(Dobbs) See You On The Other Side Of The Scalpel.

Misery loves company? Maybe not so much.

If you’re reading this on Friday morning, I am under the knife. Literally.

More than 20 years ago, after decades of chronic back pain and two failed smaller surgeries, I had what they call a “spinal fusion.” Put in the simplest terms (which to this day I still don’t completely understand but it’s more important that the surgical staff understands it than I do), that means they replaced disintegrated discs in the lower back with hardware that joined the vertebrae back together as a substitute for what had worn down. In other words, it fused them. I became bionic.

Doctors told me at the time that eventually, because the higher part of my spine now would be carrying a load for which it wasn’t designed, the fusion would come to the end of its usefulness. It has. I know it from x-rays but I also know it because it hurts so much. That’s why I’m getting my second spinal fusion surgery right now.

This hardly makes me unique. When I googled “American adults back pain,” the first figures that came up said that nearly 65 million Americans have recently experienced back pain, and that about 16 million— that’s 8% of all adults— have chronic back pain. So I’ve got lots of company, although when someone says “misery loves company,” don’t believe it for a moment. Knowing how many people are going through the same thing I’m going through doesn’t make my back feel any better.

The way I see it is, back pain is proof of Darwin’s theory that man is descended from the ape, and we really aren’t meant to be walking upright just yet.

Of course for many of us whose backs hurt, it’s not as if hard labor is the cause. Some of us have only ourselves to blame. It’s running and contact sports and generally punishing ourselves in the interest of fun and recreation. That would be in contrast to a man I’ll never forget who I saw in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran— the one pretty accurately depicted in the movie Argo. My camera crew and I were having coffee at a small metal table when this poor soul came sidling slowly past us bent over almost 90 degrees, a heavy huge wooden crate supported by his bent back. He got to the metal table right next to ours, delicately turned and backed up to it and laid the crate on top, then backed away and turned around again and walked away, still bent over at almost 90 degrees. He didn’t get that way by playing pickleball.

Some day— and it might be some day soon— people will look back on our era of medical care and say, “Oh how primitive those poor people were.” But think about what the experts can do today that they couldn’t do a hundred years ago or less. They can fix conditions that could have crippled or killed us not long ago. In the years since my first fusion, and throw in the miracle of my open heart surgery shortly before that, I’ve been climbing Colorado’s steep mountain passes on my bike and skiing down the same mountains in the wintertime. They can give us new knees, new shoulders, new hips, new backs. They can transplant organs we never thought possible. Just a month or so ago I read about four medical research institutions that are sharing a grant to try to transplant human eyes. Think of it! The complications are formidable— how do they deal with the optic nerve?— but it could be a cure for most forms of blindness.

Every surgery, major or minor, comes with some degree of risk, and maybe for me an extra degree or two because before installing the new hardware to fuse me mid-spine, the surgeons have to remove the old hardware that over 20+ years has become a part of me since the new and the old otherwise would overlap. But in this day and age, while surgery comes with risks, it also comes with a high degree of certitude, which is why I enter into this with a high degree of confidence. Depending on how many months rehab requires, I don’t know if I’ll step into my skis or my bicycle pedals first, but the whole point is to return to normal and live my life again.

However, I expect to suspend these columns for a few weeks anyway. Two reasons. The first is— and I say this from experience— after a major surgery, sometimes metaphorically you just want to curl up in a cocoon (although with the surgery I’m having, I don’t expect curls to come real easily) and focus every ounce of your mental energy on getting better. I expect that for a while anyway, I won’t be the least bit interested in any part of the world much beyond my bed. The second reason is, you know how they always tell patients on any kind of narcotic drug that they shouldn’t sign a contract or drive a tractor while under the influence? That goes for writing too.

So, I’ll see you on the other side of the scalpel. Hopefully not too long from now.

Greg

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 38-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net