Back in 2000, Mom had herniated discs in L3 and L4. After a lot of painful and not successful treatments (acupuncture, deep injections, you name it), she underwent arthroscopic surgery. A very small tube inserted through a very small incision on her right-side torso (right under the ribcage if I remember well), and through it they passed a micro camera with light, and some other tubings with drills and drains and such. She was AWAKE during the procedure, except for local anesthesia on the incision side, and some sort of tranquilizer, mostly to avoid muscular contraptions as we were told. She was watching everything through some monitors, and at some point the doctors asked her to keep telling when and how the pain in the discs side stated to fade away as they drilled and suctioned the disc?s content, until it reached a normal size. Then they applied some antibiotics through the tubing,stitched with a single stitch point, and covered it with a small, round band-aid. Since the intervention was made at a city at about 120 kilometers from home, she was requested to stay the night, although they told her Would you live in this city, you?d be already at home by now. On the next day, and after a quick check, she was on her way home in a bus. Nothing ever was needed after that, on that matter. She was even able to dance effortlessly on that New Year?s eve. Unfortunately, we lost her a couple years after, due to malpractice by the hands of some other physician, on a completely unrelated illness that overcame later (intestinal diverticles).
