Tuesday morning will hopefully mark the end of one of the worst times in my life.
It should also mark the beginning of a better future for me—one I wouldn’t have if I didn’t act.
That action is deciding to have spinal lumbar fusion surgery. It’s scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. Tuesday in Shreveport. Back surgery is tricky and carries some risk, given the fairly grueling procedure I’m facing.
But it can’t come soon enough.
Pain levels over the past few weeks have been off the charts. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’ve been at 12 or higher for at least a couple of weeks. And it’s been years since I’ve been without significant pain.
But ending the pain isn’t the only reason I’m ready for surgery. I’ve become a significant fall risk in recent months. Sometimes my legs simply don’t work right, and I nearly trip and fall. Other times, they try to give out completely, leaving me fighting to regain my balance and avoid hitting the ground.
Crashing to the ground isn’t new for me. On Nov. 22, during Grambling’s off week before the Bayou Classic, my family and I went to the Liberty at Louisiana Tech football game at Joe Aillet Stadium.
After parking, we were walking across Alabama Street (Old Grambling Road) toward the stadium when I realized my right foot wasn’t lifting off the ground—I was dragging it, nearly catching it a few times on the concrete. I knew something had changed. And as I quickly learned, it was only getting worse.
As I tried to step onto the sidewalk leading into the stadium, I lost my balance. In an effort to recover, I flailed my arms and attempted to air-surf, hoping to avoid the inevitable.
I did not. I fell face-first, chin-planting on the concrete near the Davison Athletic Complex in the south end zone. My wife said I fell right in front of emergency medical personnel and law enforcement. I couldn’t see, but apparently, I was the patient they worked on in an ambulance before transporting me.
The next thing I remember is waking more than three hours later in the emergency room, a brace around my neck.
For a split second, I didn’t realize what had happened—until it all came back to me, at least the part about struggling to stay upright. Then nothing. It was like a wide-open uppercut from Mike Tyson—immediate lights out.
Fortunately, I escaped significant injury aside from bruising and road rash on my face. But it marked the beginning of my back problems worsening day by day.
My back issues date to 1996, when I received my first set of three spinal injections for a bulging disc in my L5 vertebrae.
In November 2023, I felt a twinge in my back while moving furniture. The next morning, I could hardly walk.
In January 2024, I had another round of three spinal injections, which got me off a cane for about a year.
I was scheduled for another round of three injections in January 2025, but after two, insurance declined to pay for the remainder because they weren’t helping enough. Surgery became my next and only option.
Fearing back surgery, I put it off as long as I could. But the fall and my spine’s downward spiral prompted a meeting with a surgeon in Shreveport. After two MRIs and a CT scan, and a couple of hours for the surgeon to review the results, he entered the exam room.
“Lord have mercy,” he said. “You’ve got a lot going on.”
He was referring to the damage and the impending surgery.
On Tuesday, that surgery will happen. The surgeon will make a 3- to 4-inch incision below my belly button and approach the bad discs from the front, using state-of-the-art X-ray guidance. He will remove the discs in my L5 and L4 vertebrae. The disc in L3 will be evaluated once he sees it directly.
He’ll replace the removed discs with small wire cages—think of them like box springs.
Then he’ll sew me up, turn me over, and make two smaller incisions on my back, where he’ll apply hardware and screws to fuse L3 or L4 down to S1, my tailbone.
It’s that area along my tailbone that causes the worst pain, with sciatica stabbing my right buttock and sending lightning-like shocks all the way to my toes. It feels like being stabbed.
I’ll be up and walking within hours of the surgery, though a long rehab period lies ahead. I’m ready to move forward and hopefully remember what it feels like to be free from severe pain.
The surgeon warned my back will never be fully “good” because of arthritis—osteo-, rheumatoid-, and psoriatic—that I’ll have for life. I’ll manage it, just like I’ve done with arthritis in my hands.
If you can, please offer a prayer for “Old Boat” as I begin this next step in life—pun intended, because my goal is to walk confidently again. I’m not as old as my gait might suggest.
My body and my checkbook are about to endure a lot, but I’m ready—and confident. Let’s do this!
