About 2010 I began having back pain in increasing intensity and frequency. By 2012 I was spending most of my time lying down or in a recliner with ice or heat. I couldn't cook, do laundry, or shop. If I did attempt to do any of this, I'd pay for it the next day. Along the way I began gaining weight and losing hope my life would ever get better. We began dabbling in the popular and early versions of Ketogenic way of eating, but never really got the results we wanted. Desperately trying to avoid surgery for multiple reasons I researched and tried many different alternative treatments. Many of them gave me some improvement, but if I over did it, I still had to pay the cost the next few days. I tried physical therapy that included a modified traction, massge, strengthening, TENS and ice...this restored my range of motion in my back and definitely felt good, but it didn't restore my active lifestyle. NUCCA is phenomenal! My NUCCA doc got me back out into my garden and gave me new hope...but the damage to my discs was always still there. (p.s. NUCCA helped with allergies, ADD issues, a pancreatitis attack, and other issues...it is the real deal!) In November of 2014, my discs had been taxed to the point that I was in severe pain every day and barely able to teach. My spinal cord was about 95% blocked and I was losing feeling in my left foot. I was told not to drive due to the high risk of losing control of my feet and legs. That is a sobering warning! I was in enough pain and concern for the risk of not having surgery that I listened to the neurosurgeon and had a laminectomy the next day. He admitted me from his office visit and was kind enough to stay late the next day to add my back in before he left for Thanksgiving vacation. It was a long day waiting and a long 6 weeks recooperting. I slept in a recliner and did my best to stay ahead of the pain and inflammation but to limit my pain pills as much as possible. I eventually got back on my feet and then about 7 months in...the nagging pressure, stiffness, and nerve pain began creeping back in. About 11 months after the first laminectomy, I went out to eat with friends from church. When I came in and sat down in my chair, I tried to scoot up to the table. It was instantaneous excruciating pain and the disc had just ruptured again. We went straight to the ER...which is not altogether helpful for a blown disc except maybe for some pain meds...that didn't help much. Bob got me on Dr. Barnett's schedule again and scheduled me for another MRI to take with us. That 9 days is a blur for me know but I do remember the pain that surpassed anything I'd had earlier. I couldn't work, stand, sit, lay....nothing for 9 days without breathtaking pain. When we finally got into see the surgeon, he couldn't believe the same disc had blown again and my spinal cord was once again almost completely blocked in the same place. The nerve damage on the same foot was now intensified. I had 2 choices: do the same laminectomy "small surgery" as he put it or go ahead and do a fusion. Less is more when it comes to surgery in my book so I took the first option and hoped the disc would play nice. We almost got through the 6 weeks recovery. During this time, Bob's job and my new classroom was keeping us on the Fort Worth side of things, so we had planned to move over Christmas break. We started moving a few days before my surgery, making sure to have my recliner and TV in the new house and the bathroom/kitchen moved so that I could go to the new house for recovery. My saint-of-a-husband finished moving the house while I hung out in my recliner, doing all my physical therapy and tryin to get back on my feet and ready to start back to school on Monday, January 22, 2018. Everything was going well and I was back on my feet and feeling stronger so we saved a Hotel stay Bob won at a Chamber of Commerce function for that last weekend before school started back up. We had a wonderful dinner Friday night and a wonderful stay in Fort Worth. We went to one of our favorite eateries, The Hall Bar & Grill. We stopped at Walmart for some gas and to pick up a few things. Two days before I was supposed to return to my classroom after my 2nd back surgery our life as we knew it changed.