A stitch in time saves nine.

What the heck does that even mean?  I suppose, now that I think about it, the implication is if you nip something in the bud, it saves a whole bunch of necessary and probably more painful nips later.  I think I need to work on getting to the stitch in time...nipping in the bud as it were.  I believe my current medical situation (pick a malady, any malady) illustrates beyond the shadow of any doubt, that nipping and stitching are not my forte.  Yet another life lesson to absorb from all this...

I got the stitches in my back out yesterday.  Did I mention how much I LOVE the neurosurgeon who performed this miraculous little bit of scalping/lasering/whatever-he-did?  I only had about 5 stitches in the small of my back, right in the center.  A far cry from last summer's 30 staples in my heine I must say.  The incision healed very quickly and I haven't had much of a reminder that I even had stitches back there except for the need to change the dressing on it so that my clothes didn't irritate the area.  Dr. Lovick did remind me that I could still pull the incision apart if I lifted too much, or was careless in my activity, but other than that, he sent me off sans stitches and with a clean bill of back health.

Since this little piece of life changing surgery, my left leg and foot are like different appendages.  Not even close to back to normal, but SO much improved I can hardly believe it.  I can flex my foot up further than I could before, and while I don't have total control over it, I have more than I did and it's getting a bit better every day.  The tingling in the foot is lessening every day, and the pain in my hip only rears it's ugly (very ugly) head to tell me I've walked a little too far and I need to take it easy.  My gait is coming back slowly, but I'm diligently working on making every step I take count in that respect.  It'll be a learned thing, and I don't want to learn it wrong.  I'm banishing that hitch in my giddy up!  Keith is patiently walking at my pace with the pups around the block at lunch which is sadly quite the workout for me.  Soon I'll be able to progress to maybe a block and a half without him to monitor my safety!  We all have to have goals!  And at about that time, it'll be next Thursday and I'll be on my way back to MD to try to find the bee-bee in the pea we call my pituitary gland.

This will be an October I'll never forget...although in some ways I'd like to...

So there you go.  My back, so far, is a huge victory.  I was due for one, and I got it - chalk up one for the Princess!