Ah, December... the month of invasive procedures

Two years ago, I had hip surgery.

Last year, I had a breast biopsy that went bad. I didn't blog about it. There was no cancer, just a horrible morning at the hospital in which I bled out and ended up woozy for a couple of days and bruised up for months. And they only got one of the two "suspicious" sites. When they recommended a surgical biopsy for the second, I declined. Two subsequent mammograms have showed no changes, so there doesn't seem to be any need to go through that trauma again.

This year, it looks like it will be back surgery to remove a lesion that is pushing on my L5 nerve root and causing me stupid amounts of pain. It might be a synovial cyst. It might be a schwannoma (benign) tumor on the nerve sheath. A second MRI on Saturday should clear up which it is, but on some level it doesn't matter. The surgical treatment is essentially the same. Other options, namely physical therapy and steroid shots in my spine, make no sense to me. They will not impact the thing that is pushing my nerves and making me hurt. I suppose that if I couldn't face surgery, I might go these routes, but the disruptions to my life have become constant and so incredibly painful that I'm ready and it can't happen soon enough. I hope the call comes soon.