Pt 1: My right leg AND my left leg, well let's just say it's my legs in general!

Prolapsed discs eh? What's all that about? Well in the olden days they'd have said it was a slipped disc but now it's be rebranded to sound less like an accident, e.g. I slipped and fell flat on my face! And more like something that has gotten lazy e.g. a lapse in concentration/performance etc. I'll try and explain but I am prone to being overly verbose at the best of times so this may take some time!

Discs are like spongy shock absorbers that sit between the vertebrae of the spine. When place under odd pressure they can deform and bulge outward. This puts pressure on the nerves in the area and causes a hell of a lot of pain. This time round I prolapsed two discs in my back as a defensive measure my back muscles went into spasm.

The resulting pressure on the nerves causes sensations of pain and numbness through my legs and lower back. Now this isn't your usual ouch that kinda hurts pain. I laid down and would only get up to answer the call of nature. Something that decreased once the kind doctors decided to prescribe me opiate based pain killers. Co-codamol initially followed by Tramadol for the pain. This was teamed up with naproxen, anti-inflammatory and diazepam, muscle relaxant. Oh and naproxen causes stomach acid to flare up so I was prescribed lanzaprazole to counter that. Now I've had high blood pressure for some years now so I'm used to taking regular medication but this is ridiculous!

The initial bits are all documented here for your reading pleasure! Some of you may know that I don't tend to see any problem as being particularly serious. As Mark Taylor would say I'm known for being laid back and casual. My right leg was practically paralysed below the knee and I didn't see it as a big problem. I dealt with it for a few days and waited for my appointment with the specialist spinal surgeon. The moment he knew what had happened he told me that surgery would be his recommendation. This is an emergency and has to be treated as such.

So I go and sit in A&E at Lincoln County Hospital. In this time I go for my second MRI, I've had another since then! I fully appreciate why some people can't stand them loud and cramped for shizzle. My shoulders brush past the sides as I was being pulled in. I really didn't want to be in hospital but at the time of writing this it's been just over a fortnight and it's not so bad. I'm admitted at the same time as a rather...unique individual. He's 72 years old and got in a fight resulting in him breaking his shoulder in 3 places. He's waited as long as I have for a bed and to top things off he worked in a factory for 30 odd years resulting in him being practically deaf. Wondering why this is a problem? Well it's a problem because he shouts everything he says.

We're put into a bay that can accommodate 4 patients in total. But for now there are only three. Myself, Jason and Malcolm. Jason has been in for quite a few weeks and is a thoroughly nice chap. Turns out he has a septic spine! The next day I'm instructed to not eat or drink anything as the surgery will happen if they can sequester the theatre space. I don't really eat a whole lot, usually. But on account of being injured my dear mother went into overdrive and seized the opportunity to feed me regular food for a couple of weeks. It's not so bad as mum sneaks into the ward and hangs with me for the day. As the day draws to a close I get the news that the surgery won't be going ahead and I'm presented with a sandwich!

Added in later from a memory that popped up! I had blood taken three times on the Friday by three different junior docs! The first used a syringe, the second I barely felt at all and the third reminded me of Cynthia from Malcolm in the Middle. If you get that reference I love you and insist you marry me this instant. One of these days someone will get one of my obscure references and I'll get hitched, you mark my words :-P

That's how she looks now not back in the day. Would you believe she's two years my junior!

At this point in time I am still gloriously unaware of the permanent peril my right leg is in. The longer paralysis is left the less chance movement will return. So Saturday morning and I'm wheeled out of Stow ward. As luck would have it I pass my mother and brother on the way! They are ever so pleased to have seen me before I go under the knife. Funnily enough I've faced the threat of many a knife...

Thinking about it I wonder why people want to see you before you go to surgery. Boost your morale? I think it may be because you won't it out the other end, all surgery however minor has it's risks. The anaesthetist plugs me with a cannula and I barely feel it! I think this is more testament to his skill than my uber hard as nailsness. This is when it gets weird. They are basically working to slowly yet surely knock me out. I feel things going hazy. Breathing is becoming peculiar as well, no panic mind you. I can see my heart rate on the monitor. And that's when the lights went out.

Is anyone reading this familiar with the Master Chief - John 117? Well he's a fictional super soldier, stolen from his family as a six year old boy and indoctrinated into the military. 75 children were conscripted for the project. They underwent hellish training and in their early teens underwent physical augmentations here's a handy table:

Procedure	Description	Risk(s)
Carbide Ceramic Ossification	Advanced material grafting onto skeletal structures to make bones virtually unbreakable. Recommended coverage not to exceed 3% total bone mass because of significant white blood cell necrosis.	Specific risk for pre-and near-postpubescent adolescents: skeletal growth spurts may cause irreparable bone pulverization.
Muscular Enhancement Injections	Protein complex is injected intramuscularly to increase tissue density and decrease lactase recovery time.	Five percent (5%) of test subjects experience a fatal cardiac volume increase.
Catalytic Thyroid Implant	Platinum pellet containing human growth hormone catalyst is implanted in the thyroid to boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues.	Rare instances of Elephantiasis. Suppressed sexual drive.
Occipital Capillary Reversal	Submergence and boosted blood vessel flow beneath the rods and cones of the subject's retina. Produces a marked visual perception increase.	Retinal rejection and detachment. Permanent blindness.
Superconducting Fibrification of Neural Dendrites	Alteration of bioeletrical nerve transduction to shielded electronic transduction. 300% increase in subject reflexes. Anecdotal evidence of marked increase in intelligence, memory, and creativity.	Significant instances of Parkinson's Disease and Fletcher's Syndrome.

They had to be put under for the process and were told to count down from 10 to 0. The Master Chief managed a couple of rounds before succumbing. I had meant to try this out when I was being put under but failed to remember!

I think that'll do for the first instalment. I was going to write this as one enormous text dump but decided not to. Dunno why if I'm honest.