momma loon

trying to sound normal, taking it slower than I ever thought I would, and a poem from Lorelei

Here are some things you use your back for –

Crouching at the entrance of the tupperware cabinet/cave peering into the dark for a damn lid that matches, bending over reaching with your fingertips to grab the sock that you accidentally dropped, lifting a cup of tea, turning your head to eyeball and give the thumbs up (passive aggressively) to the person honking at you while they’re trying to cut the line of a hundred people on the 94 E highway interchange, lifting your five year old off the ledge they somehow got up on but cannot get down from, picking up a hundred legos, sitting, hugging, walking, turning over the pillow to the cool side, lifting your feet so one of your reading deprivation week kittens doesn’t attack your toes with their tiny needle sharp teeth, cleaning litter boxes, doing laundry, opening the oven to check that your bacon isn’t burning…

You use your back for pretty much all the things. So when mine went out a month ago and my partner was traveling for work, things got a wee bit interesting around here. Also, messy. Things got very messy.

It’s been humbling. That’s another word that works real well. Our back sits behind us, holds us up, but we tend to take it for granted. We just assume it’s coming along for the ride because what choice does it have?

Well, maybe not for granted. I have always been afraid of it.

When, as a kid, I learned you could be paralyzed if anything happened to your spinal cord, I thought long and hard before leaping from too tall trees, riding Ducatis (I did it just one time!), or driving too far above the speed limit. This did not transfer to riding horses carefully for some reason – I did that alone, at full speed, with no helmet, from the age of 12 on long logging trails in Washington state with no cell phone and no idea that every time I came home in one piece was a miracle. But overall, my back has been overlooked (geographically and emotionally) until, like in any relationship worth having, it piped up with something to say.

I have always been anxious about my body failing me. I tend to be pre-emptively catastrophic in my outlook. And I’ve understood I have been and will continue to be at the mercy of this container.

I know we’re on borrowed time, this body and me, and no matter what we do; in the end this relationship ends with a breakup. No matter how much we love each other, we won’t stay together. But I’m only 46 people, and a young 46!! And so when a chiropractic appointment (my first) went way WAY south at the beginning of the month, it left me in a not-so-small panic.

I went because there’s been an invisible meat thermometer under my right shoulder blade that, for most of my life, has been kind enough to let me know whenever I’m cooked. Sometimes while driving along, in my head I’ll notice that I’m worrying or stressing, in a way that’s definitely unhelpful. I’ll take a few deep breaths, my body suggesting that calming down would be a good choice right now, but then I inadvertently circle back around to ruminating. And sure enough, like a little snarky I told you so, I’ll feel it suddenly — POP! I can almost hear the DING! It arrives announcing officially, You’re done!

This is followed quite quickly by a flooding stream of pain that will twist and swirl over, under, and around my arm, down to my fingertips, where it pools with electricity and drives me insane; all cold pinpricks and tingling.

This year, it seemed to have uprooted itself, pushing and nagging, glacial and patient, its aim, I suppose, to create a new continent under there — but the bone was in the way, and they were arguing about who had rights over the territory.

As such, I have many tools to keep my body loose. I have the electric gun vibrator (ahem, massager), the ball that you roll on while grimacing on the floor, and all the arnica, CBD salve (this stuff from Sunriver really works - except in this case of course), and tiger balm a girl could dream of. I’ve been to masseuses and had acupuncture with cupping, leaving behind lovely little red and purple moons on my back that my girls demand to see and then recoil from.

I’m lucky. I get to try all these things. But none of these things were working long-term. I’d have some relief, and then the symptoms would sneak back in, gleefully getting back to the important task of taking over my life and testing my sanity.

It’s been one of those things I’ve lived with for a long time, as a normal, accepted way of operating. And then suddenly I thought maybe I could fix this. It felt like something had to give; maybe there was something I hadn’t tried?

In hindsight, sometimes we think things are bad…and then shortly thereafter we discover that those were actually the good old days.

