Thank you so much to everyone who left comments or sent e-mail wishing me luck with my spinal surgery yesterday. I'm home now, and things went very well. Here's a brief summary of yesterday's events, some of which were humorous and surprising.

We got in the car yesterday morning around 6:00 AM and I said a Rosary on the way to the hospital. It made me feel better and helped me focus on turning the process over to God instead of stressing over it. We arrived at the the hospital about 7:15 AM and started waiting for my surgery to begin. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. You know how that goes. It's the same everywhere, I suppose. The wait is just a given.

Luckily, my back wasn't bothering me too much yesterday morning. I never had any way to predict how I was going to feel on any given day, and I was happy to wake up Monday morning and not feel too bad. There's just no way to know how a herniated disc will behave from day to day. I'd been sleeping in the recliner in the living room for the last few nights, and I think that had helped.

The surgery I'd gone in for is called a Lumbar discectomy or a microdiscectomy. I've even heard it called a "lumbarectomy." Either way, it comes down to cutting a chunk off of the herniated disc so it will stop pressing against my spine and nerve roots, causing me to lay in the floor at Wal-Mart and yell horrible things at strangers. Frankly, by yesterday morning, I didn't care what the surgery was called. They could have called it a "back hacking knife fest" and I'd have wanted it done. I just wanted my life back.

After what seemed like three weeks of waiting at the hospital yesterday morning, I was led back to a room to put on one of those "Seymour" hospital gowns and hospital bootie-socks by a very severe looking nurse who seem to speak little English and didn't have much patience for patients who had to shuffle along with an aching back. So I got back to my room and changed into my gown, and another nurse came and asked me if I had forgotten to remove any jewelry other than my wedding band. I told her I still had my wedding band on, and that I'd like to take my Rosary with me into the operating room, if possible. She said that was probably fine. Later, a male nurse came in and I mentioned taking my Rosary with me again, and he was pretty adamant that it would be fine for me to do so. He said "We have a policy that we let Cherokee Indians bring their medicine bags into surgery with them, and we let other members of other religions bring their artifacts with them to surgery. It's a spiritual thing, and we respect that."

So after a while I was wheeled into pre-op, where a male nurse who looked like the lead singer of Disturbed (facial piercings, tattoos, and all) and a female nurse who looked a little like Barbara Hershey, came over and, with great fanfare, took my Rosary away. They said it just wasn't practical for me to keep it with me during surgery. I suppose if I'd been a member of the right race or a practitioner of the right religion, I'd have been allowed to bring my medicine bag or my war spear or my brass Buddha to surgery with me. I, however, had the bad taste to be a white male Christian. So the Rosary Nazis took my Rosary away. "No Rosary for you, six week!"

The anesthesiologist came in a little later, and he looked like this "oh, that guy" actor from Mystery, Alaska and Black Hawk Down. He was pretty pleasant and friendly and made jokes about the process. Then, he went over to talk to the elderly woman in pre-op who was there for knee surgery. You're not supposed to eat for 24 hours prior to surgery, so he asked her if she'd had anything to eat that morning and she said "MY LEFT KNEE!". I think he was able to sort it all out. I don't think she'd really eaten her own left knee for breakfast.

Once I got into the operating room I was out like a light... and it seemed like three seconds later that I woke up in post-op. I had general anesthesia once before when I had a bladder biopsy, and I think the anesthesiologist at that previous hospital wasn't very good, because I have hazy memories of the surgery. I could vaguely remember what seemed like lots of people playing tug of war with me. This time, though, the anesthesiologist was a pro. I was out like a light, and then I woke up with no memory of anything or even any sense of time having lapsed.

The hospital staff wanted me to try to stand and walk as soon as the anesthesia wore off... and as soon as I did, I could tell that I'd been fixed. There is, of course, a lot of pain in my back in the area of the incision... but the pain I'd been having for so long now is completely gone. In fact, I feel better than I have in years. I didn't realize how long my back had been deteriorating, but I do now. I feel like Dr. Vasick took my whole back out and replaced it with a new, bionic one. The surgery hurts, the pain from healing muscles is pretty bad... but as soon as that gets better, I think I'll be ready for whatever.

The doctors wanted me to walk as much as I could so that they'd be comfortable sending me home last night, and I really wanted to go home... so Wendy and I walked all over the hospital. We walked out to a little outdoor veranda, where I saw an old black lady, wearing a muumuu, sitting on a park bench. I started to walk over and sit down beside her and ask her how the Matrix works, but thought better of it.

They took good care of me at the hospital, and I have no complaints. The staff was friendly, the surgeon was a really classy guy, a real pro... and the whole experience was positive. The long wait at the beginning kinda sucked, but that's to be expected.

The hospital brought me a dinner, and at first I was grateful to get it, since I hadn't had anything to eat since the previous evening... but I lost all interest in it once I took the cover off and saw it and smelled it. I've had some pretty bad hospital food before, but this was the worst I've ever seen or tasted. Wendy studied the main course for a while and determined that it was probably pork with some kind of spicy sauce... but it tasted like an envelope with ketchup on it. I ate two bites and decided I'd rather be hungry.

When we left the hospital, I was starved. We went to the Red Palace Chinese restaurant in Roanoke, one of our favorite places to grab a bite. I had to go to the bathroom as soon as we got there. To go to the restrooms at the Red Palace, you walk through one central door that says "Restrooms," which leads into a small lobby. In that lobby, there are two doors, one marked "Men," which is straight ahead... and one marked "Women," which is to the right. So I went into the lobby, went into the men's room, took care of business... and then, in my still-groggy stupor, I came out of the men's room, made a left instead of going straight, and walked into the women's room. Thankfully there wasn't a soul in there, and I was able to get out and back into the restaurant undetected.

At the Red Palace, while we were eating, a young mixed-race couple came in and sat down at the table behind us. They looked to be in their early twenties. What caught Wendy's attention was, after they placed their order, before a bit of food was on their table, they held hands and said a blessing together. For whatever reason, that made both of us feel really good. It was a little surprising, and I thought of it as the antidote to the whole Rosary experience at the hospital.

This afternoon, Wendy took the dressing off my incision, as the surgeon had instructed us to do. It's pretty gnarly looking. It's about three inches long and covered with dried blood and etc, etc. If the imp of the perverse gets the better of you, you can click here to see what Wendy saw when she took the dressing off. I had her take a quick digital pic so I could see what it looked like myself, and I'm just evil enough to post that pic.

So there's my story. Again, thanks to everyone who checked on me and who offered prayers on my behalf. It really makes me feel good, and It's really appreciated.