Now at this time of year when people say they believe in miracles they are usually talking about the immaculate conception. But in this instance I am not. Granted the virgin birth would definitely be up there in the Top 10 miracles of all time, but in my chart ADR surgery is the highest new entry. And that's what we call backtastic pop-pickers.
Today is my one month milestone. So in the 12 week journey I am a third of the way there! Woo-hoo!! If there is a god then thanks be to him or her. Oh and David Harrison, he deserves another mention and a big fat cigar.
And the big news of the day, even bigger than the big, big news is that I am back in my car driving. Ok my journey wasn't far, a shortage of milk on Boxing Day meant a mercy dash to the local convenience store (admittedly I also couldn't resist the two for one offer on Kettle Crisps. Damn those BOGOF's!). But I drove and it was fine. A bit uncomfortable but hey, I can live with that. I used to drive a Morris Minor many moons ago so believe me I know what uncomfortable driving really feels like and it was nothing compared to that.
But anyway I digress....so guess what the first song was that I heard playing on my stereo in the car when I turned on the engine? "I Believe in Miracles" by The Jackson Sisters. Honestly, I kid you not.
Now you may may not be familiar with this sweet slice of rare groove from 1976, but I urge you to get it into your life...and I defy anyone not to move their booty to it...even a month post ADR surgery.
So how does my iPod know exactly what to play at just the right moment? Its actually rather spooky. I parked my car on the street in London a few months ago and the last song I was listening to before I turned off the engine was "Accidents can happen" by Elvis Costello. When I returned to the car some hours later a coach had decided to plough into the side of me. Not funny iPod. Not funny at all. I'm always a little worried when Adele's "Set fire to the rain" starts to play when I'm driving in the wet. Stranger things have happened, miracles even.
But getting back to the point. Here I am one month down the line after my operation and I feel damn good all things considered.
If anyone had said that this is how I was going to feel after a month I would have taken it every time.
I was convinced that I was going to be a complete wreck for months after the operation so to be walking, sitting, swimming (well kind of...), driving and most importantly laughing, just a month down the line is truly something to be thankful for.
The one other thing that I have been able to do is...err have sex. Now this is probably too much information for most of you (particularly my daughters) so feel free to skip this paragraph. But there is very little information on the internet about how long it is before you can have sex post-ADR surgery, so I think it's important to say something on the subject.
Now I know at this point my girls will be screaming with embarrassment and saying "Dad please stop!!" but I feel that I owe it to anyone reading this who is considering having the operation or has got it scheduled to tell them that yes, sex is possible too, after a month. Not acrobatic that's for sure, in fact I would say that the word that feels most apt and describes the experience best is 'gingerly'. I'm not going to draw you a diagram, but suffice to say everything seems to work as it should. Cue the Jackson Sisters.
Before I had the operation I spent a lot of time on the web trying to research stuff like this and what I should expect to happen after the operation and to be honest what I found out was pretty patchy. I sleep on my side, for example. Nowhere could I find out if I would be able to do this after surgery. The answer, for me at least, was yes from day 1.
There are some wonderful support groups out there undoubtedly with lots of useful information, but I came to the conclusion that the majority of people who posted on those sites were those for whom surgery had perhaps not been that successful. Now there's no doubt that they need a lot of support and they have all my sympathy, but for somebody like myself who was approaching the operation I found that reading a lot of negative stories simply added to my worries. I read about things not going according to plan, of pain made worse and it just ended up scaring the shit out of me! Where were the success stories? Surely there had to be some. But then why would those people be there? They are living their lives again, probably the last thing on their mind would be to go on an ADR forum. So I was determined to write this blog and whatever the outcome to try and provide a balanced view of my experience, with a dash of humour of course. In my 'old life' pre-ADR I could feel the humour and the laughter being slowly sucked out of me and I was adamant that my 'new life' would see the return of who I really am. Welcome back, it's been a while.
I got an email from somebody yesterday who is scheduled to have an ADR operation in January and they were clearly having exactly the same doubts and worries that I went through. All I can say is that in my case this has been the best possible decision I could have made and my only regret is that I left it 6 years. I'm not saying that everybody has such a positive outcome but there are lots of us out there. And I'm guessing that we all believe in miracles.
Roll on 2012 it's going to be a good year.
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