Pain

by Ashley filed under Life

12.23.201512.22.2015

It’s funny how life throws you a curve ball just when you convinced yourself that you might make it to the league’s home run derby. The last few weeks had been so productive; so much checked off our to-do list… both bathroom renovations complete, closet doors and front door renovations too, along with piles donated and listed for sale (the biggest being the sale of our 68′ Jeep Wagoneer which was bitter sweet but more sweet), furniture moved around, closets cleaned out… what I’m saying is that you’d think it were spring around here.

And then it hit me like an old ex that shows up unexpected at your front door. I’m talking about pain. In my neck, to be exact.

It’s been an on and off part of my life since my back surgery, though more recently stemming from a car accident I was involved in in March that resulted in three cars all being completely totaled on the freeway.

I’ve had a few hiccups here and there, with most weeks built around physical therapy appointments… but the pain I’m experiencing this week is less like a hiccup and more like a tidal wave; meaning that I have been unable to do anything. And when you’re unable to do anything, you’re suddenly reminded of everything you’d like to be doing and, dammit, need to be doing.

Fantasies of adventures with the boys over their break from school have been haunting my thoughts. As have the completion of what’s left on that ever-lengthy to-do-around-the-home list. I have nothing but time, with only one photo session scheduled before the New Year as well as one shift left in the hospital, but am by no means able to turn this time I have into anything productive. It’s frustrating to say the least.

And yet each time I’m in one of these dire states, I’m reminded how fortunate I am to be healthy… I spend my time in bed trying to relax with a household below me that sounds as if it’s about to unravel at the seams without me. A baby kicking away in my belly, making me thankful that I have time to heal before the physicality of an impending natural birth that causes me to giggle at my current state of pain and discomfort.

With all the heartache that has taken place as of late – both in Paris and San Bernardino – my piddly pain in my neck is simply a drop of water in the ocean. Nevertheless perhaps it’s the reminder I needed – and maybe we all need – that the holidays ought not to be about gift giving but instead about counting the many blessings already present in our lives.

Wishing everyone a festive week, filled with laughter and happiness, and thanks.

The hardest year of my life…

by Ashley filed under Ashley, Life, Motherhood

10.10.2014

It’s hard to say that – that this has been the hardest year of my life – because embedded in the difficulties there have been so many blessings. I mean, it’s hard to complain about having most of my spine fused when it was something I signed up to do; meaning I didn’t have an accident and wake up in a post-op bed at the hospital with something fixed that was never broken. Rather, I drove to the hospital with a severely curved spine and walked (::wheeled::) out with a straight spine, and some metal. Meaning, I got something “better” than what I had, even if there was a price to pay.

And boy was there a price to pay.

There was so much I felt in those early days; things I wanted to hold on to and never forget that, as time has passed, I’ve let go of and – begrudgingly – forgotten. Emotions surrounding what it would be like to be handicapped, forever; to watch your family move around you and to be present but not a part of what they’re doing. We take these vows of “in sickness and in health” but we never really know what sickness could entail. To be honest, I don’t know if we could have made it through if what was temporary was actually permanent. I’d like to think so, but you never know. It was hard to watch Willy struggle to do it all: work from home, care for the kids, care for me, and deal with my pain and health in conjunction with his own battles with health anxiety.

And then I gave him the scare of his life when I came down with a stomach virus and completely passed out and collapsed in the middle of the night. If his health anxiety wasn’t bad enough before, I’m sure I put it over the edge. When I came to he was on the phone with 911 and not long after that I was in the hospital, again.

A few weeks before that hospital visit, I had the worst neck pain I’ve ever had in my life. You can take the word “neck” out of that sentence entirely as it’s fair to simply say I had the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life. It just happened to be in my neck. Even to this day, I get a soreness that’s reminiscent and I get anxious just thinking about how bad it could be. I’ve birthed two very large babies under less-than-ideal circumstances with no medication. I’ve also, as you know, had thirteen levels of my spine fused and woke up with blood pressure in the 70’s, which meant I was not allowed to have pain medication for fear it would drop my blood pressure even more. I had a few blood transfusions following that. And even with all of that – the crazy births and the crazy surgery – I can say, with one hundred percent certainty, that nothing has hurt as bad (and for as long) as that pain in my neck.

Then we moved. And I can see now, in hindsight, why my parents – and probably others too – thought we were crazy. Not that it wasn’t the best decision, because it was, but moving is hard. Moving with two small kids is even harder. And moving at a time when you’re not able to lift anything or bend is just damn silly. But, we did it. And, like my spine, we came out on top because of it. We love our new location, we love our new home, and all-in-all, it was worth the trade.

But that’s not to say it went smoothly. Our hearts were shattered the morning we lost Sarah. I still cry about losing her. I’m choked up now just reminiscing about her life and it’s tragic ending. It pains me more to think that people lose children. It all just makes me sad. Sure, we have Jimmie and we love Jimmie, but Sarah holds real-estate on our hearts that is hers and hers alone. Losing her on the last day in our old house made moving all the much harder and more painful. I couldn’t help glancing back in the rear view mirror and thinking that at the very spot her life ended, our new one was just beginning. And doing it without her with us has been hard. Man, the lump in my throat is painful right now. It doesn’t help that today is her birthday…

Recovery from the surgery has had it’s varying degrees of highs and lows; days go by where I feel more-or-less normal only to come crashing down with soreness and pain reminiscent of what once was. What I can say is that through the course of the year, the highs get higher as do the lows, if that makes sense. I’m out of the woods, albeit a few days here and there that require more rest and ice and advil than I’d like.

And so, it’s been a year. According to the PDF my surgeon gave me in the beginning, I’m approved to do yoga now. It also says I can do gymnastics after one year which, as a previous competitive gymnast, I find funny given the fact that my back does not bend (nor will it ever bend) so doing something like a handstand (which I used to do around the house all the time) would actually require some sort of push off my legs to land on my hands since I cannot fathom getting my hands on the floor in front of me at the same time my foot is on the floor. I’ve succumbed to the fact I will never tumble again, which is a little heart breaking because it was something I’d still do here and there at local gyms whenever I had the chance. I’m also allowed to go bowling now. Yes, I’ve had to take the whole year off bowling. Who knew. Other things I’ve been cleared to do: basketball, baseball, roller coasters, roller skating, rowing, and ::cough cough:: pregnancy (you hear that, Willy?). And two things I’ll never be cleared to do: sky diving and motorcycle riding. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve been sky diving twice in the past and have no interest in riding a motorcycle after my gymnastic coach passed away riding one. So that’s that.

My surgery has been more of a physical change, it’s been an identity change. I’ve always been the girl that could swing a bat and throw a ball; hell, I’d kick ass in pull-up contests and could beat many of my guy friends in push-up contests. My body today is not the body I knew before. I’ve had to adapt. I have yet to accept as I’m still working toward what once was. Most weeks you’ll find me at Physical Therapy three days a week, where I keep to an ever-evolving strength program intermixed with some massage so long as the people working there aren’t feeling lazy — that’s the price you pay, I suppose, when you’re a “regular”. I think they have a hard time fathoming why what they’ve been doing hasn’t made me completely better yet. I think I have a better vision of the length of the road than they do. I also think they are cool with me simple being able to do everyday things while – for me – recovery is much more than that (I want to be as close to the person I was before my surgery as possible). And that’s been frustrating, to say the least.

