I am looking for a procedure to replace my painful back with a fully functioning and pain-free new back.  For many years, I have really wanted one.  It stems from the time I fell on spring ice skiing down s slippery hill heading for some trees at the bottom.  I had just successfully let gravity pull me down an expert trail and missed frantic motions to have me turn left at the bottom.  Instead, I went straight ahead sailing out into space and was buried in deep snow at the bottom of a ravine. My luck is such, although buried in soft snow, a tree branch was about six inches from my eye. This was really lucky although a broken ski had me trying to reach base one leggedly.

Up to this point, my back had been functioning wonderfully.  I immediately put it to the test of going downhill on slippery spring ice. Downhill treks on cross-country skis are not recommended and I was a novice. However, it did not seem so hard despite the lack of ability to turn or quickly respond to emergencies.  My emergency soon appeared to be a copse of trees beyond my myopic sight at the bottom of this slippery slope.  I was really more used to muscle skiing on cross-country skis rather than trusting to gravity pulling downhill. Yet, I pushed off and started falling downward.  As I begin to rush along at an alarming speed, I found I could see the trees at the bottom.  Instead of dropping down, to sit on the skis that I later learned was what I should have done, I plopped down hard and painfully and cannot remember if part of my injuries were received by hitting the trees.  All I know is that I came out of this relatively short trip on hard ice banging my back so that from that time to this it goes out and does not allow me to walk without pain and suggests forcefully that I remain flat on my back in bed or, on severe occasions, on the floor.

In retrospect, there are many things I should have or could have done to minimize the damage I caused myself. I regret that I missed skiing Pinkham’s Notch, a famous trail that called for youth I no longer have. There are a few things in life where we can say, I know that it was there at that place and at that time when I had an accident that I remember each time my back goes out.

Today, I cannot walk for two blocks before my back hurts and my hips seize up.  I can ride a bike for ten or more miles before my butt goes numb but this is an annoyance.. It is not a crippling disability.

I would truly appreciate receiving a donation of a new pristine back.  I am sure that some discomfort will follow and I wonder if my donor will be happy with my back that he received in exchange.  The old rule will probably apply that you can live with what you know. Being gifted with a new back may be grafting a foreigner’s problems onto me and I probably will be most happy keeping my own bad back.