Hello, English learners.
Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast that teaches English in context, so you can learn naturally.
On today's episode, I want to do a little bit of an update.
If you are a listener to this podcast, then you might have heard previous episodes where I have talked about an injury that I have been dealing with, an injury to my back that I had to get surgery for.
So on today's episode, I want to update you.
I want to tell you how the surgery went, what the plans are for the future and, of course, while I'm doing that, I'm going to be explaining the English vocabulary that we use when we discuss these topics.
So if you're interested in hearing about this update well, of course, practicing your listening comprehension and working towards English fluency then follow along, because we're about to begin.
Before we get started, I want to remind you to look at the description of this podcast episode.
There you will find a list of the words and phrases that I used, so you can take them, study them and continue to build your English vocabulary.
I also want to remind you to like and subscribe, if you have not, and to share this show if you know someone who is learning English.
I have some goals for the YouTube channel and for the podcast.
I'm hoping to hit 10,000 YouTube subscribers.
50,000 podcast listeners, and half a million podcast downloads.
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Now let's talk about my injury.
I'm going to give a very quick review. recap.
In case you have not seen those previous episodes, I'm also going to leave a link to the previous episodes that I did where I talked about the injury.
I injured my back in June of 2024 and I am recording this right now at the end of October of 2025.
So it has been over a year that I have been dealing with this injury.
What happened was that I herniated a disc in my back and In between the vertebrae.
In our back we have this little cushion that helps absorb shock.
And that is the part that herniated.
The case around it ruptured, which means it broke open.
And that little soft cushiony gel that's between our vertebrae, which is the vertebral disc.
I herniated that, which means that the contents of that disc went into the spinal cord, went into an area where it wasn't supposed to be.
I had a lot of pain and I had difficulty walking.
I had difficulty sitting.
I had difficulty standing.
I really could not do anything for a couple of months.
I've heard that that is pretty common with this injury.
People who have had this same injury have said that they had very similar symptoms.
I had to walk with a cane.
I had a limp.
It was a really horrible experience. couple of months because I couldn't do anything.
I really could not even get a glass of water from the kitchen without almost crying.
I was in so much pain.
I almost couldn't even walk to my kitchen.
Like physically, I would almost fall because of the injury with my back and the pain in my leg.
And it was really horrible.
I had an MRI done.
An MRI is a magnetic resonance image or which helps you see the soft tissues in the body.
I had one done last September, so September of 2024, and it showed that I had a six millimeter herniation of that disc.
I had to deal with insurance.
I had to do all of these steps before I finally got referred for surgery.
So I did not go see a surgeon until February of 2025, February of this year.
And when I did, they ordered another MRI.
And it showed that the herniation had increased from six millimeters to 14 millimeters.
So the herniation increased, it got larger in size.
And they told me at the time that surgery was, by then, my only option because the herniation had gotten worse, even though I had done a bunch of other things to try to make it better.
I ended up having surgery in May.
At the time, the hope was that the surgery was going to remove the herniation and that after three months my life would return back to normal.
They told me that right after the surgery, my leg pain would go away, I would be able to walk more, and then after a few months it would be like nothing even happened.
Everything would go back to normal and that's what I was really hoping for.
Unfortunately that's not what happened.
I did have the surgery but I continued to have leg pain and I continued to have numbness in my leg and in my foot.
Numbness means that you can't feel the same amount of sensation.
So the bottom of my foot and part of my leg I don't really have sensation if you touch that particular area.
So, for example, when you go to the dentist, they numb your mouth so you don't feel what they are doing if you have to get some dental work done,
After my surgery, I did have follow-up appointments with the surgery team and I was telling them that I was still having these symptoms.
At the time I was told that it might improve or it could be that I still have part of the herniated disc in my spinal column.
They waited a couple months but because I wasn't really improving, they ordered a third MRI.
So I had another MRI last month And that showed that I still have a five millimeter herniation.
So when all of this started, it was at six millimeters.
And after a year, more than a year, it's still a five millimeter herniation.
So I feel like I've gone through all of this and not that much has improved.
I can say my symptoms are better.
I can walk more.
