Like your surgeon told you, it takes exactly four weeks until you can carry on with your life as normal.
But it's not like before.
You see improvements and also some negative side-effects.
It's now almost four months since you had your operation and you haven't suffered from a single headache. Not even a little throb at your temples.
You can swallow food and water easily and your limbs and fingers aren't so clumsy anymore. In fact, sometimes you show Spiderman-style reflexes!
You feel better about yourself, more positive about life. All the issues you had before the surgery are gone. You feel brand new, if that makes sense. You're glad you had the decompression surgery.
There's always a price to pay for good things though.
There's a lumpy, pale-pink scar running down your neck, which you hide by wearing your hair down. No more up-dos for a while...
You wake up in the morning with a sore and stiff neck. It gets stiff if you don't move your head for a minute or so, like when you're staring at your laptop, continuing with your books. Giving your full attention to the TV is out of the question. No movie or documentary is worth the stiffness that comes with looking in one direction for a prolonged period of time.
But you get used to twisting your head from side-to-side every few minutes when you're writing. It's good to take regular breaks from the computer screen, anyway. You avoid repetitive strain injury.
The reduction in the number of words you write in a day however, you don't easily get accustomed to. Once upon a time, you used to write an average of 3,000 words every evening after work. Now, typing 500 words over the course of the whole day is a struggle.
Also, and more worryingly, your vocabulary has diminished somewhat. You don't get it. Words you've written a million times before become out of reach somehow. They're not even on the tip of your tongue. How can they be - it's like you don't even know them? Although you read more books in the last 12 months than you have in the previous 12 years combined, you cringe at how limited your vocabulary seems to be now.
Words don't come easily.
With the back pain still a problem, you wonder if you're meant to be a writer after all. You want to be an author, it's your dream and passion, but maybe it's just not in the cards for you? So many things in the last few years have stood in the way of your writing. What if they weren't obstacles to test you, hurdles you had to overcome?
What if they're signs, a message from the fates, telling you to give up?
Part V
Thank you for reading this post. If you're interested in my debut novel, click the image below to learn more about it:
Like all my other books, it's also available on:
iBooks | B&N Nook | Kobo | Smashwords
Book Details
Length: 110,000 words
Genre: Contemporary Romance / Clean Romance / Diverse
Romance / Interracial Romance / Romantic Drama / Women’s Fiction
Mood: Inspirational / Feel Good / Coming of Age / Dark
Content: Sexy but No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: New Adult & College / Adult / Female Readers
Recommended for: Readers that enjoy romance novels with
serious issues and characters with depth. This is a story about life, love,
friendship, family, music, art, destiny and soul mates.
And the first two books in my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, the Poison Blood series, can be downloaded for free via:
Amazon US
| Amazon UK
| iBooks US & UK | B&N Nook Store | Smashwords
PB1 Book Details
Length: 29,000 words
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Vampire Romance / Paranormal
Fantasy / Urban Fantasy / Science Fiction & Fantasy
Mood: Dark / Humorous / Coming
of age
Content: No violence / No explicit sex scenes / No erotica
Audience: Teen / Young Adult /
New Adult / Adult
