Six Years of Back Pain: I Just Had Nanosurgery Instead of a Microdiscectomy

I have to share a recent surgery experience with you because it could change your life and the state of your back pain. I’ve written about my back issues before (click here or read the same article below), and how help miraculously came in the form of Dr. Shu’s acupuncture every 11 or 12 months, which kept me going up until now. I wrote the following blog post in October of 2021, and you can skip past it to continue hearing my current story…

Two years ago, I was out running with my husband. We hadn’t exercised much at all together over the past 14 years, and I was elated to finally be doing it again, especially since that’s how we met and courted. Parenting had taken center stage over the years, and there was always one of us at home with the kids. Doing anything outdoors, just the two of us, had been set aside.

I came home that day, after only four morning runs with him, to a zapping feeling down the back of my right leg.

For the next couple of years, it never went away. For the first year, I kept living life how I wanted to – biking, doing YouTube workouts, playing Twister, you name it. Injury was new to me, and I had hope that it would vanish over time.

Eventually, I stopped ignoring the discomfort. I began avoiding bicycling and paddleboarding, then basics like sitting down, bending forward to tie my shoes, and washing my feet in the shower.

I got a kneeling chair to transfer sitting pressure from my posterior to my shins. I taught myself to sit with good posture, which took awhile to build the structural musculature after a lifetime of comfy slouching. I stopped sitting in bed to read or type. I upped my walking to sometimes three hours a day because it was the only time my body lacked pain.

I went to a massage therapist, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor, and physical therapists. I put a little too much effort into my therapy exercises, thinking that the harder I worked, the better the outcome would be. I was a novice at it, and I awakened one morning unable to move after getting out of bed. The pain was excruciating, and paramedics carried me to the hatchback of the car. My husband drove me to the hospital in Anacortes, where I was pumped full of five wonderful pain numbers. For someone who doesn’t even take Ibuprofen but once a year, it was downright blissful.

A week later, just able to walk on my own, I drove myself back to the same hospital for an MRI. It showed a collapsed disk, squishing its gel into my nerve.

Two weeks later, I was running up to Turtlehead every day. Somehow, I could run uphill even though I still couldn’t sit in a chair. But pain in daily life continued, and I began to think it would be my new normal. I finally broke down and called a neurosurgeon in Seattle. The best, I’m told. So good, I had to wait several months to see him.

We set a date for surgery. I began to feel teary-eyed every time I thought about knives and saws getting frightfully close to my spinal cord. I watched YouTube videos of the surgery – probably not the best idea. One day, an acquaintance suggested that I see an acupuncturist.

“I already have. I’ve seen all kinds of people for it, but nothing has changed.”

“Okay,” he said, “Can I just suggest that you try it one more time?”

He explained that many years ago, his debilitating back pain threatened to keep him from walking altogether. After just one visit to an acupuncturist, his life changed.

I listened. I booked an appointment with Dr. Vincent Shu, a local physician who is board-certified in internal medicine, geriatrics, and cardiovascular diseases. He got his medical degree in Taiwan, completed his residency and training at UC Irvine and UC Davis, and worked at five different hospitals over the years. He specializes in the integration of Eastern and Western medicine, and aims to help people heal in the most natural ways possible.

I cannot explain it, but after one appointment, I had no pain.

Dr. Shu suggested a series of three appointments, so a month later I went to another. During that second appointment, I happened to mention that I haven’t ever been able to breathe through my nose. I eat with my mouth open, sleep with my mouth open, and dream of breathing through my nose. He added that information to his acupuncture treatment.

“Can you breathe through your nose now?” he asked afterward.

‘What? After a lifetime?’ I was thinking. “Umm, no, I can’t,” I said after trying.

“Hmm,” quiet, humble Dr. Shu replied, a bit disconcertedly. “You should be breathing through your nose now. Send me a message tonight and tell me when you’ve started breathing through your nose.”

Seriously?

Nothing changed that night.

The next morning, I awakened at 5 AM because I was breathing through my nose.

I know. This sounds too good to be true. Especially considering that a 20-minute appointment at the local medical center is billed out at almost $400 to insurance, and Dr. Shu charges between $75-$125, on a sliding scale, for an appointment that can last up to 75 or 90 minutes. And, he adds all ailments you have to his treatment for the day. At typical medical centers, you only have time to address one issue.