I can sit in a chair.
I am able to do more things, but I still have the pain.
I still have the numbness and I still can't do everything that I used to do.
If I am too active, it really starts hurting.
So I still really can't walk for more than 15 minutes at a time or stand for much longer than that, because of the pain and because of the weakness in my leg.
And I'm also still on restrictions.
So restrictions are when your physician tells you that there are certain things that you cannot do.
For me.
I am on restrictions for bending, so I'm not supposed to bend because that can put pressure and make the injury worse.
I'm also not supposed to lift anything heavy, because you do use your back when you lift things that are heavy.
For me, I am not supposed to lift anything that's over five pounds, which is about 2.2 kilograms.
I know that's not heavy at all.
It's very light, but those are the restrictions that I have had and I still have.
So I still am not able to do everything that I want to do or that I used to be able to do in the past.
If those restrictions are removed, that means that you are cleared by your physician.
So you will hear this term cleared, that you're cleared to do things.
That just means that the physician says it's okay that nothing's going to be damaged or hurt by you doing whatever that activity is.
I am not cleared.
I am not cleared to exercise.
I am not cleared to lift heavy things because I still have the restrictions.
And that leads me to what my plans are for the future.
I had another appointment with the surgeon and he recommended that I redo the surgery that I had in May, that I get the same surgery again.
And hopefully this time they are able to remove all of the herniation and hopefully that will fix everything.
So I am recording this in October, at the end of October.
When this episode comes out, I will have already had surgery.
So hopefully it went well.
And hopefully the next time I talk about this, everything will be good and I will be on the path to recovery.
But For right now that is the plan that I do get surgery in a couple of days to hopefully fix this issue.
If that does not work, I'm going to have to get a fusion surgery.
A fusion is a more invasive surgery.
So invasive means that it is a bigger operation.
It's more damaging.
It takes longer to recover from.
I do not want that.
I am hoping that I do not get a fusion surgery.
I have been told by multiple doctors during this whole injury process that you do not want to get that surgery unless you absolutely need it, because it can cause more issues.
You might have to keep going back for surgeries in the future.
So everyone that I have talked to has recommended that I try to avoid that.
And hopefully this surgery, the one that is less invasive, actually fixes the issue and that'll finally be the end of this injury.
So I'm really hopeful.
I am also a little bit nervous.
So nervous is when you feel a little bit anxious, a little bit worried, maybe a little bit scared.
I do feel a little bit nervous.
So not very nervous, but a little bit.
I think it's normal to have a little bit of anxiety when you have a surgery coming up.
And I am a little bit anxious, but I'm hopeful.
I'm hopeful that this will work and that I'll finally be able to return to my normal life and that I will finally be done with this pain that has been a part of my life since June of 2024.
So it has been over a year and every single day, my leg hurts, every single day my back hurts and I am just ready to get back to my normal life.
Get back to being active, which means being able to walk around exercise, do things that you want to do with your life.
I have not been active since this injury, so I'm hoping that I will be able to get back to being active and that the surgery will work.
Now that I have agreed to do another surgery, I also had to meet with the.
So when you have a surgery that is called an operation, before your surgery you have a pre-op appointment, which is where they go over your medications.
They tell you the instructions for what you need to do leading up to the surgery, what medications you need to stop taking, what you need to do the weeks or days before the surgery.
And you also have to sign consent forms.
Consent means to agree to something.
So if you sign a consent form, that means you are agreeing to have the surgery.
That's what I did at my pre-op appointment.
They went over the list of instructions again.
I have already done the surgery once.
I just had it in May, so I was pretty familiar with what the instructions were.
But I did have to sign that consent form again saying that I would agree to the surgery and that I agree to the anesthesia.
Anesthesia is the medication that they give you so that you fall asleep during surgery.
So you're not awake during the surgery.
And that's another thing that you have to consent to, that you agree to be put under anesthesia.
So we usually use that phrasal verb put under when we talk about getting anesthesia.
So if you know someone who is getting surgery, you might hear them say that they're going to be put under
That means that they're going to get anesthesia.
They're going to be asleep during their surgery.
The official name for that is called general anesthesia.
