I might be away from the blogosphere for a little while... I'm going in for more back surgery in the morning. I mentioned a week or so ago that my back was all messed up again, and it looks like another discectomy is just what the doctor ordered.

It is, in fact, exactly what the doctor ordered. He ordered it for tomorrow and he's going to perform it at Lewis Gale Hospital, which is a large, impressive hospital that looks extremely medical. I found out from the internet, though, that it used to be a smaller, less medical-looking building back about a hundred years ago. You can judge for yourself in the pictures to the left. Looking at the way that Lewis Gale Hospital looks now certainly inspires me to want to go in and have several of their best-selling kinds of surgery performed on me without delay. Looking at the way Lewis Gale Hospital looked back then, however, isn't quite so inspirational. I'd be reluctant to have a splinter removed in that antique looking building.

My doctor, once again, is Dr. James Vascik. You may remember him as the surgeon I described last year by saying that he reminded me of George C. Scott. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to have my surgery performed by Dr. Vascik this year because my employer changed my medical insurance from a reputable company to another company that seems to be managed by retarded, angry monkeys. Turns out that Dr. Vascik, saint that he is, accepts my crappy insurance company's version of medical insurance. So I’m glad to report that I'll be operated on again by the capable Dr. James Vascik... and I'm also glad to report that he still looks a bit like George C. Scott. If you're gonna have somebody stick a knife in you, you want that person to look like George C. Scott. Either George C. Scott or Clint Eastwood, anyway.

I learned from the internet that my surgeon also owns an award winning winery, which is also pretty cool. I just hope he saves the award winning wine for a post-surgery celebration. And I'm sure he will. Honestly, this guy is the kind of surgeon who inspires a lot of confidence.

Last year when Dr. Vascik went over my MRI films with me, I mentioned that the discs in the pictures reminded me of donuts. This year, Dr. Vascik actually compared my discs to "squashed jelly donuts." As you can imagine, hearing my discs compared to jelly donuts was very upsetting. After all, I prefer Boston creams.

And that's part of the problem. I'm going to have to lose weight or else I'm going to have to get used to constant back problems. So no more donuts of any kind for me. No more pizza, no more beer, no more chips and burgers and fries and shakes and thick steaks smothered in A-1... no more ice-cream and no more Cap'n Crunch and no more quart-sized bowls of pure cane sugar covered with maple syrup and marshmallows. I have to start eating healthy stuff like celery and lettuce and cardboard. Oh, well. It's either that or I can plan on surgery once a year for the rest of my life. I suppose I can put mustard on the cardboard.

Last year I had my surgery done at Roanoke Memorial, a big, fancy hospital that's made half out of brick and half out of glass and basically look's like God's vaporizer. Every time I drive past it I imagine a giant cloud of Vicks Vapor Steam coming out of the top of it.

This year I'm having the surgery at a hospital named for the two doctors who founded it in 1909... Dr. Joseph Gale and Dr. J.N. Lewis. One of them looks a bit like Wyatt Earp and the other one apparently only had one eye. A pirate? Maybe.

Cowboys, pirates, George C. Scott. Throw in a Jedi and this would all bode about as well as it possibly could.