ugh i don't like being srs.
in case you didn't know--i am always surprised at how i can have friends for years and somehow this never comes up--i had two spinal fusions when i was very young, and then another surgery on my spine a few years later. this was all due to scoliosis; when i was twelve years old, my doctor discovered that i had two lateral (side-to-side) curves in my spine. one was in the 60-degree range and the other was in the 40-degree range; i was referred to an orthopedic surgeon (dr. harms!) who conferred with other orthopedic specialists all over the world and who came to the decision that the smaller curve, which was higher up on my spine, had formed to try and correct the bottom curve, and that if the bottom curve was corrected through a fusion, the top curve would straighten out on its own as i grew.
my first spinal fusion consisted of some vertabrae being removed, part of my bottom ribs being cut out and fused in place of the bottom curve, along with a titanium rod and a handful of screws and bolts to hold it all in place. it all sounds very frankenstein-like and is very surreal for me to think about, even now, after it's been a reality in my living breathing body for over ten years. this was all done through an anterior approach and left me with a scar that winds from just below my bellybutton to just under my left shoulder. despite the predictions, though, the top curve didn't correct itself after the bottom curve was straightened--it got worse, and so i underwent a second fusion at age fifteen, this time through a posterior approach (the incision was on my back), but which involved the same surgery process.
the preparation, process, and recovery from this sort of surgery is no joke, especially when you are twelve years old, and i still can't really talk accurately about the impact it had on me as a child. my senior year of college, i was required to read lucy grealy's autobiography of a face for a class, in part, her autobiography of going through treatment for cancer as a child. the margins of the pages are filled with ink notes, exclamation points, arrows, brackets. she writes of her "body recognizing itself as a body;" going through an event wherein your body is an experiment, a hands-on project, just as you are beginning to mature and realize the importance of your own body: the statements it implies about you, the ways in which you will choose to inhabit it.
i wore a milwaukee brace under my clothes all day, every day, for six months after surgery, and a charleston bending brace while i slept for years afterward. i had to be fitted for another charleston brace, trading in my bright purple one for a light blue one, somewhere along the line because i had grown far out of my old one. the body recognizing itself as a body.
people ask if i've experienced long-term effects of these surgeries, and it's always difficult to answer accurately. before i was diagnosed at age twelve, for instance, i wasn't able to pinpoint the fact that i had terrible, wrenching back pain, because i had always had that; it wasn't out of the ordinary for me. years later, i suppose i do experience more pain than other people; my spine still isn't straight, and there are still lots of bits embedded in my body that look like they could've come out of my dad's garage toolbox. when it's cold, my flesh contracts against the metal and my back aches; when i accidentally sleep on my stomach for too long, my back muscles ache from trying to bend the stubborn parts of my spine. it's worst during my period, like most back pain is, and it's rarely anything that a handful of ibuprofen and a nap can't handle.
lately, though, i've been experiencing this burning ache in my lower back, one that spreads down through my hips, occasionally up through my upper spine or down one thigh. i was diagnosed my sophomore year of college with bursitis, which basically means that little fluid-filled lubricators were forming to cushion the flesh from the spine and were getting irritated from overuse. this may be just a worse case of bursitis, but as of now it is this constant caustic ache; it wakes me up from sleep. i've been working from home, squirming on the futon, homemade heating pads filling the apartment with the smell of rice.
my self-esteem, which i generally keep stubbornly regulated in the face of a culture that tries its hardest to tear women down, plummets when i go through times like this, because it becomes hard to imagine myself as anything other than what i can feel and what i fear: this cage of meat and gnarled bones. crooked and limping down the street, writhing in the bed.
i try not to think about getting old. it will come eventually, but i fear it. i fear the kind of pain that is here, now, at twenty-four, so i don't let myself think about forty years from now.
i go to the doctor on thursday for, presumably, x-rays and investigation into the current situation, which may be easily remedied with pills and rest, or could be something more serious that could require minor surgery; i have no idea nor any real predictions. i will be surprised if it's something serious, anything more than irritation and pinched nerves, but in some ways, those little effects are the ones that scare me the most; in all honesty, the diagnosis i dread most is a regretful shrug, a handful of pills, the words just something you'll have to live with.