After commiserating with a friend who had similar shoulder battles happening and hearing about her success with a Chiropractor, I decided to give it a try and go see a bone crusher…excuse me, I mean bone adjuster.

Long story short, the Chiropractor messed me up. She messed me up real good. That was on April 1st. First time out of the gate, and I was broken. She called to check on me and ask if I wanted to come back in, but I felt like…ya know, if you have sex for the first time and get pregnant, you’re not going to want to do that again…for a good long while. You’ve been seriously and rightly spooked. You’ll never be able to relax in that particular position again…never, ever.

I made an appointment with my doctor instead, who took an X-ray (spine height looked fine, she said, which I assumed was good), prescribed steroids and muscle relaxers, and sent me on my way to get better.

However, nothing got better, and it was terrifying. I started to wonder if something was seriously wrong when, after a week and a half, there was no improvement other than the amount of drugs in my system meant that I couldn’t appropriately form the sentences which would allow me to freak out in the way I truly deserved and wanted.

The email to my Doctor and team last night was probably too long and perhaps a little dramatic…I did start it out with the words hello there, (sounds casual right? and normal - I wanted to lead with the least hysterical greeting I could muster) it’s been a week and a half, I took my steroids and muscle relaxers but my back is still on fire, my feet and hands are tingling and numb, and both sciatic nerves are alive and pulsing constantly. The drugs aren’t working! I’m laying on a heating pad, I can’t sit for lengths of time without wanting to primal scream but I have to because my kid goes to school across town, HELP ME — or at least please tell me what is wrong with me so I can stop freaking out that there’s something I am supposed to do that I’m not doing to make this all go away.

To which the little voice in my head whispered — Bodies are weird. The doctors will still have no idea what’s wrong with you after you write this email, so calming down would be advisable.

I am now sitting with my knees up, my feet on my ottoman, and my back as flat as possible on too short (not deep enough to actually relax, but we got it at Ikea so what did you expect) couch - in a kind of awkward bridge, chin tucked too severely to be good for anyone and I just finished crying while trying to make an MRI appointment - not because of pain (I do have a pretty high threshold thank you very much!) but because I just hate making appointments. And my doctor’s response was to call in “orders” for many many appointments; MRI, spinal orthopedist, physical therapist, urologist….as suspected…they have no idea what’s wrong with me.

It’s embarrassing, but I get nervous on the phone with schedulers. No matter how slowly I talk, they always make me feel rushed, and they always seem really irritated that I’ve called and interrupted whatever it is they are doing to pass the time on the other end. This makes me feel bad, no matter how much I try to tell myself I don’t care! This is their job!. Or no matter how cheerful I try and be to combat the crankiness being lobbed at me.

In the end, it still really bothers me when people are irritated that I’ve picked up the phone and called them.

But I mustered up my gumption, I called and got transferred three times because the number the doctor gave me to call wasn’t correct, the woman on the other end asked, in an accusing, annoyed tone, Would you like the right number?, which felt embarrassing…she followed with, in case we get disconnected. To which I thought suspiciously, Why would that happen? Are you going to hang up on me and make me call the real number because you’re so annoyed I called you, that you don’t want to transfer me?

I really hoped that wouldn’t happen because I wasn’t sure I’d have the fortitude to call back…not today, not with two weeks of muscle relaxers built up in my system. If I were an astronaut, it would be as if someone just cut the cord attaching me to my spaceship and now I’m just doing somersaults in space, simultaneously thinking this probably isn’t good and oh my… what pretty pretty lights.

So when the scheduler angrily, like someone at the DMV, asks NAME?, BIRTHDATE?, and then goes silent. I think to myself, if I were at the DMV, this person would not even look me in the eye, and my face would hurt from trying to keep smiling like I was enjoying this whole interaction. It was hurting now from smiling, and they couldn’t even see my face, but it still felt like the right thing to do – to hold my countenance. The alternative was to fall into the you’re an asshole so I’m going to be a BIGGER BADDER asshole, which never feels good.

