I took a hard fall in June of 2023. We were outside playing with the family dog and no sooner had I warned my son to be aware of the lead, then the dog zipped behind me, and clotheslined me at the ankles. I was on my ass mere moments later. I hopped up and marveled at the fact that nothing hurt. Whew. Lucked out. Except I didn’t actually luck out. Tricky little spine. A few weeks later I woke up with an awful aching in my hips and by evening I was having the first pangs of nerve pain. This went on for several months before I was finally able to get an MRI which showed a lot of problems in my lumbar spine, including retrolisthesis, (where the vertebrae stack kind of shifted back instead of directly atop one another,) bulging discs, and annular tears, resulting in nerve compression on my (you guessed it - or maybe you didn’t, who am I to say) sciatic nerve. And so, this is a thing I’ve been caring for and dealing with for about a year and a half. Sometimes it hurts more, sometimes it hurts less, and every rare once in a while it doesn’t hurt at all. But two weeks ago, it reared its terrible head in such a way that it took me down. I was in bed for a week. I could barely move, I couldn’t walk, and finding a comfortable position was impossible. The pain was excruciating and constant. I was miserable. Beyond miserable, I was broken. And this all went down the week of Thanksgiving, (or, what we now refer to as the longest week of the entire year) so all our plans - including making my pumpkin cheesecake - got thrown out the window. Didn’t matter, I could barely eat anyway. This week is a bit better, having received a prescription which calms down angry nerves. But I still can’t walk well, and standing up for too long results in a lot of lightning nerves and jumping muscles. I am better than I was, but not yet healed. It’s a long road. A lot like the grief journey. A step forward. A few steps back. Dance around the fire. Lay down and rest. Here’s a thing about me, I’m very much in tune with myself. I’m really great at listening to my body and what it needs, except when it doesn’t align with my schedule, and then I push myself to the edge. Goes a bit like this… You need to rest I will You need to rest I will, as soon as I finish xyz. You need to rest! I know. I will. Soon. NOW! And then it all came down. All my pain. All my grief. Everything I hold for me, and my son, and the people I love, and even strangers I will never know. I just can’t hold it all. Can’t hold it all together. Can’t even hold myself up. The body really does keep score of all the things. It’s all stored up in there like a big terrible mountain. I keep thinking I’m doing the work. The work of healing. The work of remembering. The dark, shadowy, nitty gritty, griefy, terrible work. And maybe I am. But there’s still so much to do.
Discussion about this post
No posts