"Her own, yes, but also the thousands of people she has met online who are, like her, recovering from spine surgery and often, like her, not their first. In the "Life After Back Surgery Support Group" on Facebook, they post questions, weary updates, and long, detailed accounts of their surgeries, sometimes good, sometimes very bad. Those with long-term pain reach for the language to describe it - "radiating," "unbearable," "like I've been kicked all night long,""
"At 18, she woke up one morning with a sharp ache in her lower back and a tingling down her leg. Since she was pregnant at the time and her doctor couldn't prescribe stronger pain medications, he instructed her to take aspirin. After giving birth, though, Bruce's pain persisted. A specialist eventually recommended spine surgery - specifically, spinal-fusion surgery, in which two or more vertebrae are bolted together with implants, clamping the joint as if welding beams in a collapsing building."
Tiffany Bruce endures chronic back pain following multiple spinal-fusion surgeries and spends her days engaged with others recovering from similar procedures. Many members of the Life After Back Surgery Support Group post detailed surgical accounts, images, and vivid pain descriptions such as "radiating," "unbearable," and "like I've been kicked all night long." Bruce first experienced severe low-back pain at 18 during pregnancy, received only aspirin, and later underwent spinal-fusion surgery that offered limited relief. Her condition worsened over years, leading to additional fusions, job loss after the fourth operation, depression after the fifth, and membership in an online support community.
Read at Intelligencer
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