Interlude

Welp. It’s been a minute.

I’ve been dealing with chronic nerve pain since a car accident in 2017. It had been getting worse and worse in spite of medical care and physical therapy. It crippled me in late January following a cross-country plane flight. After trying every other thing possible, I finally decided to have surgery, which happened in late June. I had my spine fused from c3 – t2, which means where I once had seven vertebrae and their associated joints I now have metal rods and bone.

So… I have a stick for a neck, and the recovery is no joke, but the nerve pain and pressure is gone. I got back 2″ of height from having the compression in my neck relieved. I’m 3 weeks post-op, off the pain meds, only taking muscle relaxants to sleep and I expect to taper those off soon. I’m cleared to start PT.

I’ve been describing the change as like having been carrying around an invisible elephant on my shoulder who occasionally tap danced with knives on his feet, and then waking up to find it gone. Just– gone. It was that big and that horrible and it had grown slowly over years so that I didn’t know how bad it was until it wasn’t there any more.

It’s already hard to remember what it was like before. I’m as weak as a kitten and spending an hour at a time out of bed is something I can only do a couple times a day, but I feel so, so much better than before the surgery it’s not possible to describe or explain. I feel like I have a chance now to get my life back.

The door out of Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky
photo by Syne Mitchell 2024

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