That is when you are given the medication and you fall asleep.
So you are not awake.
You are not conscious during the operation.
That is different from local anesthesia.
Local anesthesia is when you are just given a numbing medication.
Like I said with the dentist, if you have to get some dental work and they're going to work on your teeth, they might numb the area.
So you don't feel it, but you're not actually asleep.
You're awake for the procedure.
Maybe that's a bad thing.
I don't know.
Maybe you're afraid of the dentist.
But that is called local anesthesia.
When the area is just numbed, compared to general anesthesia where you are put to sleep during the operation.
Another thing that I had to do was I had to pick up pain medication from the pharmacy.
This was the prescription that the surgeon wrote for me to take after the surgery, because it will be painful for that first week.
I don't remember if I've talked about that on this podcast, but the first seven days after my last surgery were very, very painful.
Now that might be because Some of the disc was still herniated.
It might be because they didn't remove everything.
That might be the reason why it was so painful.
But for me, it was extremely painful.
I had a really difficult time just standing up and walking.
It was very, very painful to go even three or four meters.
And I'm hoping that this time will be less painful.
When people describe pain, or if you go to a doctor's office and you are asked about what kind of pain you're in, there are certain words that people will use to describe what they are feeling.
For example, for me, I have shooting pain.
Shooting pain means that it feels like it's going from one area of your body to another area of your body relatively quickly.
Like it is being shot like a bow and arrow. how the arrow gets shot from one location to another.
That is what happens with me.
I have pain in my lower back because that's where the herniation is.
But that pain then travels from my back to the bottom of my foot.
So I have pain that goes from my back through my leg all the way to the bottom of my foot.
That is a shooting pain.
Thankfully, that pain has lessened since the first surgery.
Before the first surgery, that pain was very intense. which means that it was very strong.
I felt that pain a lot.
Right now it is not as intense.
I still feel it, but that pain is not as strong.
It's not as intense as it was in the past.
That pain before the surgery was also kind of a sharp pain and it felt almost electrical.
So you will hear people talk about an electric feeling, a feeling like they're being shocked.
And that usually comes with nerve pain.
So if you have some type of nerve damage or a nerve injury, you might have this type of pain where it feels almost like you're being electrocuted, like you're being shocked from some electricity source.
I had that shocking type of pain last year and at the beginning of this year because that herniation was just so big and it was putting so much pressure on my nerve that it was causing that pain electrical type of pain.
The recovery process will be probably about another three months after I have the surgery.
So it will take a little bit of time to heal from the surgery and to make sure that everything is going according to plan.
So of what you want.
So hopefully my surgery goes according to plan, the surgery goes well and the recovery process goes according to plan.
Hopefully I have a better recovery than I did after this first surgery and the issue will be fixed and I won't have this problem again in the future.
Because of the recovery process, I do have to take time off from work, and Take time off means that I am not working.
I will not be working for a couple of months after my surgery.
So I have to take time off from work, which means I am not going to work.
I won't be doing my normal job that I normally do, which is teaching here in Southern California.
So I'm going to be taking time off from work.
I'm going to be recovering and hopefully everything goes according to plan.
And that leads me to the podcast.
I have recorded and edited and scheduled some episodes to come out.
So there will be at least a few more episodes of the podcast.
There should not be an interruption for the next couple of weeks.
However, if my recovery does not go according to plan, if I do have some complications after the surgery, I might miss some episodes.
Like I said, right now Everything is scheduled and there will be a few more episodes that will come out while I am recovering or immediately right after the surgery.
I have scheduled things in advance, but I don't know.
I haven't had surgery yet and I don't know how I'm going to be affected.
So there might be some misweeks.
Hopefully I'm going to be able to continue to record the podcast and edit it and put out new episodes.
But I just want to let you know I'm going to try my best but I might miss a few episodes just because there's going to be a lot of things going on and I don't know how I'm going to heal after this second surgery.
So I hope you don't mind.
And I just want to thank you for listening.
If you have listened all the way here through this episode.
Thank you for being part of this podcast community.
Thank you for listening to the episodes and following the show.
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Until then, keep learning English.
