Wow! Thanks to all of you! Fortunately my pain management doctor is very aggressive. The surgeon who did the 'make a hole' surgery also tells me additional surgery would do no good.

The SCS offers me a way to continue a quality of life where, like you Mark, I can to continue to participate. Funny how those of us who have known pain are more aware of pain in the people around us.

I have told people in nursing homes that my dog absorbed pain. She does. All my dogs have had this ability. It is so weird. That, I have to share. If you are lucky enough to be able to train and keep a dog, it does help. Right now
I could not train a new one. Also, if the dog is in pain, the petting helps them even faster.

I read a lot about pain before I got here myself because of the therapy dog work. Emotional pain seems more damaging than the physical. Of course the physical does add to the emotional as well as the fear of living life alone. The isolation would be unbearable. I see that everyone here insist on living life as well as possible. I am in the right place. I do need prayer, not so much for pain relief as much as emotional support. Faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.

For those who didn't get the joke, the higgs boson is supposedly the particle that causes everything to have mass, that causes gravity, which, well, gravity wins every time. Ugg!