For Immediate Release: Jarecke Says No to Back Surgery

May 12, 2023. Bainbridge Island, WA:

In a stunning reversal, George Jarecke has decided to forego the back surgery that he has been exploring for months.

He cited a number of factors. For one, the doctors, including a surgeon young enough to be his grandson, told him that the surgery has only an 80% chance of success. “Anyway it’s questionable whether I’d live through the recovery period,” he noted. “Don’t get old.”

“Considering it is major surgery, would keep me in the hospital for a week, then who knows what for the next three months, as doctors don’t really tell you anything, it doesn’t feel like a good bet,” Jarecke commented. "Also he said with a surgery of this complication, there was a near 100% chance of complications."

With those doubts, he ordered a walker, named “Dave” in honor of his daughter Kate Jarecke’s favorite PE and baseball coach, Dave Walker. On Tuesday, May 11, Jarecke walked with his spouse, Nancy K. Plant, noted attorney for non-profits, and their dog, Lord Santorini, Duke of York, a renowned Yorkiedoodle, for over 45 minutes and felt no pain. This was a remarkable development as he had been unable to stand on his feet for more than two minutes doing anything without severe pain.

Another factor was the inconsistency of diagnoses among three opinions he obtained. “One expert said it was clearly severe stenosis,” Jarecke says. “Another genius of medical science said it was severe stenosis plus severe scoliosis. A third stalwart of his profession said it was mainly severe scoliosis. That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence in anyone knowing what’s going on.

"This is a couple of years after having a nice lady burn my nerves, thinking that was all it was. I don’t know when epidural lipomatosis came up, but no one even talks about that anymore. Already they implanted a spinal stimulator, which gave me no relief at all. Would the surgery?”

For Jarecke, the recovery period was a concern. He was told that he would be in the hospital for a week after the operation, and then three months when he’d have to be relatively sedentary.

"They said I couldn’t even drive for six weeks!” Jarecke exclaimed. “That puts too much on Nancy.” It would be up to a year before he had completely recovered, they said.

Reportedly the price was also a concern. “Even with Medicare,” Jarecke reported, “the cost to implant the spinal stimulator was over $5,400." And that was just a couple of hours of outpatient surgery. What would a whole day’s surgery, then a week in the hospital, then all of the follow-up appointments cost him, he wondered. “Are we looking at something well in excess of $50,000, with an uncertain outcome? Fuck and no,” he concluded.

The timing, Jarecke reported, was inopportune. “Kate just left for Zurich with her friend Jordan McNally,” a nursing student at the University of Portland. “They’ll be gone for two weeks, and then Kate will be home for only three days before her internship in New Zealand. Then after that ends, at the end of June, Nancy is going over to meet up with her for two weeks. I can’t go, of course, with this back. Anyway, would they really want me there, complaining every day?”

The upshot of this, Jarecke points out, is that he won’t have anyone to look in on him till mid-July. “And then we need to take Kate back to the University of Michigan at the end of August. And then Nancy has a trip planned for a wedding in late September. So I’m still going to be alone for the time periods during which someone needs to be available if something goes wrong. Which, it being complicated surgery, it inevitably will, as the surgeon himself told me. So I wouldn’t have any backup.” So, he reports, it would be October before he could conceivably have this surgery.

Another complication has inserted itself, Jarecke reports. “I had to undergo a psychological exam. I had to take the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) for about the fifth time in my life. I had to take one last May when they implanted the useless spinal stimulator. Nobody had any problems with my mental health then, and I achieved a real contentment last November that has lasted pretty much until this shrink bestowed her evaluation, which plunged me into a depression.

"This person decided, unlike previous evaluations, including the MMPI, that I was essentially nuts. She said I suffered from ‘anhedonia, introversive tendencies, malaise, helplessness, self-doubt, worry, anxiety, behavior restricting [sic] fears, disaffiliativeness, and social avoidance.’ OK, I admit that I hate people, so some of that is accurate. But I mean, ‘behavior restricting fears’, without even hyphenating it? What does that even mean?

"I worked at AIG, one of the worst environments in employment history. After that, I’m not afraid of anything.” Again during this interview with her, Jarecke reported the greatest period of contentedness in his life, since November of 2022.

Further, she badgered him about his alcohol use, which Jarecke himself concedes. “I was a lawyer, which Nancy said I was unsuited to being, and then I was a lawyer at AIG, where people dropped dead on a regular basis, and where I myself developed a 90% blockage of the left anterior descending artery, i.e., the widow block. It was horrifically stressful. I was going to drink way back then, and I do now. I still have horrific nightmares almost every night.”

Jarecke also reports having been depressed and anxious from about 1990 till a few months ago. “Not every doc has chastised me about the drinking, anyway.”

Jarecke reported that the expert psychologist promised a week ago to send him “resources”, apparently flyers etc. to help him deal with his incipient alcoholism. They haven’t graced his mailbox yet. A friend suggested, “She probably got drunk and forgot to send them.”

Jarecke has other points to make about that: “When a doc complains about my drinking, I want to say, hmm, somehow without your advice I’ve been a successful teacher of English lit and composition on the college level, finished in the top 20% of a Top 20 law school, performed successfully in a general practice, a software transactional practice, negotiated agreements at AIG, and again in software transactions in Seattle, negotiating with lawyers in Boston, San Francisco, Finland, New York City, and I don’t know where all.

"I worked for T-Mobile, Microsoft, and Amazon.com., and the partners of the last firm gave me an extra, secret bonus because I brought in so much money. It was so much that even a doctor would be envious.”

Furthermore, Jarecke goes on, “I’ve published two books on law and social issues while at work, one of which was a co-winner of an award from the ABA, OK, barely anyone bought them, but they got published. I manage a portfolio of obscene size without help from a financial advisor and despite knowing almost nothing about money, and cooked most of my family’s meals over the last 30 years, as dubious as they were. And my daughter quit hating me sooner than a lot of daughters stop hating their dads.”

Jarecke pauses here. “And though Nancy and I have separated, thanks to my self-absorbed, oblivious behavior, I see her every day, we have dinner together half the time, we’re very good friends. And we’ve avoided an acrimonious divorce, and the three of us have fabulous times together. I’d say that shrink was barking mad, but that ignores the possibility that she’s just not very bright.”

At this point, Jarecke frowned: “I know that this sounds like the classic alcoholic’s denial, but my brother is a recovering alcoholic, and I was involved in all of that. I know what it looks like.”

He paused. “On the other hand, I asked my therapist if I was a sociopath, and he said no, that I just didn’t suffer fools gladly. You can say that again. I know that I’ve led a nasty, mean-spirited, vengeful life full of grudges, and this back trouble is just karma.”

Finally, Jarecke avers, he will not cave in. “My therapist agrees that this is a good decision—if you have a hard decision, he said, make the one that you can undo. So I can always do the surgery later. But if I have the really expensive surgery and nothing is better, I can’t go back.”

Instead,” he reports, “I’ve bought a book that Nancy heard about on a podcast about managing your pain, and I’m going to work through that. And use my walker.”

And, he adds, “If those ‘resources’ on drinking too much should ever show up, I’ll dump them right in the recycling bin.”

Blasting through the fourth wall, as it were, Jarecke concluded, “I’ve written this whole blog post pretty much blind wasted on whiskey tonight. Make of that what you will!”

My spine doing its imitation of the Mississippi River.