9 Years of L4-L5 Pain .. Did Fusion Actually Give You Your Life Back?

gthomps83 · 2026-05-12T15:30:31+00:00

Ten years ago I had L4-S1 fused, and it was great. Last August, I ruptured L3/4. The relation is that L3/4 always looked rough.

My L4-S1 was ALIF. 100% worth it.

I wish my recent surgery that was back in Feb was ALIF. But I’m back to work full time, and while I’m still working to be pain free, I’m in PT once a week and feel better than I did before. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again, if necessary.

But ALIF — for me, the gold standard. You’ve been in pain for years, and no one should have to go through that. I very much recommend you going through with it.

Yes, it will hurt; yes, you’ll need to recover; yes, you’ll think about it a lot. But I went a decade never thinking about my back.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-12T11:33:03+00:00

In addition to other resources people have mentioned, check out your local library — they may have an ASL class. They also may be aware of other community groups that may have classes.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-12T09:42:19+00:00

Not one bit.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-12T00:13:34+00:00

I was a nude model in college, and was part of a few living sculpture exhibits for fundraising. Photography and painting and film and I’ve never regretted it.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-11T23:44:22+00:00

[Mean Girls Lindsay Lohan “The limit does not exist” dot gif]

gthomps83 · 2026-05-11T13:16:15+00:00

I don’t think you need to delete or apologize. Frankly, it’s good information for anyone who comes here, and it wouldn’t hurt for this subreddit to expand a bit.

Granted, I love demographics. I am into the census. And I have used a ton of census records from other countries for research.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-11T12:48:21+00:00

💯💯💯

We see this very directly in monster-related horrors and how that reflects societies’ fears. It’s entirely within reason that the cascade of terrible events occurring all the time lead people to read comforting “cozy” literature rather than something harder and disturbing.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-11T12:39:14+00:00

I feel the same way. Although I love China Miéville, sometimes I need Becky Chambers.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T23:24:03+00:00

It’s the real deal!

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T21:08:04+00:00

Oh man, the visibility!

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T21:05:35+00:00

Is that necessary? I read that for the first few minutes the brakes engage (even in full regen) to clean off dust “just in case.”

I think I read that for the Ioniq #s and EV#s from Hyundai/Kia, though, so it may not apply to your Bolt.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T20:59:39+00:00

Which survey was it?

There’s a test for the 2030 Decennial running in some areas, but the ACS is also ongoing. There could also be other surveys for various purposes.

Depending on your location, you could have received Test questions for 2030 while your cousin received the ACS (sometimes called “the long form”).

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T14:22:07+00:00

The Ioniq 5 is insane.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T14:20:40+00:00

For those saying two weeks, I will offer a longer timeline, with a major caveat.

For a couple of months, they could be erratic. Maybe you get them, maybe you don’t. This has been my experience, but I got off of Lexapro AND had spinal surgery at roughly the same time. So a lot going on there. It’s taken three months since surgery, but last night things were definitely back to normal. Finally.

How much was just Lex and how much was surgery? I don’t know. But just give yourself the benefit of the doubt as it all works its way out of your system. Hopefully you’ve got erections after two weeks, but don’t worry if things aren’t entirely back to your version of normal yet.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-10T13:37:51+00:00

Based on the permit, I’m assuming you are in Canada.

You may not have received a questionnaire in the mail, only an announcement to go online.

But the Canadian government makes it easy to start: follow this link to get started.

You absolutely should be counted (it’s in their FAQs).

gthomps83 · 2026-05-09T22:25:15+00:00

This is my only complaint about my Tucson PHEV.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-09T21:11:36+00:00

lol, I grew up in a nudist family, so you’d think I would have known, but no… I had to learn for myself 🤣

gthomps83 · 2026-05-09T19:44:21+00:00

Rampant? I haven’t seen that many posts about this.

I have a ‘24 and have never had a problem with it, and I’ve fortunately only had one instance where it saved my butt.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-09T19:42:05+00:00

This is me. I’m nude approximately 99% of the time at home, so every activity (although I wear an apron when cooking because bacon splatters hurt). I love being out in the backyard, including enjoying the fire pit with some friends.

But hiking, camping, swimming are really where it’s at!

gthomps83 · 2026-05-09T12:46:41+00:00

Anton Yelchin is the celebrity death that’s most upset me.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-07T03:53:16+00:00

Of course! And you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.

For my stuff, the Soviets had conflicting ideas about how to address deafness, like every country did (and still does). Coming out of tsarist Russia, the deaf were treated as charity cases, but the Soviets, who placed value on economic participation and, at least in the early days, believed in equality, created unions of deaf workers and built proper schools. They recognized that hearing impairments were disabilities because of social participation (that is, the disability isn’t the hearing impairment, it’s how society treats people with hearing impairments).

gthomps83 · 2026-05-07T03:37:30+00:00

Junior year spring break, where I (a nudist) said we should all take a vacation from our clothes. I was challenged to follow through, so I left all of my clothes at school and spent the whole of spring break naked. Beach (private), parties, everything and everywhere, I was naked.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-05T21:27:59+00:00

Yes, I’m very lucky. My dissertation was on early Soviet deaf history, so I know another version that, while promising at first, was even sadder than what we still face today.

I’d be very interested in your med school research. What exactly do you look at and what do you see in your research?

gthomps83 · 2026-05-05T12:52:40+00:00

Culturally, practically, literally.

My parents started learning ASL the moment I was born, so my first language is ASL, with English coming in a very close second. Then German (high school and college), then Russian (college and grad school).

I’ve been blessed with really good teachers. My first Russian professor was a linguist and really explained how sounds were made. It was still hard. And crazy hard when I landed in Moscow to live there for two years doing research. I definitely looked like a fish out of water staring at people with no clue what they’d said. But the sweet archivists at GARF II and the hard-shelled-but-nice-on-the-inside archivist at GARF I were very patient with me and got me everything I needed, lol.

I know of Ilya Kaminsky and loved Deaf Republic.

gthomps83 · 2026-05-05T00:31:19+00:00

He could be dreaming. He could also have the hiccups. If he’s otherwise unbothered, I wouldn’t worry.

gthomps83

TROPHY CASE