As I sit here typing this, I’m sitting in an ordinary chair. I tie my shoes without blinking. I do MadFit YouTubes. I just tried biking again a few days ago when our car battery died and I was forced to bike to an appointment. I had held out for a while, scared that biking might bring the pain back on. I had not one twinge. And every time I try, I can breathe through my nose.

It’s not psychosomatic. I haven’t been willing or wishing or believing the pain to be gone. My surgery date has since been cancelled. I’m still in disbelief. The neural, zapping, electric shock that ran through me every single day, over and over for two years, is completely gone. I can’t even believe this is me that I’m talking about…

The article goes on but I’ll stop it there. Dr. Shu’s acupuncture kept me relatively pain-free until several months ago when he changed his method from needles to laser acupuncture. My back was beginning to hurt more than ever. I couldn’t lie flat in bed or turn left and right without daily worsening pain. I rotated through several mattresses to no avail, and the idea of going to sleep at night started making me nervous. I would awaken each day after a night of grinding my teeth, and getting out of bed in the morning required movement modifications. I always knew that someday I would need to find a bigger solution to my back issues, and that I’d have to trust that it would make itself known right about the time I would need it most.

That it did. And boy, do I have a story to tell you…

A good friend of mine knows a woman on Lopez Island who had nanosurgery on her back 9 years ago. After losing her normally active life to back pain for 3 years, nanosurgery restored her to her active life (surfing, etc.) and she has been pain-free ever since.

I looked into the place where she had surgery, which is called the Back Institute. It’s in Los Angeles/Beverly Hills and New York. It is one of the only places (if not the only?) that you can get non-traumatic, ultra-small endoscopic spine procedures done.

I read everything on the website. I watched umpteen video testimonials of people who had been out of surgery just a day and had major changes to their backs and bodies already. Some people had come in on crutches or in wheelchairs and walked out of surgery. Many of the testimonials are people who work in the medical industry – surgeons, dentists, anesthesiologists, chiropractors – who needed a shorter recovery time than typical “minimally invasive” microdiscectomy surgery, which is actually fairly invasive, as you’ll see in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=is-DFI70W0s.

Dr. Ditsworth of The Back Institute has created his own niche practice of nanosurgery as an alternative that requires almost no recovery in comparison to typical surgery. A tiny 4 mm opening is made in the back and very small instruments are used. There is no bone drilling, muscle cutting, or bleeding. The disc material that has extruded and is interfering with nerves is simply pulled out with a tiny grabber without significant trauma caused beforehand to get to the area.

I thought about the procedure for a few months, figuring that if I decided to go ahead with it, I’d be put on the calendar for sometime at the end of the year or the beginning of 2026. At the end of September, I emailed the Back Institute and asked what they would need to consider me as a patient. A current MRI and X-Rays, they said, and I would also need to fill out the online new patient form on their website.

Two weeks later, I was filling out additional patient intake forms and learned that I could have surgery the following week in Los Angeles if I could get the necessary tests done at my local doctor’s office beforehand.

Just like that, I was dedicating a day to scheduling flights, researching nearby hotels, and booking parking near SeaTac.

But one thing stood out that made me nervous that this could be a hoax, even though I knew of someone whose life had changed after having surgery there almost a decade ago… The Back Institute requires full payment upfront in the form of a cashier’s check. Upon reading that piece of information, my internal red flag starting flying. I’ve never done anything like that before. I began looking at the website differently, watching testimonials again for last names that I could look up to verify if the people were real and actually living and working where they said they were. Sure enough, each person I looked up really existed in the hometown they had left to have surgery in LA. Still, I felt very uncomfortable at the bank having such a large number removed from my account and printed on a check.

It feels iffy to try something that you can’t easily find another surgery center doing. Questions ran through my head. What if 4 mm incisions are put in the skin and then you’re told your surgery was successful, but it’s all just the placebo effect and no surgery actually happened? If there aren’t other surgery centers doing this, what does that imply about the safety and expertise of this place? Where are the diplomas and certificates that show the background of this medical staff?

