Why I’m Here (in cyberspace, that is. Still working on the bigger ‘Why,’ obviously.)

or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation On My Back

Indulgent and vain as it seems, some background. If you care.

Not my neck. That bulge pressing into the spinal cord is much bigger on my MRI. Woe.

I have a severely herniated disc at c5-6 (in the neck), which had been causing nagging, on-and-off shoulder and bicep pain for a few months. The very day before it made itself known (quite loudly), I posted ‘bicipital tendonitis’ on facebook and got a little sympathy.

One not-so-fine morning I woke up with excruciating pain in said shoulder and arm, in a cold sweat and wanting to vomit. After yelling for my husband (which I don’t remember), my knees buckled and I hit the floor, which is when I realized this probably wasn’t tendonitis. Long story short, the errant disc, which normally cushions the vertebrae above and below it, is pressing on nerves that ‘feed’ the left arm and hand.

So I now have constant but usually manageable pain in my shoulder, arm and left side of neck and pins ‘n needles in the thumb and ‘pointer.’ (“How are you today, sir?” indeed.) I can’t stand or sit for more than a few minutes — sometimes a couple; if I’m lucky 15-20 — before I have to lay down. All the way down. Totally horizontal. As in Impossible to Drink Coffee Horizontal. I can’t cook, clean or wipe the 3-year-old’s butt. But I have all the time in the world to write. Your loss, maybe…

So, precisely one month into my lil’ “staycation” (don’t you hate those trendy made-up words?), I’m in limbo, having talked to one typically rushed but polite neurosurgeon whose prognosis I did not like one bit. Getting a second opinion soon, and in the meantime continuing physical therapy, epidural steroid shots (yeah, baby, straight into that disc; thank Shiva in all his forms I can’t see the needle), and last, but definitely not least, craniosacral/polarity/reiki therapy. The latter is amazing, eye-opening, paradigm-shattering and another ‘perk’ of this painful adventure. Maybe, just maybe, I can avoid surgery with these therapies. Oh, and drugs … vicodin, skelaxin, neurontin, oh my!

I’ve definitely made progress, no matter what evil brain surgeon lady thinks.

The physical therapist successfully put me in traction yesterday, yay! Also, I’m learning more than I wanted to know about our crazy healthcare system and am SO grateful that I have good insurance and a fairly manageable (we hope) condition. I’m craving asana (physical yoga) and can’t do proper pranayama (breath work) because it requires sitting upright like a fully functional being. But I’m learning heaps about meditation, I think, and the deeper aspects of the practice — the ones that will stick around when our aging bones refuse to let us arrange them in odd configurations.

If you have a similar experience and/or have recovered from a cervical fusion or disc replacement, by all means share!

At the risk of sounding trite, all Hairy and I want is to start some conversations about our own internal conversations, to provide a little corner of cyberspace satsang (community). Please join us and keep me from going supinely insane!

Namaste,
K