Avaragado's blog

The hospital just rang. I’m all booked in, for two nights (though I
might be out after one night if I’m a good boy). I’ll have a TV and a
phone in my room (calls routed through reception), and can have
visitors when I want, assuming anyone wants to see me.

The surgery should last about an hour. So I should be up and about
by lunchtime.

Yes, I will take my camera :-)

The insurance company has a left hand and a right hand, and nothing
in the middle. The call goes something like this:

Me: My surgeon’s secretary has faxed the claim form to you. The thing
is, we need to have a decision today as they want to do the surgery
tomorrow.

Him: Do you know what number it was faxed to?

Me: No, sorry. [Actually she did tell me but I didn’t write it
down; and Avaragado’s rules clearly state that he never memorises
phone numbers before 9am]

Him: Well, I recommend you get her to fax it through to the claims
department on blah-blah-blah with a covering note telling them to ring
you when they’ve made a decision.

So I ring the secretary back, and discover naturally that she’s
faxed it to the claims department number anyway. She’s going to fax it
through again with my contact details.

We decide to assume that they’ll approve it (well, we can’t hang
about!). She’s going to let the hospital know. I ask her if there’s
anything I should do or not do today – there’s bound to be some
restriction, like not standing on one foot after 3pm or not patting
chickens after dusk or something. She tells me not to eat anything
after midnight. I can do that.

She asks about allergies. The only one I know of is that all of a
sudden I seem to be allergic to elastoplast, and need to use
hypoallergenic plasters. She’ll tell the hospital, and I should remind
them tomorrow.

Then she tells me that I should check in (if that’s the right
phrase) to the hospital between 6:30 and 7am tomorrow. How
early? The surgery would be at about 8am. Blimey. This time
tomorrow…

I now feel like a prospective taikonaut on a shortlist.

I’m woken at 8:20am by a phone call from the surgeon’s secretary.
Do I still want to have the surgery tomorrow?

Gulp.

Yes, of course. I just need to sort out the insurance business.
She’s faxing the claim form to them right now. I’ll need to ring them
up and get a verbal approval from them, then get back to the secretary.

BTW, if www.avaragado.org doesn’t work for you, it’s DNS’s fault for being slow to propagate changes.

I don’t have a date for the surgery yet. I’m waiting for my
surgeon’s secretary to get back to me. The hospital needs the
insurance company to give the nod before it’ll admit me, and the
insurance company needs a completed claim form from me/the surgeon
before it’ll give the nod. The surgeon’s secretary should have the
claim form in her hands this morning.

Meanwhile, Tarantella will cancel the health insurance on or about
Wednesday (my two months grace period is up), and only then will the
insurance company contact me about continuing it personally.

So I’m not expecting the surgery to happen this week…

The neurosurgeon gives me the once-over, taking yet another history
and trying to get me to touch my toes (they’re somewhere down there),
and also prodding me with a needle (much to my surprise) to see
whether it feels the same on both sides all the way down (it does).

A quick nose through the MRI scan confirms that surgery’s my best
bet. A microdiscectomy: small incision, poke down a knife and a
microscope, scrape away the caramel, tidy up as best you can, hope it
doesn’t return. If all goes well I’ll be up and about as soon as I
wake up from the anaesthetic, out of hospital after a day, then
avoiding strenuous effort (lifting, driving, etc) for a few weeks and
contact sports for about a year apparently (if I did them). Skiing
wouldn’t be quite so bad. I’ll have to press him more on that.

There are risks of course. It’s a balance between risk and reward,
as ever.

He tells me he might be able to squeeze me in next Wednesday.

Regular physio session. My physio is glad I’m seeing the
neurosurgeon tomorrow. This week’s session involves leg traction (four
sets of four leg-pulls with a rest between) and some trigger-point
acupuncture (half a dozen needles around the affected area). The
acupuncture is intended to help the muscles relax; it’ll take a day or
so to have any effect.

Over the last week I’ve been thinking more and more about going for
the surgery straight away. The physiotherapy hasn’t made any real
difference – not my physio’s fault, she knows her stuff and is doing
her best for me – and the constant pain every time I want to do
anything is just too much. (Stay in the same position, fine: the pain
usually goes away, or is at least relieved somewhat. But as soon as I
change position – get up, sit down, walk, lie down, etc – the pain
returns. I’ve just had enough of it.)

I went to see my GP this morning for a referral to a
neurosurgeon. I’ve just made an appointment with one: I’m seeing him
this Wednesday. My GP will have to fax the referral letter through.

The neurosurgeon might tell me it’s not worth having surgery just yet.
Not sure how I’ll react to that.

My plan is to carry on with the physio, then give up when it
doesn’t work and have the surgery. I guess that would be mid-late
November depending on schedules (I’ll carry on with the private health
insurance when the Tarantella stuff times out in a few weeks). Which
means December/January would be my 6-8 weeks recovery.

And I can legitimately put off looking for work until February. Splendid!

For the “back”ground, ho ho, see Avaragado’s spinal column.