Back Problems

Our daughter starts cooking lessons with Megan

“It’s your decision,” the neurosurgeon concluded with some reluctance.

We were looking for his real opinion, so Tom pushed, “So if we asked for surgery, you’d do it?”

“I wouldn’t want to,” he said right away. As we continued the conversation, it became clear that he didn’t recommend surgery for my back. He was hesitant to give a definitive recommendation because of the special circumstances but even with those considerations, he wasn’t comfortable with surgery. That was the answer we were looking for, he was the third specialist to not really recommend surgery (though most were hesitantly noncommittal). But after the third time around, we saw it as a “no” to surgery.

Getting consistent advice has been difficult. My back problems started seriously in early 2013. That’s four years ago now. The primary thing we have learned since then is that LOTS of people have back issues! People have come out of the woodwork commiserating with my pain and sharing their stories of back pain and treatment. It is like being part of a special club.  Once you’ve joined the “bad back” club it seems you find members everywhere!  We have felt a lot of love from all the people who have shared the things they’ve learned from their experiences with back pain.  But in joining that club, we’ve also learned that back problems are varied and complex. There are muscles, nerves, discs, bones, joints all interacting together. Even two people with herniated discs will have different mitigating factors and respond differently to treatment. One person will talk about how wonderfully one form of treatment or exercise helped them while the next person will warn that that very same course had made things worse! We’ve done different types of PT, stretches, massage, heat, ice and injections…surgery is an untested road.

So we’ve met the conclusion of “no surgery” with mixed feelings. Having surgery was going to be difficult to fit in, potentially expensive, not to mention the possible complications of surgery. But surgery had at the same time seemed like a definitive action, a step that could stop the pattern. But ultimately my symptoms have improved too much. (That’s a good thing, right?) I’ve healed to the point that I don’t have any of the indicators for surgery anymore (though I’ve had them at multiple times in the past years). The good news is that my back responds (if slowly) to physical therapy, so we continue the slow road forward toward recovery. 

Megan and her brother open birthday presents

With pain, it would be nice to know there will be an end to it, but in life, we don’t always have that luxury.  For me, the end of the road is still unknown. We’re hoping it is a road of healthy, pain-free living. But we trust and pray knowing that God’s grace is sufficient for us even in uncertainty.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for our meeting with the neurosurgeon— he took his time and was very thorough. We were confident that he understood the different circumstances and he gave his clear opinion. These were not assurances we felt after our other specialist appointments so we are thankful for that. We got to video chat with a couple interested in joining our team— it was a good conversation and we’re excited to see how things progress! We had a good time connecting and sharing with the groups on Sunday! Megan and her brother celebrated their birthdays!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We’re starting to feel the squeeze of there being only a month before we return to Africa. We still have over a week in CA and then the rest of our time will be in MA. Pray that we are good about working on our to-do lists, realizing some things will take longer than others. Pray for continued healing for Megan’s back and that we can proactively come up with ways for her to stay healthy and fit once we return to the islands. Continue to pray for our new team that is starting to take shape— that it would be the right people and that we would have unity.