Welp… it’s official. Surgery happened this morning, and I had my Spinal Cord Stimulator (Cyborg Parts) taken out. My Cyborg Card has been revoked.

I can’t say I’m sad about the actual device being removed, given that it never worked at the efficiency it was purported to… pretty disappointing, honestly. This is one of the reasons why “hope” is a “4-letter-word”… the Trial gave me 85% relief in all 3 of the major areas I needed: lumbar radiculitis (L3-S5), pudendal neuralgia (bladder/bowel/sexual function), and meralgia paresthetica in both legs (basically surface level/skin numbness in my thighs, hip to knee). For 3 solid days, I was feeling the least amount of pain I’d felt in years, so yeah… Hope abounded.

But… the permanent one?! 60% relief for the MP – when I used certain programs – and that was it. The problem was that it ALSO put zappies (not painful) somewhere in my lower right ribs area, making it difficult to breathe any time I used the programs I could feel (some were “silent” but still working behind the scenes).

Several months of repeated reprogramming and a visit from Big Brains Engineer Guy from Texas aaaaand… I was scheduled to have a 2nd surgery to move the titanium leads in “hopes” it would fix the issue. So… another surgery and lengthy recovery later and… Nope. Didn’t fix it, buuuuuuut it DID add a sharp pain in my mid-back, so that’s fun!

I gave up at that point despite going back several more times for more reprogramming. Then, I lost my Medicaid insurance and just never went back. 🤷🏻‍♀️

When I moved here to Colorado, I turned the whole damn thing off. It presented a problem with getting new MRI’s because they HAVE to prove that it’s fully charged and in MRI-mode in order to legally put you inside the machine… so… that was fucking annoying. But whatever.

All sorts of appointments, testing, physical therapies, and whatnot… months later… and here we are!

I’m sad, but only cuz I got my awesome Cyborg Card Revoked 😭