These days with artificial intelligence, other surgeons’ websites look perfectly polished – do you put your trust in perfect websites with stock photos of strangers or in very human-looking sites?

I asked a retired doctor for his thoughts and he advised me to slow down and be cautious. I asked a doctor I was about to interview at the radio station and he suggested that it is a matter of personal tolerance – am I more comfortable having typical surgery and possibly having insurance cover more, or am I more comfortable having nanosurgery and paying out of pocket? In other words, does the money expenditure or the thought of a bigger surgery take more out of me? I asked my doctor what his thoughts were, and he did a bit of searching but didn’t find anything particularly alarming. I talked to the staff at his office – was there any information they could look up to check the legitimacy of this nanosurgeon? They said he had the appropriate codes in their system. One of them shared that she didn’t think the issue of paying upfront was strange, and that it may be the way many clinics operate in the future, unfortunately. She explained that clinics are quickly tiring of treating patients, billing insurance that doesn’t end up paying much, and not being able to recoup the cost of services.

I had conversations with different agents at my insurance company about the cashier’s check and what it could imply. Does an insurance company ever cut a check to an individual after the patient has paid upfront? I had never experienced such a thing. According to the agents I spoke with, it is a possibility.

Amid the unanswerable questions, it all came down to one question: Was I willing to step out and try this if it meant paying out of pocket and allowing the experience to tell me if this was legitimate? Once you’ve had enough of pain, you are willing to seek out some mysteries.

After continuing to do hours of research each day leading up to my departure, including two phone conversations with the surgeon who would be operating on me, I decided there was enough evidence to go down this path. My gut had said absolutely no to traditional microdiscectomy surgery, but my gut said a noticeably peaceful yes to this. So far, my gut has not led me astray. I trust it.

Natasha, the patient concierge I was communicating daily with, was helpful, knowledgeable, professional, and organized. The plan was to arrive in Los Angeles in time for two CT scans and a pre-op appointment on Tuesday, surgery on Wednesday, and a post-op appointment on Thursday. Everything was going swiftly and swimmingly until the Monday I was scheduled to catch an afternoon ferry headed for Seattle. Two of the many blood tests that were done from a sample that was taken on the previous Friday at my local doctor’s office did not go through. Natasha called to let me know that she had received the results for everything else, but surgery would not happen without the results of those two remaining tests. After a quick call to my doctor’s office, they got me in right away for another blood draw to freeze and send the sample to the lab that evening. But there was no way to know if the results would be ready by Tuesday. If they weren’t, I’d need to have another immediate option. After landing at LAX at 11 AM on Tuesday, I’d have to find a lab in Los Angeles that could produce results within hours of a blood draw before closing for the evening, or no surgery the next day. Natasha did some quick calling on her end and found that Quest Diagnostics had a 4-6 hour turnaround.

There was nothing I could do but take the 4:30 ferry to Anacortes on Monday afternoon, drive to my hotel near SeaTac, awaken on Tuesday morning at 5 AM, get to the airport for my 7:40 AM flight to LA, and accept that everything was out of my hands until the plane touched down in California.

It wasn’t easy falling asleep at the hotel, wondering if this journey was going to be an exercise in futility, but I calmed my mind and accepted the unknown. I slept the night and most of my flight.

The minute after the plane touched the ground, WiFi connection lit up everyone’s phones, and messages from both my doctor’s office and Natasha at the Back Institute informed me that the final test results were in and I was cleared for surgery. What a relief! I would not have to hit the ground running.

I caught an Uber from LAX to the hotel, called The Carlyle Inn. I had done a lot of hotel research, and while I was tempted to book a place in Santa Monica or Venice Beach 8 miles away and make it as much of a fun-feeling trip as possible, I opted for the hotel closest to the Back Institute – a quarter mile away, or about two blocks down the same street in the middle of a sea of buildings and a shortage of nature.

There were several available hotels about a mile away, but I decided that a short walking distance between sites might be the better option to keep things close and avoid having to rent a car. Uber would be my mode of transportation if needed. I had plotted a lot of things out on maps beforehand, and I knew that the place I’d get the CT scans – SimonMed Imaging San Vicente – would be within walking distance as well.

