Thursday, November 08, 2007

x365: 34 of 365: my spine

spine crop

You bastard. You unmitigated prick. I trusted you.

Clearly you weren't satisfied with the arrangement we'd reached, viz I feed you and you keep me upright, with neuronal service thrown in. At some point you said to yourself: Hmmm, I want more out of life than he's giving me. I want... 2007.

You wanted a year of our precious life to show me who's boss. And you believed, because you were hidden away under skin, muscle and membrane, that I wouldn't call you to account. But you haven't been paying attention. We have CT scans. We have MRIs. And most importantly, we have general anaesthetic and sharp knives. On Tuesday, ownership of the body passes back to me. I will step into a darkness that you can't follow, and when I emerge, you will be left on the other side. And I will walk away, with you behind me, finally, helplessly upright.

27 comments:

Theresa said...

Good luck. Good luck. Now that you have your own domain, you are the master of all. You will emerge victorious. Pain free. Now go and kick this back pain thing once and for all.

palinode said...

That's the plan. For the sake of heroic narrative, I'm going to ignore the weeks of pain that will follow the surgery.

Scoobers said...

Take THAT spine!

Good luck and may your drug induced slumbers bring you relief until you heal.

Anonymous said...

May they give you the good drugs, may your recovery be swift and effortless and permanent, may the rest of your body take this as a lesson that you cannot - nay, will not - be fucked with.

savia said...

I'm glad you licked the bastard.

Motherfucking spine.

I'm also glad you got your surgery before me. Because although I want mine over with, that would have been all kinds of wrong.

Anonymous said...

Hooray for the surgery!
But Dude! Check out those big honking holes in your lungs and shytte.
I kid. I know it will be wicked painful.

Birchsprite said...

hooray and ouch but mostly hooray

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, best wishes and good luck and rest well and know that you will walk through that pain to the other side of a fully owned 2008!

blackbird said...

Damn.
That is one seriously off kilter pelvis.

Kick some ass. Sort of.

Tracey said...

dude, best of luck. and that is one awesomely scary picture.

fingers/toes crossed, good energy being sent your way...

Anonymous said...

trinity67 says: That is your spine?! My God. I am sending you good, healthy, healing, upright thoughts.

Seriously.

Hildy said...

What a lovely picture...very slimming. You look like Kate Moss.
Good luck and a big glass of gin will be awaiting you when you are able to drag your shiny new spine to our neck of the woods...

Anonymous said...

In taking revenge upon your spine, you should ask the doctor to keep all of his instruments in the freezer over night, vengeance being a dish best served cold.

notquiteawake said...

I'm very happy for you Palinode and I'm looking forward to seeing you upright.

Neil said...

You're a real man. You will chew the pain up and spit it out. Best of luck!

Shelley said...

I like how the vertebrae each look like they have an individual flame housed within.

Good luck and stuff. I will start knitting you another karma scarf for your apparently burgeoning collection. Upright and bedecked with karma scarves -- what could be finer?

palinode said...

Thanks all. I'm looking forward to having this ordeal over with.

Did anyone notice my nipple ring showing up in the X-ray?

Ozma said...

Yeah! Great news.

Sorry about the weeks of pain, though.

I didn't notice the nipple rings. That was your actual x-ray? I mean, you have nipple rings?

palinode said...

That's my x-ray. If you look at the upper right portion of the picture, you'll see a hoop with a bead apparently floating in space. Part of that hoop runs underneath my flesh. It's been there since 1993 or so.

Unknown said...

my brother forwarded me this post.

I am also having back surgery on tuesday to fix my misbehaving back. I'm headed right now to a final MRI.

I agree - I want 2007 back, goddamnit. so does my dog. she goes on very few walks nowadays.

here's to speedy recoveries for both of us.

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one thinking how interesting that image would be framed?

savia said...

I never would have guessed that was a nipple ring if you hadn't pointed it out.

I'm learning so many new things about you...I mean, I've seen your skeleton and all. That's pretty intimate.

Let us never speak of this again.

Koan said...

Having had my fill of surgeons last year (by choice, admittedly, but, even so, you can have too much of anything, good, bad or indifferent) I feel compelled to say that tomorrow, there will be a corner of a foreign land (to wit - England) containing a resident who will be thinking amazingly caring thoughts for the owner of the spine from hell.

That would be me, sending a boatload of positive energy your way.

Nate said...

I just now noticed that you & I have the same birthday.

palinode said...

Kerry - I don't know if you'll come back to this thread, but I hope all goes well for you. Happy walking.

witchypoo - That would kinda cool. I've got my complete set of CT scans, and some of them are really beautiful. Others are just strange.

savia - Agreed.

koan - Many thanks. I consider you the Queen of Surgery. Which would make Schmutzie the Duchess of Surgery.

palinode said...

nate - Many belated returns to you. As you have doubt come to realize, July 23 is a great day for a birthday. Basically, you can't get any farther from Christmas.

Nate said...

Or any other holiday, for that matter. It's wonderful. The only thing is that when I was a kid I always wanted one of those school-day parties, for everyone to love me for those 30 minutes at the end of the school day because I, just by sheer fact of being born, meant that we didn't have to do social studies.

But oh well. I'll still take it. My best friend had a baby this past year on July 17, so I suspect I might not ever have a b-day to myself again. Which is fine, really. He's a cute kid.