NNicholas
Dealing with the fear of surgery
Aug 23, 2009
Maybe this will help. Over twenty years ago, my cousin's 83 year old, grand mother fell and broke her neck. The same week one of my co-workers, at the age of 47, fell and had an identical injury. Both were told there were two options they could take. Option one was surgery to repair the damage, which had a chance of success, a chance of leaving them paralyzed, from the neck down, and chance of killing them. Option two was to fuse the neck, which would leave them unable to turn their neck side to side and with a very fragile neck. This option meant real lifelong handicaps and a life long danger that another fall could paralyze or kill them.My cousin's grandmother told the doctors, "Hey, I'm eighty-three, if it's my time, then the lord can take me, but otherwise I am not going to live a disabled life if I don't have to. Let's have the surgery and be done with it!" She had the surgery and fully recovered.
My buddy, and coworker, on the other hand, was afraid to have such major surgery so his neck was secured with braces and the bones allowed to fuse. He live a miserable, short life after that. Always in pain and never able to resume most normal activities, his life was a shadow of the life he was accustom to as a former high school Physical Education Teacher and athlete. (Working with me was his second career.) One day he failed to show up to work and a week later his family found him, alone in the back yard of his home, where he had slipped on the ice, one cold winter's night, re-breaking his neck. He froze to death paralyzed, with no one there to help him.
My cousin's grandmother died in 2007 at the age of 104. She lived a normal, happy, and fully functional life through out those years. I remembered her spunk, when I was afraid to go through with my surgery, and I became determined not to follow my friend and be afraid to do what was best for me.
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About Me
Oxford, MI
Location
35.4
BMI
Surgery
03/25/2008
Surgery Date
Nov 22, 2008
Member Since
