TOTALLY RANDOM POST II

[CharlesU Farley]

So you had a laminotomy after your initial laminectomy? Or just a trimming of bone spurs near or at the lamina that resulted from the first go-round?

My reading tells me that there's a greater failure rate in second spine surgeries, even if only in the same -general- area, not necessarily -the same exact- location, as long as it's close enough to previous scar tissue to require peeling the original scar tissue back, thus increasing the odds of tearing the dura or fucking up the nerves there, simply due to the initial scar tissue from the first go, growing into/onto to the dura or the nerves in that area.

Was your second go at it a laminotomy? How did you fare?

Some rather abysmal stats put the second surgery at a ~30% success rates. I'd buy a lottery ticket with those odds, but my primary wiring harness in my spine needs/wants something closer to Powerball odds re. failures. Like, you know, maybe 1:1,000,000.

If you're willing, please tell me what you know and what your experience was with your expectations.

Acknowledging that each patient and surgeon, even day, is potentially a different outcome.

I don't have a weakness for opiates, and made my way past the first several different surgeries (knee, spine, prostatectomy, etc.) with minimal issue with them, despite having lots of oxycodone on hand, minus any carrier like acetaminophen (*still have a fair amount of the nasty little ineffective buggers lying about), other than for constipation and not liking being 'downed out' perpetually very much at all (*I noted they offered me no pharmaceutical coke or hallucinogens; cheap bastards!!), but survived the biggest pain in the ass, constipation, by taking a variety of pills, including some 'organics', to combat that miserable feature of the things.

(*The draw to opiates has ALWAYS befuddled me, by the way... Walking uphill through fucking beach sand is no recreational buzz, in my opinion; make life faster or prettier, by all means, but doubling the required effort toward movement is a non-starter for my list of recreational pharmacological pursuits).

Omfg, here I thought I was the only one!

Don't get me wrong, a good opiate buzz can feel good for a _little_ bit, but I don't want to feel like that all, most or even part of the time. And I absolutely demand that I get whatever codone they choose, oxy or hydro, that it contain absolutely no acetaminophen. The R.N.'s will inevitably ask me why, and I will tell them, if you've ever given a Mucumyst nebulizer treatment to a 6-year-old, who got into a fistful of orange flavored Tylenol thinking it was candy, ate it and you were hoping to keep her liver from fucking rotting out, you'll understand.

Then I explain the horrible Therapeutic Index numbers, and the fact that I already take Advil on a fairly regular basis for arthritis and the MD's understand.

And by the way, the stats you give for success rates for first and second surgeries neurosurgeries are right on from what I remember of my anecdotal experience, _many_ years ago.

Having had herniated discs in both sacral and thoracic vertebrae, I understand the pain factor but for me I just absolutely refused surgery and luckily things worked out for me.

Like Harley just now said, sometimes you just don't have a choice and ya do whatcha gotta do.

 

[tobedetermined]

Was your second go at it a laminotomy? How did you fare?

Just a trim. The surgeon said that it was new growth around the area of the laminectomy. My first op was in Feb 2018. The dremel job was in April 2020. Now, in late 2024 I am in need of something again . . .

I don't have a weakness for opiates, and made my way past the first several different surgeries (knee, spine, prostatectomy, etc.) with minimal issue with them, despite having lots of oxycodone on hand,

I am the same. With my kidney stones, I always traveled with Oxys. Whenever I went out of country I would make sure my script was current in case Customs pulled me over - it might have helped but I was never challenged. I only took them when I was in severe need so I have thrown out hundreds that just got stale. I only took them for the 1st day after my last op and then I switched to some homemade bubble hash that helped me to survive the week.

My MRI is in a month so I will know more then. At least this time I can still walk reasonably well although the leg cramps are impressive at times.

 

[tobedetermined]

So . . . I dropped off the hearing aids off on Friday. She did the big secret price reveal . . . drumroll please . . . $8,190. Yeah, these were the expensive ones that all of the hearing aid users are eager to try because they employ some wizbang circuitry etc etc. I played it cool and didn't laugh out loud at the audacity to charge THAT FUCKING MUCH. To top it off, when I bitched about the upper midrange harshness, the technician - not the original aggressive audiologist btw - agreed that when she tried them out she found them to have an "industrial" sound. Get the supreme fuck outta here. $8K buys me industrial?

 

[moose eater]

So . . . I dropped off the hearing aids off on Friday. She did the big secret price reveal . . . drumroll please . . . $8,190. Yeah, these were the expensive ones that all of the hearing aid users are eager to try because they employ some wizbang circuitry etc etc. I played it cool and didn't laugh out loud at the audacity to charge THAT FUCKING MUCH. To top it off, when I bitched about the upper midrange harshness, the technician - not the original aggressive audiologist btw - agreed that when she tried them out she found them to have an "industrial" sound. Get the supreme fuck outta here. $8K buys me industrial?

You seem to think we're still living in a service-oriented economy.

Our purpose here has been demoted to that of boosting the GDP while volunteering as good worker bees to get screwed in the ass without a reach-around and say 'thank you' afterward, even if they refused to use lube for the added expense it represents.

I think hollering "WHAT??!!" is a lot cheaper, and leaves me less inclined to shoot a corporatist thief afterward... Though my wife might disagree. She listens to the tv at volume levels where I'm not sure SHE can even hear it.

But I can get some pretty good wireless headphones for the television and stereo for a couple hundred bucks, too.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

 

[armedoldhippy]

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no joke! i spent my childhood roaming like a feral animal, fishing, catching snakes, bowhunting for rats, having BB gun battles, wrecking bicycles and skateboards, picking gravel out of the wounds, swinging on wild grape vines... god, what fun that all was! i wanna do it again...

 

[right]

Pouring rain today. I don't know what to do with myself. Stir crazy

 

[CharlesU Farley]

This happens to me once or twice a week :

 

[moose eater]

 

[moose eater]

You seem to think we're still living in a service-oriented economy.

Our purpose here has been demoted to that of boosting the GDP while volunteering as good worker bees to get screwed in the ass without a reach-around and say 'thank you' afterward, even if they refused to use lube for the added expense it represents.

I think hollering "WHAT??!!" is a lot cheaper, and leaves me less inclined to shoot a corporatist thief afterward... Though my wife might disagree. She listens to the tv at volume levels where I'm not sure SHE can even hear it.

But I can get some pretty good wireless headphones for the television and stereo for a couple hundred bucks, too.

But the bear app with the headphones is a lot more extra money... and likely involves hiring an escort that's a lot slower at running than I am... and that's pretty slow these days...

 

[moose eater]

 

[moose eater]

 

[moose eater]

Got the next-to-the-last load of fuel oil sitting in poly-drums in the trailer next to the barn, waiting to get transferred once the newer 55-gallon steel drums get checked for leaks.

Last load of heating oil (until a smidgeon in November to top it all off one final time at the customary date around November19th), coming up soon, will mostly stay in the 30+-gallon poly-drums and be put back under the barn on plywood and pallets, allowing me to unhook the trailer from the truck for the first time in a while, park the trailer in its spot, and remove the custom-built 'barrel bunk' that is used to transport the heating oil drums.

Harvested the last of the Yellow Finn spuds and a wee bit more or the carrots, too. Voles ate well this summer, no doubt.

My oldest son came and escorted me for the fuel oil run to town, then helped to dig out some of the ditch below the culvert to keep our ditch draining properly next Spring. He moved the fill from there to a hole in the back area behind the house that's needed properly filled for a long while.

Cancelled the younger German shepherd's spaying appointment that had been set for later in the week. We're going to let her keep her uterus until about age 18-months or so, allowing for any more filling out or upward growth to occur, and for her growth plates to better close, thereby decreasing the chance of hip dysplasia, but effectively, however minimally, increasing the odds of a form of breast cancer.

Getting closer to ready for winter, surgeries if they're to occur, and all in all, maybe even planting some of the well-reviewed cannabis seeds I've been sitting on for an embarrassing amount of time.

Got to send someone some of my traditional style smoked sockeye salmon strips tomorrow, as I'd promised I'd get them in the mail last week or today, Monday, and yet, here I am. So those are now a priority for tomorrow, maybe after rinsing the 55-gallon drums and checking for any leaks.

 

[moose eater]

My wife was reading in bed the other day and came across an article about cooling spuds before reheating or frying, and the cooling process arresting starches to inhibit the body's absorption of the carbohydrates, similar to resistant wheat in keto breads have carbs that are alleged to not be absorbed by the body as readily.

For many years we've had a process that we typically follow for home-fried potatoes and hashbrown potatoes, wherein we heat the spuds in the microwave until they're about 1/2 to 2/3 cooked, then deliver them to very cold water to more immediately arrest the conversion of the starches, much faster than the mere refrigeration as was directed in the article my wife was reading.

Then chop them up for home fries or grate them for hashbrowns.

We'd found over the years that, especially with the higher starch more desirable spuds we grow, this process produced a superior outcome in the home fries and hashbrowns, but we'd had no idea that we might be arresting or converting some of the carbs in the spuds, preventing them from wreaking quite as much havoc on the glucose levels.

If true, an added bonus, aside from better tasting and better textured fried spuds.

 

[CharlesU Farley]

 

[moose eater]

View attachment 19072582

I prefer 'asocial'.

I'm only approaching anti-social when someone desperately deserves to be told what a POS they are.