I arrived at The Carlyle Inn on S. Robertson Blvd, the same street as the Back Institute, long before check-in time and asked to have my luggage stored until later. I then set out on foot and found an egg burrito at a simple take-out place and a “mensch” chocolate chip cookie the size of a small frisbee at Lamalo Cafe, both just around the corner on Pico Blvd. Now I had something to munch on while heading toward the imaging place.

It was immediately apparent that I was in the heart of a Jewish neighborhood. Most men wore yarmulkes and the women’s look and attire varied – some of the young women wore headscarves and plain brown dresses, while other older women had very coiffed hair, thick make-up, and designer clothes while shopping in the kosher grocery markets, which carried everything from traditional 4-foot-long flatbread and culturally distinct meat dishes with Hebrew names to fancy varieties of baklava. I decided to ask ChatGPT what I was seeing…

ChatGPT said:

The area around South Robertson and Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles (often called “Pico-Robertson”) is a center of Jewish life with a wide spectrum of observance levels and cultural expressions of Judaism.

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🕍 The Neighborhood

• Pico-Robertson is one of the main Jewish neighborhoods in Los Angeles — it has many Orthodox synagogues, kosher restaurants, bakeries, and schools, alongside Jews of more Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and even Reform or secular backgrounds.
• People there often live within walking distance of their synagogue, since Orthodox Jews don’t drive on the Sabbath.

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👨 Men Wearing Yarmulkes

• The kippah (yarmulke) is a head covering worn by Jewish men as a sign of respect and reverence for God.
• In this area, most men wear one all the time, not just in synagogue — so seeing all the men wearing them is normal for Pico-Robertson.
• The style (small knit vs. black velvet vs. large black hat) can reflect different Orthodox subgroups, from Modern Orthodox to Haredi (ultra-Orthodox).

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👩 Women’s Dress Differences

• The younger women in plain dresses and headscarves were likely from more traditional Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox (Haredi or Hasidic) communities, which emphasize modesty (tzniut) — covering elbows, knees, and collarbone, often with muted colors and covered hair (scarves, wigs, or hats).
• The women with coiffed hair, makeup, and designer clothes may still be Orthodox or Modern Orthodox, but in those communities, the approach to modesty and fashion is more relaxed — stylish dress and visible wigs or hair coverings (sometimes very natural-looking) are common.
• In the same neighborhood, you’ll also find non-Orthodox Jews (Conservative, Reform, or secular) who don’t follow traditional dress codes but live nearby for the cultural community or kosher amenities.

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💡 So:

You were seeing a mix of Orthodox subgroups — from Haredi/Hasidic to Modern Orthodox — and possibly some less observant Jewish residents too.
That diversity, side-by-side, is part of what makes Pico-Robertson unique — it’s a kind of mosaic of Jewish life in L.A., where very traditional and very modern expressions coexist on the same few blocks.

In Los Angeles, the Persian (Iranian) community includes both Jewish and Muslim populations, but they are distinct groups with their own neighborhoods, institutions, and histories.

Here’s the breakdown:

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🇮🇷 The Broader Persian Community in L.A.

Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian diaspora in the world — sometimes nicknamed “Tehrangeles” — with an estimated 70,000 to 100,000+ people of Iranian origin.
Most arrived after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which transformed Iran from a monarchy into an Islamic republic.

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✡️ Persian Jews in Los Angeles

• Population: Around 30,000–40,000, making it the largest Iranian Jewish community in the world outside Israel.
• Neighborhoods:
  • Beverly Hills, Pico-Robertson, and Westwood have large concentrations.
  • You’ll also find Persian Jewish synagogues and schools (e.g., Nessah Synagogue, Eretz Synagogue, and Hillel Hebrew Academy).
• Background:
  • Jewish life in Iran goes back over 2,700 years, to the time of the Persian Empire (since the Babylonian exile).
  • After 1979, many left Iran due to religious restrictions and uncertainty under the new regime.
• Faith: They are observant Jews, but culturally Persian — blending Hebrew and Farsi phrases, and serving Persian dishes at Shabbat dinners.

