Hey — I had my own thing, not worth complaining about relative to yours, but I had a hip replacement and recovery has NOT been smooth. Lots of pain. It’s getting better, but I wanted to say thanks for all the podcasts. I listen every day when I do my physical therapy and it helps to have something interesting to focus on. (And they distracted me from nerves beforehand too.) Wish I had something distracting to offer in return, but all I have is: thanks, I really enjoy your work, and I hope you are able to keep doing the things you love as you recover.

Without meaning to be insulting, I hadn’t thought about you in years, perhaps a decade…”life goes by pretty fast” & when you work & raise kids time flies, which it has since we worked together. This is going to sound weird, because it is, but I had a pretty vivid dream with you & Susan in it last night & it has bothered me all day. I woke up this morning thinking it was silly & laughed it off like I do for most of most R.E.M. subconscious vacations & assumed I’d quickly forget & got about my busy day, but I couldn’t shake it. In the dream I was called to go back to OKC because you had an “accident” & passed away (my apologies for my subconscious) & I was tasked with helping Susan (because for some reason I was more qualified to come back out of the blue after years of not seeing, talking or working around either one of you than actual friends & family) & the kids with various arrangements. In the dream I worked on helping out your family & trying to figure out what happened to you & eventually the dream devolved, as most of my dreams do (it’s almost like my brain runs out of semi-rational storylines & then comes up with even more outlandish scenarios) & while I was trying to find paperwork in a box deep in storage you appeared to me as a apparition & was about to divulge who killed you…& I woke up.

See, it’s stupid. I know it is, but I couldn’t shake it all day so I finally broke down & came to your blog to make sure you were still warmer than room temperature & you are, just in pain.

What led my brain to come up with all of that seemingly out of nothing & from deep recesses not often accessed I haven’t a clue but it stuck with me long enough that I wanted to check in on you & make sure it was a dumb dream.

Stenosis is serious but I think treatments for it have come a long way in recent years so my thoughts are with you & hope you can get to a point where pain isn’t ever-present & you’re able to function normally again. Take care of yourself & the family & I’ll try to check back in another decade…or sooner if another dream clues me in on who killed you in the first place.

As someone who has also dealt with crippling lower back pain in the past too, no amount of ‘lay on your stomach’ or ‘lift your knees and lay on your side’ ever actually helps. In some cases, these pieces of advice tended to make it worse! But as you say, knowing is half the battle. Hopefully this can be managed for you to a solution that actually helps and you’re back on your A-Game soon :)