Just in case you thought I had fallen off of the earth, let me verify it for you— you were right. Luckily, gravity has a wonderful quality to it and here I am again. Hooray for meta-depression fueled awareness.

Like a good brothel that draws you back into its loving arms and heaving breasts, blogland is always calling me, looking for an entry of middle-age angst to confuse a web surfer looking for Alice in Chains lyrics.

So I oblige. Know me broken by my master. Heh heh.

You see, I have a whole catalog of half-started blog entries outlining the last two years of my life. Sometimes good titles with no content. Sometimes a story with no ending. Most times a chain of thoughts with half of the links missing.

But this time, it is pretty simple. Change is great, but only if you can ride it into a new self-identity. If you take on too much change though, you could just end up being the same old you with too many things to finish or bring to fruition.

Therefore, new job + new house + new car + surgically repaired wife = same old Sahm. I have to laugh at the irony, and yet I am not surprised. This is my trip, same old one it was back then.

Last Tuesday, 8/7/07 I had surgery to correct a back condition that I have had for a very long time.

About 10 years ago I was diagnosed as having Spondylolisthesis. It’s a spine condition that occurs when one vertebra slips forward on the adjacent vertebrae. It produces both a gradual deformity of the lower spine but also a narrowing of the vertebral canal. When that happens pain usually results. There are five grades, grade I is the mildest and grade V is the most severe…I was a grade IV. Basically, that means that the L5 vertebrae was slipping off of the S1 vertebrae crushing my disc and pinching the sciatic nerve root in both of my legs. My back would feel disjointed and I would ache and fatigue quickly. My spine was basically pushing against my stomach causing a “swayback” which looks very much like pregnancy. The only exception was my stomach was not “big”.

Anyway, I had a posterior lumbar fusion with instrumentation with laminecty & discetomy. I was admitted on Tuesday morning and the procedure lasted 5 1/2 hours.

Right now I have to stop…can’t sit here anymore. My meds are kicking in and I’m feeling a little sore. I just wanted to let you all know that I’m doing well.

This is what my spine looks like now: