By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©

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A Little Heads-Up About July

Next month, you will notice I won’t be posting daily. Don’t worry—some content will still show up, thanks to the magic of pre-scheduled posts. The reason for the slowdown? I’m finally getting a long-overdue back surgery.

It’s not a procedure I’m exactly excited about. There’s a good chance it’ll knock me off my usual rhythm for a while. That is, of course, if everything goes according to plan. But, there are plenty of ways it not happening:

• I can experience a sudden, miraculous recovery and cancel the whole thing.
• My insurance will decide it’s a luxury item and deny the claim.
• The orderly will wheel me into the wrong operating room.
• The doctor disappears right before showtime.
• Or, I will be the one who disappears—just as the doctor walks in, ready to go.
• Or, the operating table goes missing on the day of the surgery.

My hope is that the surgery will go as planned. If so it will ease the constant, gnawing pain I feel. It affects me whether I’m walking, sitting, standing, or trying to sleep. The sharp, stabbing, burning sensations mostly travel down my left leg. Though, they sometimes jump to the right when they get bored. They’ve also been known to zap my arms and hands. This happens especially in the middle of the night. It leaves a tingling, numbing wake.

I still manage to write here and there. I try to sound semi-coherent. I cook the occasional meal. I do my best to avoid going completely coo-coo. This journey has been a slow burn, building over more than fifteen years of other health concerns.

Sometimes, I see people out in the world. They are screaming into the void. I think, Wow, what must it be like to be them? But then I look around at my home, my dog, and my better half. I realize they’re probably looking at me thinking the exact same thing.

Until then, I’ll keep doing what I do—telling stories, filing reports, and generally pretending everything is completely under control. I’ll keep you posted on the surgery prep as it unfolds. Yes, I’m still obsessively checking my doctors’ reviews on Healthgrades.com. So far, there are no red flags. There are just a few mildly worrying Yelp comments about cold hands and questionable playlist choices in the OR.