And there are other things – physically – that still bother me. I have absolutely no sensation in my mid to upper back. I have two scars – one from a heating pad that burned me when the cover came off (I couldn’t feel a thing – it took Willy to point out the large blister on my back) and another one from an ice burn (also couldn’t feel a thing). I can feel pressure in the area, but no sensation. The muscles there feel extraordinarily odd, so odd that I don’t even know how to describe it except to say that it doesn’t feel like they fire correctly. My low back gets tired from overuse and I can feel myself walking around hunched over, trying to fight folding over into the fetal position out of fatigue. I get numbness, from time to time, on my left side that creeps around to the front of my rib cage and really just causes me to think about my back more than I’d like. It’s kinda like when your heart skips a beat and then you become super cognisant of every beat your heart is taking. When my back is sore or I have a knot in my neck or my body is fatigued, it consumes my thoughts. And then there are days that I don’t really even think about my back. I like those days.

You know that feeling of returning to work after being off for maternity leave? (And I hope you do. And if you’re in the UK – I’m jealous of your postpartum time off). Anyway, take that reluctance and nervousness and overwhelming feeling of anxiety mixed with fear of change and multiply it. I was not cleared by my surgeon until September to return to work, nearly 11 months after my surgery. His main concern was my ability to perform CPR, which fortunately has yet to happen but is obviously a must have skill in the field of nursing. I was worried about other things: moving equipment, caring for adults when caring for little kids is hard, transferring patients, moving patients, being on my feet for 12 hours, and all that jazz. It’s been an overwhelming process that’s only complicated by my drive to do a thousand other things like getting my photography business to where I want it and a hundred other things I don’t even want to list for fear I’ll start dwelling on the whole process all over again. What it comes down to is this: it will be hard to return to work after so much time off. It will also be hard to get used to a new unit, as I will not be on the same unit I was on before. And I don’t even want to talk about the commute because getting up at 4am and getting home after 9pm is not going to be easy. But sometimes you just gotta suck it up and feel grateful for having a job to return to.

Hoping the hiccups in the months to follow are few and the celebrations many. Cheers, to getting through the hardest year of my life. And special thanks to all my loving friends and family that made so many sacrifices on our behalf and for the handful of you that have been so kind to share your similar stories of recovery with me; the love and support have helped us more than any of you know.

You can read other posts about my surgery here and here.

Recovery & The Space Between

by Ashley filed under Ashley, Family, Motherhood

12.12.2013

A few weeks ago, Willy put Van down for a nap and took Hooper with him to go to the grocery store. As he walked out the door, I recall how he begged and pleated with me not to pick Van up if he wakes up early from his nap. Internally, I rolled my eyes, and reminded him that I have to use a straw to drink out of a cup because physically tilting the cup up is too painful.

And that’s how life had been in those first few weeks.

I spent the better part of my days in bed, turning from left to right every couple of hours when the pressure on my bony hip grew to be too relentless. I secretly celebrated two days after I got released from the hospital when I was able to turn and reconfigure the pillows entirely on my own. Between the pain and the twisting/bending/lifting restrictions, it wasn’t easy. But these days, I’m trying to celebrate the small things.

If I didn’t celebrate the small things, I’d fall into a depression. I can guarantee this to be true because there have been entire days where I couldn’t stop crying, where I practically drowned in the tears of a self-pity party. Hooper caught me in one of these moments and was so genuinely concerned, so fearful, and I couldn’t suck it up; the depression weakened me to the point where I couldn’t even fake strength in the face of my own children. That’s not a testament to my weakness, but rather to the depression’s strength.

I have to remind myself often that I had a major surgery and I have to constantly cut my body some slack for taking the time it needs to repair itself. Recovery has been a trying experience.

Willy and I blew up at each other the other day. We both were more or less ignorant about what to emotionally expect in the face of recovery. What ensued was a long drive and a discussion on perspective. I have to remind myself on a regular basis that I elected to have the surgery I did. Sure, surgeon after surgeon told me it was necessary but ultimately it was me who said when. At the moment, we’re struggling with the space between; trying desperately to deal with pain and limitations and a ridiculously chaotic household in light of the fact that what is our reality today will not be our reality a few months from now. Countless friends and family members have stepped in to help and what I’m realizing is that more than food on the table or entertainment for our boys, we need perspective and patience; A reminder that what we’re going through is indeed temporary. The truth is that all of us – you and me – are in a state of transition.

Everything is temporary.

I reminded myself of this notion when I gave birth to Van and felt like a hungover college student (due to the sleepless nights, of course) for the first three months of his life. And now, more than ever, words have never rung truer. The space between is a road we all must travel, but the further we travel, the more the gap closes. And the more the gap closes, the more you realize it was all temporary anyway.

The Surgery Story

by Ashley filed under Ashley

12.11.2013

I was baffled when the man behind the counter said “two hundred”. And yet, as I was shuffled from one waiting room full of people to the next waiting room full of people, it dawned on me that they have this surgery business down to the same way as a farmer herding his cattle. It didn’t feel real until I made it to the final room and Willy was asked to wait for me somewhere else. At that point, I followed a young man who quickly led me to a gurney and encouraged me to transform from street walker to patient as he reminded me, like us medical personal always do, “gown opens to the back”. And just like that, I looked just like the person next to me, who wore the same hospital gown and sat anxiously awaiting her fate on a different gurney.

The doctor came over to talk to her and pulled the curtain to give a false sense of privacy. I overheard that she was about to undergo a crainiotomy for some sort of leison pressing on an optical nerve. I used her crainiotomy to lessen the fears I had about my own spinal surgery. I mean, she was having brain surgery. All I could imagine were those eggs sizzling on a frying pan from those commercials in the 90’s that reminded us what our brains were like on drugs. Not that there was any correlation. But then I heard her doctor say, “Not to worry, crainiotomys are actually quite simple procedures and the pain post operatively is minimal… nothing compared to what the spinal patients have to go through”.

Just the words I needed to hear.

And then it was my turn.

Suddenly my little guerny was surrounded with people. A pre-op nurse struggled to chime in and collect my medical history, of which there was none. The anesthesiologist had a student with him. I let her try to place my IV. She missed twice before the anesthesiologist stepped in and insisted on doing it himself. I saw my surgeon at the end of the gurney talking to Willy. He asked if I was ready, I gave him a nod, not really knowing if I was ready or not; “As ready as I imagine I’ll ever be” would have been a more honest response.

Someone asked if I’d like something put through my IV line to “calm down”. I wasn’t noticeably anxious, but I gladly accepted. They pushed some versed through my IV line and as they started moving the gurney down the hall, my mind became a bit cloudy and I surrendered. I glanced around the operating room and then the lights went out; not literally, but figuratively.

My surgery was supposed to take 4 to 6 hours. Willy waited, fighting his own anxieties, with my dad in a waiting room. It took 8 hours.

When I came to, I was in pain. A lot of pain. There were a lot of people around me again and I quickly realized I was back to where I started only with a lot of pain and surrounded by people who were no longer strangers to my body. My blood pressure was low and I was given some extra fluid through my IV line, which had been switched to a central line in the jugular vein in my neck. I also had an arterial line in my left wrist, two drains coming out from my back, a foley catheter to drain my bladder, and pumps on my legs to prevent blood clots.

I spent two days in the ICU. I was told I lost a total of 2L of blood (the average woman has about 4L of blood) and I was given 4 units of blood as a result. My blood pressure remained in the 70-80’s (120 is normal) and I was given several bags of added fluid.

I looked like a balloon. My eyes were so swollen I couldn’t open them. I couldn’t even tell you what that ICU room looked like. In fact, my ICU nurse came to visit me days later and I recognized him only by his voice. My stomach was incredibly distended and painful and I had horrible pitting edema on both of my lower extremities.

It felt like forever before they were able to give me something for my pain (pain medication causes your blood pressure to lower, so they couldn’t give me anything until my blood pressure was under control). When they did, I got a button and was told to press it whenever I needed something for pain. Then I was nauseous.

Two days later I was transferred to the less-acute spine unit.