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☪️ Persian Muslims in Los Angeles

• Population: Roughly similar in size or somewhat larger, depending on how one defines “Persian.”
• Neighborhoods:
  • Many live in Westwood, Encino, Tarzana, and Beverly Hills as well.
  • The Iranian Muslim community includes both secular and religious people — most are Shia Muslims, like the majority in Iran.
• Institutions:
  • Islamic centers such as the Iman Cultural Center (West L.A.) or Iranian-American Muslim Association of North America (IAMAN).

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🧭 In Summary

Group	Religion	Estimated Population (L.A.)	Main Areas	Notes
Persian Jews	Judaism	30,000–40,000	Beverly Hills, Pico-Robertson, Westwood	Largest Iranian Jewish community outside Israel
Persian Muslims	Islam (mostly Shia)	40,000–60,000	Westwood, Encino, Tarzana, Beverly Hills	Largest group overall within the Iranian diaspora

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So when you’re in areas like Pico-Robertson, you’re mainly seeing Persian Jews, whereas in Westwood Boulevard south of Wilshire (the original “Tehrangeles”), the businesses and restaurants are mostly Persian Muslim-owned — though there’s plenty of crossover in culture, food, and language.

I love learning immediately about what I’m seeing from ChatGPT.

I was also amid every kind of medical establishment you can think of, from renal care to plastic surgery, leading to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. A few of the women walking out of my hotel had head and face braces, fresh from surgery and on to recovery.

If you want to see a plethora of fancy cars with custom matte wraps flying by on busy streets thick with drivers focused on where they’re getting rather than where they are, this is the place.

Ten minutes before and a block away from my imaging appointment, I got a call. I stopped walking and answered it. It was a woman from my insurance company. She said, “I am going to connect you with another company we work with. They are going to pay for your procedure in full. When you hang up, a woman is going to call you. Give her any information she needs, and do not take out your cashier’s check when you get to the Back Institute!”

“But my first appointment at the Back Institute is in an hour, and in 5 minutes I will be arriving at the imaging place where I have to get CT scans. I don’t think there is time,” I said with alarm.

“Don’t take out that cashier’s check. Hang up and the woman will call you right away.”

“Okay…”

We hung up and a minute later, a woman called me from the other agency. At this point I was walking in the front door of the imaging place and needing to check in with the receptionist. I quickly asked the woman on the phone how all of this was possible in such short notice.

“I’ll get it done immediately,” she replied.

Holy cow.

“Well, I also have to pay upfront for imaging right now before they call me in for the scans. Is there any possibility that you can pay for this as well since it is all related?”

“Yes ma’am, I will pay for that right now too. Hand the phone to the receptionist and I will pay for it over the phone.”

What???

The receptionist looked at me like I was crazy, and I handed her my phone. A minute later, she was repeating a credit card number back to the woman on the phone for verification, and just like that, my CT scans were paid for!

I called the woman at the agency again as I sat down in the waiting room.

“After this appointment, I am immediately expected at the Back Institute for my pre-op appointment. It will be my first time there.”

“Again, do not ever pull out that check. I will call them right now.”

I had never heard of such a thing. It was explained to me that insurance companies are billed premium prices for big services like back surgery, but if a secondary company comes in and negotiates down a bill and pays it immediately, it saves the insurance company sometimes double the price and all they owe the secondary company is the talked-down price plus a fee for doing so. The patient pays nothing. It’s a win-win-win for all three entities involved. They wouldn’t do it for an ankle sprain, but they scan the insurance system for anyone who has upcoming surgeries with bills that have not gone into the system yet. Thankfully, I had called my insurance company several times before the surgery, so they could easily flag my account and qualify it for this other agency to step in and pay.

Sure enough, after stepping foot into the Back Institute for the first time, there was a whirlwind of activity resulting in the payment of my bill over the phone. It was definitely not expected and not the norm, but there I was signing papers attesting to the transactions that had just occurred after meeting the various people associated with the practice.

The payment was immediately legitimate. Now what would the Back Institute itself be like? I was called into a small office to meet with a young nurse. She asked several questions and then the doctor, with whom I had spoken twice over the phone, came in and asked various questions as well. They wanted to see what movements hurt the most, and I explained that walking and anything ambulatory had always been fine these past 6 years. It was sleeping supine that was about to render me a nutcase in the most recent iteration of pain.

