August 28, 2022
I have been thinking a lot about what happened to me since I broke my back in 1980. I think that I was so thrilled at the idea that I might walk again, and that seemed to be enough to make me happy. That and I had a place to go after 10 weeks in the hospital. This was back when you could stay there. The doctor felt I was getting such good physical therapy where I was at that he didn't think I should go into rehab. I know this sounds weird, but I was looking forward to rehab. To me, it would be like camp. People who were also disabled would be there and it would be a whole new world. There was so much positive energy when I was in the hospital and after a few weeks, I was actually having a wonderful time there. Friends would visit, and some took me out for dinner, I made friends with the physical therapists, and I was certain that I would be 100 percent healed within a year. I was in almost a constant state of gratitude.
This feeling however came at a price. When I first stood up from my wheelchair, my amazing physical therapist pulled me up in between two parallel bars and I couldn't feel the floor under my feet. I felt like I was standing in a hole, and I thought this was a joke or something. My brain could not comprehend this at all. She had a sash around me and was doing the holding and I could only handle the one bar with the left hand and the right was in a cast. I sat down and just was beside myself in tears. My therapist tried to explain stuff to me and then walked away. I turned and looked, and she was crying. When I got back to my room I wasn't just crying, I was enraged. I did not get it all. My mother and brother came in and the weirdest thing happened. I was certain that I had to go to the bathroom, and they wouldn't let me. It was hell. I kept feeling my butt because I thought I had shit my pants. I didn't have bladder or bowel control and couldn't feel much in that region. I couldn't wrap my brain around this one and it started sending me even further over the edge. I felt that I had no reason to live. I told my mother that if she couldn't tell me why I was on this earth, then I didn't want to be here anymore. I wasn't making much sense when I was talking, and I wanted to end my life. People called and I couldn't stop crying when I spoke to them. Then I don't know if the doctors gave me some anti-depressants but I started to feel better very gradually and after several days, my legs got a tad better and I became very hopeful and learning to walk again was fun. Then when I finally was released and my parents came to take me home, I was in bliss. We came from Columbus Ohio to Cleveland, and it was fall. Watching the trees changing color was magic and I just knew this was how life was supposed to be. Magic. Wayne Dyer had come to see me while I was in the hospital, and told me I would walk again if I wanted. Seemed easy enough. I was able to take several steps with two crutches and braces up to my knees. All seemed easy. The worries were gone.
Things were very simple as the weeks went by. I got the dorsi flex back in my left ankle and folded up my chair. Around the house I walked but when I was out I used my wheelchair. My sweet friends made sure to get me out of the house as much as I could and my father let me work with him at his office which was great.
Then things got tough. The two rods in my back moved causing a great deal of pain. You could see two bumps sticking out of my back from where they were. About a year after my injury, we went back to the doctor, and he said to get that looked at in Cleveland and I did. It took forever to get that surgery. In the meantime, I became very sick with one infection after another, and I was so confused. I couldn't sit for any length of time to work. The pain in back increased and the quality of my life for a 25-year-old was terrible. I was doing some community theatre and was made fun of by a few people. One said, "What do you do all day?" and just had to know. and got louder with this at a bar we went to after a play. I was applying for disability and started to get it, but I also had a case pending so legally I couldn't work but I didn't think it was any of her business. I asked what she did all day, and her day was pretty full. These people worked full time at regular jobs and then did plays at night. I had great respect for them but could not keep up. When I started to take swimming lessons twice a week complete with weights on my legs, I would come home and sleep three hours. Then my mother would put her loving arms around me and crack my back. It was the crack that was heard around the world. Then I have very little pain and I would go to rehearsal. When I mentioned the clothes kids wore that I could see coming home from school as I headed to the YMCA, a friend said, "NO didn't see them. Some of us work for a living." He wasn't being funny. I finally had that surgery and the doctor said I would no longer be in pain. I was and still am. And it's a bitch.
Many people have said that I didn't grieve enough. Other doctors have said that the pain in my body is so bad that everything else has shut down causing infections. I couldn't believe that Wayne Dyer came to see me and I felt I had kind of let him down. I was embarrassed or rather ashamed by that. The magic I felt after about a year slowly drifted away and I was so scared. Moving back in with my parents was not easy. It was almost like I became emotionally arrested and went backwards in my thinking. That year before I broke my back was bliss. Years later when I went back to see my college professors, two commented on how happy I was the last year I was in Athens Ohio. I learned then that happiness is an inside job. Not until I was 23. My private time was sacred back then and I felt almost that I wasn't even in control. Something bigger was guiding me. It was a very easy ritual I had to say before I fell asleep, "Thank you."
So now, 42 years later, I still walk but I'm not 100% like I thought. And I work but its sporadically, and I still feel some shame at times. I work hard in physical therapy to make sure if I can't get every muscle and nerve back, I can keep what I have. I definitely am not in the state of bliss I was before I broke my back and right after, but right now I'm experimenting and saying, "Thank you" anyway before I go to sleep. Maybe it will switch things around.
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