@darrenp Cheers! Painting is so enjoyable for me to express the beauty that I see.

As for your spine question, did the surgeon tell you why you would not be a surgical candidate? Sometimes they back out because they think they can't solve all your pain. You could get a different answer if you got another opinion. No surgeon wants to fail and have an unhappy patient writing negative online reviews, so they can pick and choose which patients they will help and usually, those are the cases that they expect to have better success rates. Insurance companies also record their statistics and rate surgeons, so they are careful with their reputations. An epidural can also be used to weed out patients they don't want to operate on. I had a lot of surgeons refuse to help me because they misunderstood my case and symptoms. I advocated for myself and finally came to Mayo where I was helped and had surgery that solved all the problems. Still, surgery is a big step and should not be taken lightly. There should be a clear need that surgery may be able to improve a condition.