It's Monday morning. Outside the bent slats of my office blinds (they came with the apartment), I have a ground floor view of S-- Street—cars parked curbside, a wrought iron fence capped with pointy iron maple leafs that stakes off the small rectangle area at the front of the house, blue and green emptied garbage cans at the curb, and the brownstones across the street—not the fancy kind, but the flat-fronted ones with concrete steps and average-sized windows. The gray one across the street has a white gate and a statue of a Catholic saint wearing orange robes in the corner of the front yard. A typical, working class street in Brooklyn, except this morning it's a little whiter. The hood and windshield of the Jeep parked out front has a sheen of frost, and the sidewalks are white, at least on my side of the street, which is still in shade. A dusting of snow that stayed, and it feels so normal to look out on a wintery scene in January, for my feet to feel a little cold as I write, to consider soup for lunch, and keep my sweater on indoors. It's about time.
All this is to also say I'm sitting in my office today looking out the window, more specifically sitting in my office chair, and most specifically, sitting. This is somewhat of an accomplishment after four weeks of struggling with a severely herniated disc in my lumbar spine, and somewhat in defiance of my condition, not much improved since the last post. I'm still walking slowly and gingerly with a forward lean, and a little as possible. I've learned to sleep on my side and back with pillows propping my legs to take weight off my spine. Daily activities are limited to work or doctor's appointments and by the evening, I can't wait to lay down in my spot on the living room floor—a small square of blanket at the foot of the couch, head resting on pillows against the couch legs, a clear view of the television, and phone, remotes, laptop and a glass of water within easy reach—and not move.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about my back again, but four weeks of this has sunken me into a mild and persistent depression. My back has consumed me. I tried to watch "Walk the Line" on Friday night, but the pictures in the DVD menu looked too positive, June and Johnnie's love too sweet and not at all tragic. I watched a Frontline documentary on Rwanda instead, which was comforting in that it allowed me to cry freely at something actually worth crying about. I felt like I could watch it again and again, and all the documentary extras on PBS.org.
I had seen an orthopedic surgeon earlier that morning. Dr. Goldstein was friendly and matter-of-fact, and his hair was dark and molded to his head and difficult to look at. He told me I had a large herniation pressing on a nerve and that surgery was an option at this point, and so was waiting. He illuminated my MRIs on a lightbox on the wall and circled two areas with a red wax pencil—the herniation and the squished nerve. The herniation looked like a droplet of water being squeezed out of the bone; the squished nerve was a black shady area intersecting with the bright white area of my spinal cord. It might have looked more exciting in color.
On the floor of the examination room was a life-sized plastic model of a spine on a metal hanger. On one of the bones was a pink gummy growth. When he explained the surgery, he said it would be like taking a pair of tweezers and plucking off that little pink growth, and he reached toward the pink growth and mimed the pluck with two fingers. I'd walk out of surgery the same day and would be back to work within three days. Oh, sweet relief! I was ready to schedule it right then and there. I had a trip to London and Paris planned for mid-February, and surgery seemed like the solution for me to be able to go on the trip standing upright.
I could have it as soon as next week? "Yes," he said, and added, "New Yorkers like quick fixes." He flashed a smile and checked the pen in the pocket of his lab coat. I scheduled a follow-up, pocketed the business card I needed should I want to schedule surgery and read the pamphlet on treatment options and got on the subway in the wrong direction.
Something about the New Yorker's wanting a quick fix comment didn't sit right with me. Did I just want a quick fix? Yes, I did. Was I just another impatient New Yorker when I had hoped I was more of a rare stoic sufferer? I hadn't thought so until I was standing (leaning) in his examination room watching him pretend pluck the gummy matter from the model spine.
Friends and relatives quickly talked me down from surgery. I decided to give it another two weeks. I could wait two weeks. If I had to forego the London/Paris trip, so be it. The surgeon had also said I did not need to restrict activity, but should be doing anything I could tolerate, unlike my chiropractor who told me to lay low. By Saturday morning, I had mapped out a plan for the next two weeks. If I was going to go down for surgery, I was going to go down fighting, and not depressed and confined to that spot on my rug.
On Saturday morning, I had my boyfriend pump up the deflated tires on my bike and set up my indoor trainer, and I got on my bike. I was seated and without pain. I could pedal without pain. For the first time in four weeks, I felt like a normal person, and I rode the bike for forty minutes, thrilled as my heart rate went up and my shoulders grew slick with sweat. Hallelujah! Getting off the bike, I felt pretty much the same as getting on. No harm done so far. On Sunday morning, I rode again, and though my pain and situation off the bike had changed little, I felt more positive and determined than I had in weeks. I had a plan:
1) Ride bike every day. Get the blood flowing and speed the healing. And if it doesn't help, at least it keeps me feeling positive.
2) Ice, ice, ice. Freeze off the gummy herniation.
3) Stop doing things that cause me pain, like walking and standing. Every site about herniated discs tells you to stand and walk as much as possible, but that is the most uncomfortable thing I can do and why would I do that?
4) Do more things that don't cause me pain, like sitting. Every site will tell you not to sit, but sitting is comfortable and allows me to write and go to dinner with friends.
I'm also considering making an appointment with a very expensive osteopath who does not accept my insurance—a guy several people have separately recommended to me as a miracle worker. Though I also need to buy a refurbished iPod (the logic board went on my other one), and with my new determined attitude to heal myself, it's actually hard to choose.