Before my surgery, I had anticipated bringing my lap top to the hospital to write and surf the web and pass the time. I remember thinking immediately how silly that was. I was in no condition to even sit up in bed, let alone put coherent thoughts together. It’s been nearly two months and only now am I able to sit down for any length of time to put write my thoughts down and it has taken several sessions to finish this post.

I stayed on the spine unit for another 5 days before being transferred to another hospital for an inpatient rehab program. I stayed there for an additional 5 days before finally coming home.

It’s been a long, trying, road. Recovery is not easy. A few people have called me brave, which makes me laugh. I’ve cried and cursed a lot. I’ve felt weak and frail and defeated. I’ve had episodes of depression and, even worse, episodes of withdrawal when I tried to stop taking my pain medication.

I’m not even close to the end of the road. Technically speaking, it takes the spine an entire year to fuse. But I do rest easier knowing the worst is behind me. There are plateaus that are sure to come that bring with them frustration and doubt, but the worst is behind me. The worst is behind me, the worst is behind me, the worst is behind me. Like a ruthless teenager writing standards on the chalkboard in high school, I need to say it repeatedly to bang it into my darn head. Really though, the worst IS behind me. Right?

The details: On October 10th I had 13 levels of my spine fused due to curvature from scoliosis (thoracic 62 degrees, lumbar 48 degrees). Because my curve was progressive in nature, surgery was required. My curvature did not cause me pain or limitations. I was told that they had to fracture each vertebrae on both sides for a total of 26 fractures so that the 27 screws and 2 rods could be placed. I gained an inch and a half in height and lost a chunk of weight due to the pain medication I was on. I have to wear my back brace for a few more weeks. Recovery takes about 6 months. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comment section below.

Surgery & Nesting

by Ashley filed under Ashley, Motherhood

10.09.2013

Planning a major surgery reminds me a lot of planning for another child. They are the same in that I have this impending feeling of doom looming over me; that feeling that things are about the change in a major way first for the bad and then for the good.

Just like those final weeks of pregnancy, my surgery has been consuming my everyday thoughts. The sense of uncertainty is the same; is everything going to be okay, how will the kids handle not having me like they’re used to, how will my family deal with caring for my household, how will I feel handing over my household… The sense of wonder is the same; how will I feel, how will I look, how will I recover…

And, I’m nesting. It’s crazy. I suddenly feel this mad rush to get everything in order. I have multiple to-do lists; one of them even has “clean out email inbox” on it. You know you’re in trouble when cleaning up your online mess makes the list… I mean no one even sees that mess. Other things I want to do: clean out the kids drawers (I can just see someone else dressing my kids in clothes that are too small because ‘they were in the drawer’… and God forbid they be put in clothes that are too small), stock up on things like paper towels (because God forbid we run out), organize my closet, etc, etc. I’m becoming a raging lunatic, I tell ya.

It dawned on me that I’m scared. And just in saying that out loud I get that choked up feeling in the back of my throat. My life is not only about me anymore and it’s scary to think of my family… my loving husband, my two perfect boys… all while I’m being put to sleep and a surgeon, with my life in his hands, cranks on my spine and reconfigures it using nuts and bolts. It’s terrifying.

The uncertainty, the wonder, the fear… it’s been consuming me. And like a light bulb, I realize now why I’ve been zooming all over the place as of late; I’m trying desperately to pass the time.

But the time has come. Ready or not.

Tomorrow will be the first of a few guest posts I have planned from some awesome friends

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that have been so kind as to fill in in my absence. I also have quite a bit of catching up to do… more bits + pieces for the last few months, portraits of the kiddos to share, our last trip to Palm Springs that I have yet to post, some Insta-meets, some photo sessions, a final post on breastfeeding, and a new travel series I want to start… I thought you would be hearing some crickets, but turns out I’m so behind that I’m ahead. Ha!

In any event, please keep me and my family in your thoughts this week. And thank you, always, for your love and support.

Surgery