Modern medicine is awesome. (But perhaps less so for cats.)
I haven't given a proper update since my back operation. The outcome: FLAWLESS VICTORY, and most of the credit belongs to Dr. Steven Fishman.
The recovery took about five weeks in all, although I was functioning pretty well and able to work for the last three of those, and during that time my back gradually became a perfectly normal back. A decade ago, this was considered an extremely improbable outcome, in part because there was no medical consensus on what the thing even was. Now the right surgeon can recognize it and implement a thoroughly successful plan to remove it. Science!
I was getting pretty good at long-distance running before the operation. By now, without a floppy achey thing in the way, I'm able to run thirteen freakin' miles and still feel okay afterward. I could probably do a martial art if I wanted to give it another try, and this time it wouldn't be a terrible idea.
My cat Alex isn't doing quite so well, even though his situation is much better since the last time I mentioned him. Here's how it's better: After many months of exile, when he had to live in the storeroom during times that nobody was around to keep an eye on him, we seem to have come to an understanding. He's free to roam the house again, and has been for a while, and on the rare occasion that he pees on something, it's something easy to clean like the bathtub.
However, he now seems to have a pretty serious case of arthritis in his ankles. (Something I didn't know: a cat's ankle joints are not in its paws. They're the ones higher up that look like backwards knees.) He can't really chase things without hurting himself, and he complains about stairs to the point where he's almost okay with being carried up or down them instead. I've taken him to a couple of vets and they've prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine for the short term (and getting Alex to take it is... exciting), but there's no long-term plan yet.
The recovery took about five weeks in all, although I was functioning pretty well and able to work for the last three of those, and during that time my back gradually became a perfectly normal back. A decade ago, this was considered an extremely improbable outcome, in part because there was no medical consensus on what the thing even was. Now the right surgeon can recognize it and implement a thoroughly successful plan to remove it. Science!
I was getting pretty good at long-distance running before the operation. By now, without a floppy achey thing in the way, I'm able to run thirteen freakin' miles and still feel okay afterward. I could probably do a martial art if I wanted to give it another try, and this time it wouldn't be a terrible idea.
My cat Alex isn't doing quite so well, even though his situation is much better since the last time I mentioned him. Here's how it's better: After many months of exile, when he had to live in the storeroom during times that nobody was around to keep an eye on him, we seem to have come to an understanding. He's free to roam the house again, and has been for a while, and on the rare occasion that he pees on something, it's something easy to clean like the bathtub.
However, he now seems to have a pretty serious case of arthritis in his ankles. (Something I didn't know: a cat's ankle joints are not in its paws. They're the ones higher up that look like backwards knees.) He can't really chase things without hurting himself, and he complains about stairs to the point where he's almost okay with being carried up or down them instead. I've taken him to a couple of vets and they've prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine for the short term (and getting Alex to take it is... exciting), but there's no long-term plan yet.