Lara Has a Big, Risky Operation! Yikes!

2011; did you love it? Did you have a blast? What did you do? (If you insist on actually answering that question even though it’s quite obviously rhetorical, there’s a comments box at the bottom which I will edit to show myself in the most flattering light.)

Whilst we're on the subject, if you are one of those people who really only reads someone’s blog/listens to someone's story for the chance to bring it back to yourself however tangentially, then I suggest you get your own blog because honestly, you sound just the type. Blogging's the perfect occupation for the completely self-absorbed, take it from me, I get loads of that ilk cluttering up my comments box with their life stories when I only added that feature to invite readers to compliment me.

And newbie bloggers need not be intimidated by my superior grasp of the vernacular; there’s a bounty of banal blogs out there. The internet does not discriminate and any old detritus can and does moor itself in cyberspace ready to confront unsuspecting Googlers, as we’ve all discovered when innocently searching terms like “doggy”, “swing” and “spank”, only to land on some frightful middle-class mother’s blog about her toddler’s foray in the playground with a naughty puppy.

I have nothing against mothers - I have one myself – but I don’t think they should blog about their kids for the simple fact that no one else cares. Of course we’re all forced by social mores to pretend we do but I know I'm not the only one who thinks their friend’s child is Damien, and the only thing stopping them from asking whether there was a satanic ritual involved in the child's conception is fear of causing friction. If I ever have a child, you can rest assured I would not be cluttering up my blog with the yawnsome minutiae of a toddler’s day-to-day. Anyhow, they would be a literary prodigy in their own right and have their own globally renowned blog so there would be absolutely no need.

Back to 2011 and what I did which is the whole point of this blog. I became further exasperated by my body as it has increasingly paid less attention to simple commands, i.e. “Pick up cup”, and just made up its own “artistic" interpretations such as "Push cup over", "Pick up cup briefly, drop cup into lap", and the now clichéd; “Pick up cup? Go f**k yourself.”

I'm a firm believer in freedom of expression but frankly, my body’s rebelliousness and creativity has become unnecessary and pretentious, much like Tracey Emin’s unmade bed covered in dirty knickers and unmentionable bodily excretions, however, you won't find me in the Saatchi gallery exhibiting my lap full of tea as an exploration of my nervous breakdown. Which is a shame because I think a disabled girl covered in Earl Grey is a lot more poignant than a messy bed plus I could do with a few hundred thou.

Instead, I explored my nervous breakdown by having MRI scans of my cervical spine in which is housed a cyst (aka syrinx/syringomyelia) and sent them to eminent neurosurgeons around the world including New York, Los Angeles, Germany, South Africa, London and Bristol and said; “I'm getting progressively paralysed at breakneck speed (excuse the pun) - any suggestions?”

And it transpired that these medical professionals were full of suggestions, or one particular suggestion which was that nothing could be done to help and I should f*$k off. Well, at least there was a consensus.

Via several letters, e-mails, phone calls and face-to-face consultations I was advised, in a nutshell, to crawl into a dark little corner and "accept (my) continued deterioration". Quote.

But there are two problems with this; 1) I cannot crawl, and 2) I simply can't, and never have been able to do what I'm told, particularly when there is no mention of a blindfold, gag or fluffy handcuffs.

I did cry a lot because the doctors were basically saying; “You think your life's limited now? Wait for another couple of years! You'll be looking back on this time as those halcyon days of hope and opportunity when you could almost hold a fork and could still use one digit to operate a PC!”

Having already kissed goodbye to many of my hopes and dreams with bitterly puckered lips because of my disability, the thought of losing the fraction of mobility I had left was intolerable.
I was deeply demoralised by the prognosis and as I scarcely had a moral to begin with, the effect on me was devastating.

2011 was a tearful and dehydrating year. Fortunately, it was also the year I discovered coconut water with its potent rehydrating properties, so despite my tanties I was mercifully able to maintain my “glass half full” (of coconut water) attitude, and continued searching out people at the top of their spinal game. 

Plus I prayed, in the way that someone with fickle faith who has felt somewhat abandoned by any higher power at a young age prays – angrily, desperately, chaotically - an internal scream of; “Fu$k*ng help me!” I didn't bother with pleases and thank you's and didn’t care who or what heard me. I would happily have sold my soul to the devil to be physically able again and was even considering taking my friend’s child aside for a quiet word.

Fortunately a satanic pact wasn't necessary but instead I attended a "Complex Spine Clinic" offered by our marvellous NHS for people who have complicated conditions requiring a multidisciplinary approach. Here, a gaggle of orthopaedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and similar gathered in a lecture amphitheatre to poke and prod me and have a powwow. Rather than too many cooks spoiling the broth it was a case of can’t cook, won’t cook, get another cook in who can and will.

Betwixt them they bubbled up a recipe to blast the cyst, halt the deterioration and hopefully recover some function with a "laminectomy and spinal cord fenestration". For those of us not fluent in Latin, this means cutting out a piece of vertebral bone, opening up the spinal cord and draining some fluid to relieve the pressure on the nerves. Wowzas.

So in December that's what I did, I had spinal surgery. Absolutely terrifying. Especially as surgeons these days seem to only vaguely mention any possible positive outcome of a procedure in the lead up to an operation but really lay it on about the risks. The 10% chance that you will be made totally and irreversibly paralysed, the other 10% chance that you will be made a lot more paralysed permanently, the chance that you will lose more mobility but only for say, six months, and that's all if you survive the surgery in the first place. OK, I get it, shut up already.

However, if I didn't have the operation I would continue losing more function over time which might even affect my brain so although I was literally catatonic with fear for several weeks before the op I was like; "Bring it! Where's that scalpel?! Show me the morphine! Do it to me!" Because I was more terrified of what would happen if I didn't go through with it.

And here I am to tell the tale. The operation was a success; Oh joy! Or as I like to say; "Oh Choi!" (my very excellent surgeon's name is Mr Choi.)
This is my scar 5 days after! I hope you're not freaked out, it looks a lot better now. And I am recovering nicely…