Effexor to the rescue (?)
It has come down to this:

1. The neuropathic pain is considerable, and often debilitating. All of the medicines that can have effect on neuropathic pain have a wide array of side effects. Nausea is the most common, but blocking or reducing sodium is also fairly common.

2. Marina's sodium is borderline low. Low sodium is really dangerous. There is no easy way to deal with this. Ingesting more sodium is not an answer

So this afternoon, at the office visit, Dr.Mikasian had a long consultation with Dr. Koo, the Doctor of Pharmacy who saw Marina in the hospital (along with Drs.Hu and Chu).

From his menu of options, Dr. Koo recommended Effexor, which, while commonly used for depression, has been found to have good effect on nerve pain, without reducing sodium. It does, however, cause nausea in about 1/3 of people, but this typically lasts "only" two weeks.

And so Marina will begin to wean herself away from the Norco, and onto the Effexor, starting this very day. Some of us will be very pleased when this changeover is complete in 2 or 3 weeks, because Norco is taken with food every four hours (hence meals at 1 and 5 am), while Effexor is a slow-release once-a-day thing.

And, once again, through this all, there is no problem whatsoever with the spine. Here is Marina standing next to Dr. Hu's computer, showing only the lower half of the spine. The upper half looks exactly like this--a mirror image, flipped over vertically.

Marina has posted her Xrays on the wall, and says she finds it rather eerie to think of all that "stuff" inside her.