This is What My Back Looks Like Inside
It has been a bit since my last post. I have had a rough couple of days and I am trying not to write this from a place filled with overwhelming pain. I am trying to stay positive in this space while still addressing the negative aspects of my experience. However, when I feel worse than normal I tend to see the world through grey-coloured glasses. That is, I find it extremely difficult to be positive, or even neutral, when I am in such a dark place both physically from the pain, and psychologically from lack of sleep. These are the days when I swear there is no end in sight, when I am afraid that this will be my life. However, it always seems to pass. I can only feel that sorry for myself for a short period. Mind you, however short the stints, they are becoming more frequent as my recovery remains stagnant. Anyways, I promise that very soon we will arrive at the point in the story where I am now and you will get to hear all about my fluctuating recovery and emotional turmoil. . . Hopefully leading me to one day conclude this story with me as a whole and passionate person, instead of the shell filled with pain that I feel I am now.
On to this post. . .
This post will bring me up to actually getting my spine fused, exactly one year and one week from my injury. . .
After making the decision to go for surgery, I stopped pushing in physio as it was obvious that I was not getting better with increased core strength, and instead I participated in a pre-hab program. Essentially I did the same exercises as before, but I didn’t push my work outs if it any of the movements hurt. I was back at work for one four-hour shift a week, and it was incredibly hard to go in and focus on managing a pharmacy with pain killers in my system and months of sleeping irregularly. But I did it because it helped to have some regularly scheduled obligation. I didn’t feel as useless as I did when I sat at home all day, most days. (Although being at work on meds presents its own set of challenges. . .) It helped to do anything, to do something. At this point I was feeling sorry for myself in that I felt useless and more like a burden than a pleasure to those I loved and wanted to be around.
Because I was always in pain I had isolated myself to avoid talking about how I felt, because I only ever felt bad, and how much everyone else was accomplishing, because I wasn’t accomplishing anything. It was a combination of the two that made me feel like I didn’t add anything to the lives around me and I felt pretty bad about myself, so eventually I was always avoiding contact.
My best friend gave birth in the middle of my injury and I was and am still so happy for her, I love her to pieces and I in love her little one just as much; I love hearing about little A’s accomplishments and E’s fascination with her growing process. However, as much as I tried to bury it, (I knew it was coming from that dark place inside, not me) there was also this part of me screaming ‘when can I start dreaming and planning!’ and ‘why me?’ (As I said, this is the time I felt the most sorry for myself. I had already been trying to recover from this injury for almost a year with very little progress and I now was faced with another year at least, and up to two or three years for a full recovery. It was scary and infuriating. I had fought so hard and gotten nowhere.) I feel like the worst friend in the world now, but I distanced myself from her just a bit. I hated that all I had was negative things to share, and all she had were glowing positive things. I was really happy for her, it was just hard to watch her be so happy and. . . sure of her future and place in life. I really didn’t realize what I had done until just this week when she called me for the first time since moving hours away at the beginning of April. I realized how much I missed her and how much I had been missing her for the last few months when she was here. I guess I didn’t make as much of an effort to see her as I could have, even with my pain before, maybe I should have went over more. Now I miss her horribly and would do just about anything to see her, but it is impossible. It will be impossible until I can at least ride in a car for prolonged periods. Anyways, Darling if you are reading this, I am sorry if you have missed me as much as I missed you. Tuesday at seven? You know who you are!
Okay, enough of that. I guess I just wanted to show just how much I had isolated myself. And perhaps I also wanted to offer an explanation to all the people I have not been as attentive to as I should have. Back to the three weeks between getting my date for surgery and actually going in for the procedure. . .
I went through every strong emotion I can name in the weeks after getting my surgery date. Part of me hoped I would wake up better someday, even though I knew it was impossible. Another part of me was looking forward to a solution, and yet another was as scared as I have ever been.
I was so nervous I actually had a couple of anxiety attacks, so I tried to keep myself busy. I still went to physio twice a week and for a massage once a week, I managed to clean the apartment with the help of my cousin (thank you!) and I also found and online forum that was extremely supportive and really helped me more than I can describe. (If you want some info or support for back injuries and problems I found this to be one of the best boards out there. Click here: http://www.healthboards.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=18 Also if you want a community of support for pretty much any condition you can think of http://www.healthboards.com is a great site.) But the dark hours of the night are long ones, and I hadn’t slept the through the whole night in almost a year. I tortured myself with all the what-if’s I could think of, sometimes crying myself into a restless and exhausted sleep. But at some point I relized I was living something of a waking nightmare. . . Being awake and in pain was worse than anything I could experience in my dreams. Eventually I started to think that the what-if’s and consequences might be worth the chance to be pain-free.
Not that I accepted it calmly. . . Quite the opposite in fact. While I tried to keep it together on the outside, inside I was wailing. I was so scared, anxious and a thousand other panicky emotions I can’t describe. Suffice to say, there were a lot of tears and blank stares on my part. I learned everything I could about my operation and recovery but no matter what I did, I wasn’t comfortable with the fact that I would wake up with metal in my back and only a forty percent chance of feeling the same or worse than before the surgery. I didn’t know how to feel or what to think, so for the most part I tried to bury it. When you do that though, your emotions tend to surface at inopportune times.
I remember being brought into the surgical suite and my eyes were streaming with tears, I was begging them to let me off the table, I tried to convince them it was all a huge mistake and I could handle the pain. . . I was freaking out and having a mild panic attack. When they went to lower the anesthesia mask I cried harder and a nurse took my hand. (I have no idea who she was or what she looked like because she already had her mask and scrubs on, but I would like to say thank you!) She squeezed it looking right at me and said, ‘it will be okay, we’ ll take care of you’. . . I believed her and that is really the last thing I remember. I was under for the scariest operation of my life.
In my next blog I will focus on waking up and the worst five days ever… My nightmares in the hospital.
As a side-note, I would like to give a shout out to Eve, Sarah, Emma, Amanda, Denine, Christine, and Aline. You know who you are, thanks for reading, friendship and being yourselves.
As always, thanks for reading! -S.
Finding Passion For Life: My Back Surgery Recovery Blog 