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.