I was instructed not to eat or drink even water after midnight, and to arrive at 9:30 AM for surgery the next morning at a location a few blocks farther down the street.

That night in the hotel, I lay down on the bed just to feel what I have been experiencing for months. Yes, lying flat and still was not tolerable for long. Yes, turning over and adjusting my position brought tears to my eyes. I can still see my teary reflection in the sliding mirror doors of the closet next to the bed. And yes, sitting up from that supine position without modified help from my arms made me cry.

I was suddenly one night’s sleep away from a surgery that could restore my ability to consider the kind of activities I was rapidly writing off, and with much less recovery time afterward compared to typical surgery. Everything was moving so fast.

The next morning I awakened early and headed down to the sunny urban grid of streetlife punctuated by traffic signals, where the effortless blue sky and nonchalantly perfect 65° air wafting past my face didn’t match the overly serious hive of busyness that the people all around me felt compelled to take part in.

Every now and then, the uninspiring rectangular landscape of one business after another would be interrupted by a colorful mural or an oasis of aesthetic beauty – usually an inviting cafe of some sort that offered sensory-pleasing color, comfortability, and aroma. That’s how I felt about this place. If I lived in LA, I would have have my walls knocked out in favor of folding windows too…

I bought a pressed egg, avo, and bacon sandwich here to save for later in the day after the surgery, while recovering in the hotel room.

Before I knew it, my time on the streets was up. I ran a mile back to the hotel.

Running has always been something my back would allow, even when I could not even sit comfortably for 2 years due to continually zapping sciatica down the back of my right leg. I used to walk for miles around Eastsound and run up to the top of Turtlehead and back when electrical nerve pain wouldn’t allow me to sit down. When I did sit for a short stint, it was only in a kneeling chair.

After a quick shower, I added warm socks to my backpack in preparation for the cool operating room and headed back down to the street, my final few minutes BN – Before Nanosurgery. Soon I would be existing in the AN part of life – After Nanosurgery. Would there be a significant change?…

Arriving at this other location farther down the street from the Back Institute’s administrative office, it felt much more like a medical clinic meant for surgery.

The same administrative staff, several of them Russian women, were now in blue scrubs as part of the medical team. I commented lightheartedly about it, curious to hear how they would respond, and one of the women said, “Doesn’t it make much more sense to be working with the same staff throughout the entire process so that you don’t feel that strangers are greeting you for surgery?” They had seemed very on top of the clerical work, so I had to trust that they would be equally competent in the surgery room. Even though this isn’t typical for your average clinic or hospital, Dr. Ditsworth has apparently chosen to conduct his practice with a whole different paradigm than the norm.

There were still a few residual inklings in me wondering about legitimacy. Before entering the surgery area, I wrote a check for the anesthesiologist at the front desk. I was told to bring a separate personal check to pay for his services since he could not be paid by credit card, and it would not be covered under the original cashier’s check that was requested. The agency that paid in lieu of my cashier’s check the day before asked me to call them the moment I stepped foot in the clinic that morning before going into surgery. I called and the woman assured me that even though she couldn’t cover the anesthesiologist since he required a check, she would immediately mail a check to me for the same amount plus the $1,000 deposit I had put down on the surgery a few weeks before. Fascinating.

I was led into a room with several hospital beds and told to change into a gown, cap, the socks I brought, and hospital booties to cover the socks.

I calmly watched as everyone in front of me prepared paperwork and answered any questions asked by the young anesthesiologist who walked in. His youth struck me a bit, but I had to remind myself that I’m not 20 anymore. The fact that he could be my son might be a fairly new observation in my life, but I told myself that it didn’t necessarily connect with a question of legitimacy. It’s simply a new norm that I will be getting used to as time goes on.

He kindly and humbly introduced himself, and began asking a few questions. He came across as sincere, professional, and serious about his work, with an excellent bedside manner. Perhaps one of the best I’ve ever experienced. He explained that I would have local anesthesia as well as a twilight level of general anesthesia – that I might awaken a bit in the middle of surgery, and he would put me right back into dreamland. He moved to my other side and began an IV in my hand as I asked him how he decided to be an anesthesiologist. He explained that when he was 8 years old, his sister tore her ACL. Her anesthesiologist made a huge positive impression on her, and from that moment on, he knew he wanted to be one too.

