well, never a dull moment. another epidural. no relief.
pain pain pain. keeping me awake all day, all night. feeling like a zombie, less than a person. my love wheeling me outside to get some sunshine when i could no longer walk. hard to reconcile this with who i always am - love to walk, love to workout, and now... nothing. chronic pain so severe i was sobbing (not really a crier) while going into my pain management doctor and telling him something has to change because i can't go on like this. and for the first time ever, through all my years of back pain, spasms, being 15 and doing PT, hanging out at the training room 9th period with ice and stim, non surgical, non surgical, non surgical - my doctor finally said, if you were my daughter, i'd tell you to go see a surgeon, this neurologist.

well then. so:
up to new york. for a hot date with a spine surgeon.
then back to dc. for a hot date with the neurologist.
both confirmed - surgery. discectomy. ASAP. fusion, maybe later, but not now.
so scary. but such relief - identical opinions made the decision easy. how soon can it get scheduled? 2 weeks.

i thought i would die before then. my uncle actually did die.

i opened a suitcase. put it in view of my bed. you can't die, you have a surgery date. we canceled our vacation to maine. i can't leave you here for 3 days before you go up to nyc, no, i am staying with you. we'll both leave on tuesday. thank. god. my love is the best. i didn't want to eat, nothing tasted good. my life was taking medicine 5x a day, being driven to appointments, going to spa world, trying not to cry every minute, telling my best friend she needed to come over, playing pokemon go to pass the time, trying to focus on any good thing or feeling, sitting on my bench in the sun with a protein shake. one day all i could do was eat chips, gnocchi with gorgonzola. feeling myself getting weaker and weaker and all that time with searing pain and no answers.

but then i could open a suitcase. there was a Plan.
a plan that was terrifying - no one wants to have surgery on their spine, to sit in a room and hear the word paralysis.

the disc herniated (over 2+ months, which, by the way, they said, is super painful. no shit, sherlock. but it explained the timing of everything) and that disc portion was pressing on my sciatic nerve. fun. times.
thank god for good doctors. and my parents. and my love. and the hospital for special surgery.

so now, no BLTs - bending, lifting, or twisting for six weeks. coming up on week four. post surgery was brutal. but every day, a little better, a little easier. and now, no more leg pain at all. it sometimes doesn't feel real. my leg will tingle for a few seconds and i wonder if it's back. i ice and i ice and i ice.

starting to feel like myself again. coming out of a trauma. so angry after, i wanted a vacation from my life in hell. why me? so painful and so cruel -- chronic pain. will i ever hurt again? probably. will i have to get a spinal fusion later? possibly, maybe. could my other disk herniate? yes, but we know what to do immediately, now.

but right now - every day i wake up without pain is a good one. no pain killers. not even tylenol. i just wanted to go for a five minute walk, i remember thinking. all i wanted was to move my legs and feel the air on my face and not have to ask for help putting on my clothes, my shoes.

shit. i turned thirty and had two surgeries in three months.
none of this feels right, these turns of phrase, it doesn't explain how bad it was, how much better it is. too long and not enough. maybe it always will be, never will be.

and now i have to get back to the business of living again, after this weird, strange time. it's like having ptsd, sort of, she said. yes. i am still angry on days like today when i have to call the insurance and can't get into my EOBs and am trying to figure out how much this will all cost, how to move forward, how to find new doctors and physical therapists and all the other bullshit. it's almost, almost worse than being sick - dealing with the insurance and all the details.

but i am starting to feel like myself again, and i am a fighter, i am relentless, i am determined.

what have i learned from this, from everything?
pain is the cruelest.
and.
i am stronger than i think i am, proven time and time and time again. and my support system that i've both been blessed with and also worked so hard to build helped save my life.

we are a random number.

we are lucky but we make our own luck.

we are always stronger than we think.


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