Again

We met with Dr. Lieberman Tuesday. He's Ken's neurosurgeon. The man who just happened to be available five or six years ago when the wire dripping morphine into Ken's spinal column from an implanted morphine pump was severed as surgeons were trying to remove the pump and its line from his body. The removal was to have taken 30 minutes or less. He was in surgery for four hours because the line snapped and the anesthiologist removing the pump had to call on a neurosurgeon to fish it out of his spine. Lieberman was there. He's been a source of reassurance, skill and brains ever since. This time (there was another surgery in between our first encounter and Tuesday's appointment) he was talking to us about the pros and cons of having an electric stimulator inserted in Ken's spine to ease the pain and reduce the load of pain meds he's on, which are proving more and more inadequate and causing their own problems not to say the long term effect for his kidneys and liver processing these toxins. His assessment: the electric stimulator won't handle Ken's kind of pain. It would be useless. His alternative? Detox, reset his pain receptors and then have another morphine pump inserted. In cases like Ken's patients have required something like 1,000 times less drug potency than when they took pain meds orally. We're waiting word from his pain doc who would manage the withdrawal -- cold turkey. Two weeks. So, we'll see. Meanwhile, Ken is contemplating getting another dog presumably for Winstons amusement. But I think the real reason is to have something to hold on to during the detox.