Thanks for your patience! Surgery was a little more extensive than I thought it would be (5 hours!)- he worked on S2 - L5, with some fusions in the L2-L5 area. Immediate relief from much of the pain, but it's taking longer to heal than we thought it would. I'm up to walking a 1/4 mile now, and hope to be doing more than that very soon. But this damn oxycodone is not conducive to concentrating on this blank screen in front of me. Trying to wean myself off from it, and slowly but surely the words are starting to come again.
I see Handyman finished with his version of this story, and has left the bar right up there - good story! I'll try to do justice to the examples left for me!
Again, thanks for your patience, and for the encouraging notes some of you have sent - I appreciate them!