Once again

 

…we realize how fortunate we are to live in this medical age.  A few years ago, in 2007, with my left anterior descending cardiac artery 99% blocked, I was within a few heartbeats of dying of natural causes.  The report would be:  “His heart just gave out.”  Instead, the doctors went in through my leg, put stents in my heart, and turned me loose to get on with my life.  An excellent solution to what, in essentially all of human history, would have been fatal.

 

It’s progressively more difficult for Judy to walk.  The cartilage in her knee is worn and there is a tear.  Without treatment, her future would involve progressively less walking and more pain until she couldn’t walk at all.  Instead, in January, they’ll invade her knee with an arthroscope, clean up the cartilage, and she’ll recover within a few weeks.

 

Now I find I’m losing function in my right arm because nerves are being pinched off by arthritis in my neck.  My spinal column is being squeezed by vertebrae that have shifted out of place and by bone spurs growing up against it.  The discs between the vertebrae have collapsed.  Any other time in history before cervical spinal surgery and I would be looking forward to a gradual continual paralysis as the degeneration progressed, the nerves to both my arms got destroyed, and my spinal cord got shut off.  Now, Problem?  “Naah.  We’ll just go into your neck, take out the crushed discs, insert some bone grafts to recreate the proper spacing, shave off the bone spurs, and hold it all together with some small plates and screws.  A month or so in a tight collar, a couple months of recovery all together, and you’ll be good to go.”  I might lose 5 to 10% of the mobility in my neck.  I might not regain all the strength in my arms I’ve lost over the last 5 or 10 years.  I think I’m just fine with that.

 

Many challenges remain for medical science, but it’s getting better every day.  Maybe a hundred years from now today’s medical practices will seem primitive, but no matter how much better they get in the future, isn’t it nice to have what we have today.