would that mean I'd need all three discs replaced? It was a sobering thought.

Nothing changed, other than going back to the couch. Grrrr. More dilaudid and the full weight of physically restricted living.

One step forward, 25 steps back. It was not a good day.

* In ancient times — like 2006 — there were things such as "coax" and "DVR.” For those young folk out there, you can always Google it.