I then asked how he ended up working for the Back Institute. He replied that he is an independent contractor, so he works with many different surgery centers. The nurse I had spoken with the day before was also there, and she asked him what made him choose the surgery centers he has chosen to work with. His response was that he would never work anywhere that didn’t put safety first. This did not sound rehearsed. It sounded spontaneous and very genuine. I liked his response. (I also like to assume that every center is safe, but perhaps there is safety and then there is SAFETY.)

Within minutes, I was being walked into the operating room by several staff. I thanked everyone ahead of time. The room was very cool, and the machinery and instruments definitely looked legitimate. They had me lie down on my right side, as they would be accessing my spine through a very small opening on the lower left side of my back. I was basically in fetal position, my favorite sleeping position, and they placed a pillow between my legs and had me “cuddle” a pillow they placed in my arms. I couldn’t have been more comfortable. The anesthesiologist placed a clear mask over my nose and mouth, and the next thing I knew, I was lying drowsily on the bed in the waiting area again. Three hours had passed in an instant. I’ve never experienced anything more than local anesthesia, and it was amazing.

I remember feeling deeply comfortable, completely painless like I was floating, and opening my eyes to a quiet scene of the anesthesiologist sitting beside me. Another member of the surgical staff was sitting on my other side, but my eyes closed again. Tears began rolling down my cheeks. Might I actually be on the other side of pain? I wiped them away.

Another member of the staff informed me that the medical transportation I had arranged to take me back to the hotel at 1:30 would be arriving soon. Whoa. Talk about losing time. I couldn’t believe I would be wheeled out so soon after coming back into consciousness. But sure enough, within a few minutes they stood me up, helped me into a wheelchair, and rolled me out the back. Two men took over and guided me to the back of a van with a gurney, another wheelchair, and a seat. They asked which I would like, and helped me into the seat.

Originally when filling out all the paperwork before arriving in LA, I knew I could do this whole thing solo except for this one transition. I would need someone to walk me out of the clinic, drive me back to the hotel only half a mile away, and walk me into my hotel room. I had hoped to take an Uber, but the Back Institute doesn’t allow it. For an additional $200, they will organize some form of medical transport. I opted not to, figuring I’d find a solution on my own. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew in LA, and at the last minute on the morning of the surgery, I contacted a friend whose father lives about a mile away. It turns out he could’ve helped me if I had thought of him earlier. But the medical transport company I found the day before surgery – Ambiance Medical Transportation – charges $175 regardless of location proximity, and they put me on their schedule.

The two medical transport guys were excellent – polite and kind. I was so drowsy, I couldn’t tell you a thing about what they looked like. I barely remember having my eyes open. I was just floating. I get why addicts love painkillers. I don’t even take Advil but once or twice a year, so this was absolute bliss. Both men rode the elevator to the second floor of my hotel with me, and made sure I got in my room safely. I thanked them, closed the door, and crawled into bed. I wasn’t so gone that I didn’t realize how stunning it felt to lie flat on my back or roll to my side. I drowsed in a state of bliss for hours and hours. I was very aware of my body and thoughts, yet time felt nonexistent and my body felt unconstrained.

The Back Institute’s instructions were clear: if I felt like getting up and walking around, then get up and walk around. If I felt like resting and resting, then rest and rest. Some clarity and energy began to return, and after enjoying a lot of water, that pressed sandwich, and a few conversations with loved ones, I put on some clothes and walked around the hotel’s communal patio.

I realized I felt good enough to walk a couple blocks to the nearby Walgreens. I bought an egg salad sandwich, a yogurt parfait, and a Coke.

The anesthesia and all-day rest must’ve affected my sleep cycle, because I was wired until 2 AM. Or maybe it was the rare Coke. Then I woke up the next morning wide awake at 5 AM. I thought I’d need a solid 10 hours of sleep. This was Thursday, the day after surgery, the day I’d have to check out of the hotel, and the day I’d be flying back to Seattle. Remember, this is nanosurgery. Tiny instruments go through a tiny incision. Recovery is eons faster than typical surgery. I can’t even find a video online that shows nanosurgery to remove disc material that is impinging on nerves. I’m not even sure one exists.

