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According to my surgeon, yesterday’s kyphoplasty went swimmingly well. I needed to be prepared for normal post-op recovery pain, but once I was through that my back would be in good shape.

Unfortunately, “normal post-op recovery pain” turned out to be hours of excruciating, mind-numbing agony. At one point I was on four separate pain killers and they still weren’t doing the job. I finally got a second dose of the most powerful one, and that made things barely tolerable—though at the medium-term expense of my stomach, I suspect.

But that was yesterday. Today I feel OK, and this morning I got out of bed and hobbled around the room without any significant pain So, success!

This is the last post that can fairly be called “housekeeping,” but not the end of the story. I’ll have more news later.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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