Last year about this time I was experiencing neck, shoulder, arm, hand pain, and numbness. I had a MRI that revealed pinching on the spinal cord so two days later I was undergoing surgery and had 3 vertebrae fused. It helped save me from total upper body paralysis, but my symptoms never really disappeared. They seemed to improve with time, then last fall started getting worse. Last week my upper left side, face down to waist was numb and severely painful. I did not sleep for two nights and finally ended up in the emergency room where after 8 hours and several test they determined that the vertebrae above last years surgery is pinching a nerve and the disc is in bad repair. It will be the end of the month before what surgery will be the best and less restricting is determined.

My one mostly good ear is experiencing some hearing loss and is very rattly making tuning the guitar impossible at times. I was finally able to tune this morning, but even with my left arm supported at the elbow, I was only able to play poorly for less than 5 minutes before the pain came back severely. I start physical therapy next week that I hope will help until surgery can be performed.

I wish I knew more Spanish and how to sing a Siguiriyas. I could do one that would make your blood run cold.

Hola Sam:

This is as bad as it gets.

At a time like this it is almost impossible to keep positive.
Yet medical advances and development have been so good over the years and so I do really wish that there is real hope that the doctors can help you.
I have been off line for sometime but will look in here now from time to time to read your updates and maybe telling us all how its going may help you to see things as a time line with a good development coming up soon.

Physical therapy I hear can be very good so lets cross everything as the British say.

Un abrazo

Tomas

Sam, all the best to you. You shall conquer!

Carlos

i'm sorry to hear this sam. please take it easy. dont stress as it only complicates things.
im sure your therapists and doctors will fix you up. in the mean time, you can get by with some "ay, ay."
if you're in a good mood, maybe some "tiri tiri tran tran tran."
hang in there, mi amigo!

Thanks for the good wishes. I went to physical therapy this morning and it helped some with the pain. I will continue to go until the neurosurgeon appointment later this month.

Thomas, I use your constructive approach to teaching your classes, only reworded. "We said that we can do this." I changed it to, "I said that I can do this." it helps!

Carlos, I wished I had learned Andulz Spanish and cante so I could punish the neighbors in times of not being able to play guitar.

Leo, I still an still listening to a lot of Alegrias in hopes of finishing what I had started before this got bad. I haven't come up with any cheery words, but mentally going over the compas trying to get it perfected. How is your hand coming?

Manos Lentas wrote:How is your hand coming?

it's getting better. thank you for asking. one more week until my hand is freed from this cast and put into a removable one.
probably 4-6 weeks until i can play again. perhaps, by then, your singing will improve and we can do a collaboration alegrias with me accompanying.

Sam sorry been away for a while and had little time to be on here or playing. After a serious down turn in business we now have two parallel projects; one in Edinburgh with an architects company, and the other a clinical systems company in the south of england. I've taken to using the train to get to Edinburgh, 6 to 7 hours but with electricity on trains these days I can work better than hanging around airports. I would take the guitar but busking on a train would attract more fines than takings

Sorry to hear of your downturn but hopefull for you as perhaps after a few weeks of close attention things will get better. Keep positive mi amigo because there is a lot more stuff you need to aspire me to yet .

Here's a little chiste from Madrid that made me smile, hope it does the same for you:

-Una niña pequeña le pregunta a su madre:
> A little girl asks her mother:

Mamá, ¿cómo apareció la raza humana?
> Mummy, "How did the human race begin?"

La mamá le responde: Dios creó a Adan y Eva y ellos tuvieron hijos. Es así como apareció la raza humana.
> The mother replies "God create Adam and Eve and they had children. That is how it happened."

Dos días más tarde la niña pregunta lo mismo a su padre.
> Two days later she asks her dad the same question.

El padre le responde: Hace mucho tiempo ya existían los monos. Con el paso de los años se desarrollaron y se convirtieron en hombres. Es así cómo apareció la raza humana
> The father replies "A long time ago existed the monkeys. As time passed they developed and converted into men. That is how it happened."