I felt full of life, like it was a normal day in my body. I decided to take an Uber 20 minutes away to the Santa Monica pier, where I would walk to Venice Beach. I had always wanted to do that. So there I was at 10 AM, enjoying a sunny morning above the wide sandy beach, watching lifeguards as they patrolled surfing zones. I headed south on the wide pedestrian path and it felt like everyone was just waking up along the Venice Beach walkway. Jewelry tables were being lined with wares and canopies were slowly being assembled. Here I had been awake for 5 hours after having surgery the day before. I walked to the end of the line and turned around while enjoying a fresh churro from a vendor.

I assumed I might be able to make it back to the pier before calling an Uber if I bumped up my pace a bit, but remembered what they said after surgery – listen to your body. My body was slowing down. I was getting tired again, and I had a big day ahead of me. I wished I could stay in LA one more night and go right in the hotel bed for another long stint of drowsing, but once the Uber got me back, I only had enough time for a 6-minute shower before my late check-out at 12:30. I stored my luggage at the office and checked out of my room for good.

I walked back over to the Back Institute’s administrative building at 1 PM for my post-op appointment. They recorded a video testimonial of my experience, gave me a packet of physical therapy exercises, and explained some new forms to fill out in the coming weeks to track my recovery, pain subsidence, and bodily ability. I was prescribed optional Neurontin for neural pain to be picked up at the Walgreens near the hotel, and had a final chat with the nurse and Dr. Ditsworth. They gave me a photo of the extruded disc material they removed to free up the nerve pathways in my spine.

The physical therapy instructions from here on consist of 2 weeks of passive therapy 3 times a week (ice, ultrasound, electric muscle stimulation, and soft tissue massage), 2-4 weeks of pool therapy exercises 3 times a week, 2-4 weeks of land therapy exercises 3 times a week, and then home exercises for trunk strengthening.

We said our thank yous and goodbyes, and out I went. Exhausted, I headed back out on the streets, knowing I’d have to endure until the next hotel bed I’d be able to crawl into at 10 PM that night upon arriving in Seattle.

After wandering through kosher markets for a few hours with a 4-foot piece of flatbread rolled up under my arm, I settled on a few pieces of Shalom Pizza. I went back to the hotel and rested my bones in one of the chairs on a communal patio upstairs until it was time to call an Uber for the airport.

For an islander, the journey is never over when the plane arrives in Seattle.

I checked into the hotel I had booked outside of the SeaTac airport around 10:30 PM, so thankful to finally lay my head down again. The next morning, after a 2-hour drive in rain that made visibility almost impossible at times, and a 2-hour ferry experience in which our cars were parked far behind the norm due to high seas, I was so glad to be back on Orcas.

Writing this is the first experience I’ve had that requires linear thought after the floating bliss of amorphous anesthesia, and I’ve had to force my way through it because I feel it’s important to document before I move onto other things in life. I would have loved reading about someone’s personal experience with nanosurgery at the Back Institute, which would have added a level of legitimacy that I would not have had to constantly question in the process.

And if you have had months or years of problems with disc extrusion in your back, I wanted to make sure that you knew there was another solution aside from the traditional discectomy route of drilling, cutting, and cauterizing.

If I can help you find relief for your pain, I want that for you.

It was only 6 days ago, and I feel quite energetic, quite unlike having just had surgery. I’m not taking the neural pain drug that was prescribed yet, but I will if I need to in the coming days. I do have some pain where the entry area was, but not enough to need Advil. So far, I’m not taking anything. I’m curious to see how things play out from now on, and my new acquaintance on Lopez Island shared that she booked a surfing trip to Costa Rica several months after her surgery 9 years ago. Thoughts like that give me great hope, as I rest now and then while visualizing life on a hydrofoil…

Thank you, to everyone at the Back Institute and to those who have supported me in this process. You know who you are and you carried me from afar.

I hope this helps anyone who desperately needs a new solution.

שָׁלוֹם ~ мир ~ Shalom. May peace be with you.