Desperate Avoidance

I was entering into a wellspring of panic in which I was willing to endure months of immobilization and excruciating pain in order to desperately hold onto the smallest shred of hope that I could continue to brutalize my body in the ways I'd been doing now for over a year. If I lost the ability to push myself in those ways I surely would return to my formerly fat self. I did not want to be that person at all costs. I took a short-term medical leave of absence from my job and met with several neurologists, sports medicine providers, orthopedic surgeons, physical therpists and rehab specialists,and general practitioners to manage my pain and attempt to decrease the herniation in my discs. I had multiple injections of cortisone, suffered through hours of physical therapy, and took oral steriods and narcotics for nearly 4 months in a row and was still barely able to walk from my futon to the bathroom in my apartment, let alone wipe myself after going to the bathroom.

Emotionally I was becoming as numb as my right leg. There are two occasions that I recall connecting to my overwhelming fear and sadness. One of them was the day when I ended up watching an Oprah rerun of my last appearance on the show as I was bedridden and stuck in the drug haze of my painkillers. I do not have words to describe the sublimely sick irony of watching oneself on TV celebrate a "spiritual awakening" about finally conquering your weight loss issues as pictures of the moments that your life would change forever flicker on the screen and you sit at home barely 6 months later unable to move because of that very "spiritual awakening". Needless to say, I was overcome with grief, loss, and anger and a whole host of complicated emotions watching myself revel in the false persona of my newly thin and revitalized self. The other time that I was overcome with panic and fear was a legitimate anxiety attack that I had one afternoon while steeped in pain and the realization that as time went on my odds of avoiding surgery were dramatically slimming. I was fortunate enough to be living with a roommate who had been a co-worker with me at a summer camp for children and adults with cerebral palsy and had become a dear friend. She was perhaps the only thing making my convalescence at home even possible as she prepared and served my meals, helped me shower and go to the bathroom, and most importantly, was a faithful companion in my darkest times. Thankfully she was with me on the afternoon of my panic attack and agreed to sit with me and hold me while a sobbed, trembled, and thought I was going to die. I'm not sure if I thought I was going to die or wanted to die on that day. Either way I was convinced my life was ending. Of course, it was...my life as I knew it was about to change forever.

A few weeks later my avoidance was to come to a screeching halt as my body made my decision about how to proceed without my consent. My parents had come into town to take me to a surgical consult as I was finally beginning to explore the reality that I may have no other means of recovery. While getting into the car to go to that appointment I twisted my back in just the right way getting into the back seat that my L-5 spinal disc finally ruptured and I was sent into the most excruciating waves of pain and nausea that I have ever felt. That was one wild car ride to downtown Chicago as I attempted to provide navigation directions to my father as he fearfully dodged the traffic and I cried out directions from the floor wells of the back seat where my head had fallen. We made it to the ER where a compassionate security guard lifted me out of the backseat and into the hospital, as none of the ER staff would help me get there. I'm not certain if you've ever spent any time at an inner city urban emergency room or not but I can assure you that my back pain was not the highest priority for the medical staff. As I lay writhing and crying in pain my mother did her best Terms of Endearment impression while screaming at the nurses to tend to me. Trust me when I say that my mother's tactic did not actually endear any of them to me and quite possibly had the opposite effect. However, I was able to clearly and calmy tell a nurse of the source of my pain and the fact that I had just been on my way to a surgical consult with a doctor at the hospital. Morphine was administered. I was admitted. This was not my plan. I was going to have emergency back surgery whether I liked it or not.