Confundida, la pequeña se vuelve hacia su madre y le pregunta:
> Confused the little one returned to her mother and asked:

Mamá, ¿cómo puede ser que tu me digas que la raza humana fue creada por Dios y papá me dice que venimos del mono?
> "Mummy how can it be that you say that the human race was created by god but Dad says we came from monkeys?"

Cariño, responde la madre, yo te he hablado del origen de mi familia y papá de la suya.
> "My darling" responds her mother " I was talking about my family, your father of his"

Well it made me smile. Now Sam and Leo, get back to that singing practise

Thanks for the post Nigel. That was a great story. Good inspiration for flamenco letra.

The mother came from God
The father came from monkey
The mother sings as an angel
The father dances like the devil
Confused the daughter took up guitar

I cannot imagine 6 to 7 hours on a train to get to work, but good to be working in today's world economy. Lot's of time to listen to flamenco with good headphones. I have been listening to and watching videos of Perico del Lunar, Melchor de Marchena, and Diego del Gastor with various singers trying to absorb every detail and perhaps when I can resume daily practice, compas, dynamics, and expression will come automatic.

The neurosurgeon said he had never seen anyone with such a strange collections of symptoms. The MRI reveals only two possible causes. One the damaged disc in the neck and two the brain mylin sheath nerve damage from the Zoster virus. Neither on it's own or in combination can cause all the symptoms I have. Surgery on the neck might help with shoulder pain (The facial numbness has nothing to do with the neck and has him baffled), but he is even doubtful of that, so at this time he wants to see me again in July and see if any changes occur. This will give him time to do some research on these puzzling symptomatic presentations. He said if he cannot find the answer then he will say so, he does not give labels or sham diagnosis under the disguise of diagnosis based on scientific revelations. He said to continue with doing my normal routine, just take more breaks and stop when pain increases.

I can practice guitar about 15 minutes before I have to take a short break. My hands remain stiff with some numbness. I tried all kinds of remedies and finally found one that really helps. I started rubbing in Emu oil on the back of my hands prior to playing. It relieves the pain and some stiffness for about an hour. I use the original Blu Emu cream and it is expensive but actually works unlike some of the cheaper copycats. My ears have been very sensitive with extra loud tinnitus that seems to be related to the neck and shoulder pains more than my inner ear disorder flaring up. This makes tuning the guitar a challenge, something I use to take for granted. I always tune in 5th's and a 4th and test in octaves. Hearing the vibrations of the 5th's and 4th is difficult, with the 4th the most troublesome. Anyway I am back to practicing and working on my Alegrias and Soleares.

Sam, it can be very frustrating having to deal with irritating conditions of most any kind where the cause or causes are unknown. Relatively more serious conditions sometimes can be easier to tolerate where causes are fully understood, but in a situation like yours there is little basis to know how serious or permanent your conditions might be or how simple, complex, or impossible one or more cures might be. Fortunately your neurosurgeon seems to be making a sincere effort to help you. Hopefully after more study and thought he will be able to do that.

I am fortunate to have arrived in my seventies with better than average health. Even so I have had a series of frustrating medical problems this past year that have kept me from participating here and playing guitar as much as I would like. I won't bore you with details, but basically I had a combination of two inguinal hernia surgeries that both went wrong multiple ways and now have to be redone, and blood pressure medication side-effects that emulated cancer and led to a series of painful biopsies and other tests.

Inguinal hernia surgeries are very common and usually have good outcomes. Even though mine were performed by one of the most highly-respected surgeons in this area, my outcome was pain and otherwise frustrating problems. Those conditions probably can be reversed with redo surgeries, but I haven't been able to have the surgeries redone yet, because of concerns about cancer. Thankfully it has now been determined conclusively that tissues changes and other symptoms that emulated cancer were simply rare side-effects of a blood pressure medication I had been taking for years. Within a week of discontinuing use of that medication biopsy results were normal and all the other cancer symptoms disappeared. As soon as the new blood pressure medication I have changed to has been titrated to a dose that has my blood pressure back within the normal range I will be able to schedule Inguinal hernia redo surgeries and get on with my life.

-Bob