After a long silence, I almost say hello. Because I think maybe we got disconnected, they informed me that my doctor has not put the order in for the MRI yet. I will have to call back. When I hang up, my eyes well up a little because the muscle relaxers make it hard to form sentences, and I felt like I was reaching really REALLY hard for the words – no problem, okay, thanks.

When I call back later, I end up getting so flustered from the mental somersaults it now requires to look at a calendar and think thoughts — that I say yes to an appointment day and time, hang up, and realize I actually can’t make that appointment work. I’d have to have the babysitter drive to St. Paul and drop my oldest, with my youngest vehemently playing guess the animal in the back seat, and the thought of having to explain the dance of logistics, consistent snack show, and animal name game rules to her makes my hands start sweating.

I blame the muscle drugs for up-leveling my anxiety, but really, on a baseline, I’m kind of like this all the time. And the sad thing is that the drugs have not actually done that much for the pain. They have made me calm way down about being in pain (it shows doesn’t it?), but they don’t make it go away.

The body gets really wound up when you’re in pain. Everything has a jagged edge. The muscle relaxers take away that edge. The problem is that without the edge, you have the tendency to get all loosey-goosey with thoughts (hello tangents), anxiety, zoning out ( a general feeling of what is even happening right now?), everything just feels like falling over a cliff with no handrail…repeatedly… all day long.

And this morning I actually did fall down our stairs. The thought that our new kitten Charlie (who is an orange tabby and I did not know what everyone else knows about orange cats - but it’s all true), who likes to weave herself between my legs chirping and chuffing like it’s a game, like my legs walking are some kind of Indiana Jones obstacle course she’s determined to complete in record time — will kill me one day by tripping me — just at that moment, while I was thinking this, she raced down the stairs past me and because I was so relaxed and thus so startled I slipped on the edge of the stair and slide down the last three, landing with horror. Immediately wondering if I broke my back MORE? But miraculously, everything seemed to be status quo, just the way it had been, kind of broken.

And so every encounter I’ve had with every human this month has left me, when it’s over, after about five minutes thinking two things: did I sound normal? Or I don’t think that made any sense.

After which, I wonder if I should tell them — I’m taking muscle relaxers right now, please don’t judge me for that long, weird tangent, or my vacant stare into nothingness while you were talking to me. I am listening. My face just hasn’t gotten the message that I’m listening, my brain sent it two minutes ago, and it’s still traveling through the labyrinth.

I’ve tried stealing words from my kids, holding sentences in my mouth, and then offering them back up. That’s fun because everything kids say makes you want to smile. My 5-year-old came out and said Keet and Cat want to see the wide world, so we decided this would work best.

Keet and Cat off to see the wide world

She put them in her boot. How I would use this later in conversation, I did not know, but I nodded my head and thought that’s quite simply wonderful.

In case you end up hurting your back, I’ll share that weightlessness is your best friend when your back is in trouble. It needs levity. And gravity is always hanging around poking at it like a mean little bully from 1st grade. So I’ve spent more time in the pool this month than I have in my WHOLE life. Yesterday I googled stylish swim caps. Also, easy-to-get-on swim caps, because my hair has gotten so crispy from all the chlorine. But floating is a relief, so I keep going despite the hair sadness, but the drugs make me forget to order the swim cap, so my hair is now quite frizzy and oily at the same time because I put Trader Joe’s argan oil in it. Combined with my now hunched-over over slightly limping gate, I look great coming down the street, let me tell ya!

But the pool is necessary. And when we get there, I float deadman style while Lorelei plays in the shallows. Or when I decide to move a bit, I carry Lorelei around on my back, and we walk back and forth across the pool. Lorelei says I’m like a momma Loon, and she makes a little baby Loon sound in my ear, which makes me want to cry because it’s so sweet and real and sad. I immediately think about baby loons and what happens to them when their mommas get hurt. This makes me want to get really really strong like a body builder or something, and so I google women building muscle over 40 and squint at what comes up, wondering if I’ll be able to put my shoes on later.

I look secretly out of the corner of my eye at the 80-year-old ladies also walking back and forth but with snazzy swim weights in their hands, and think, am I there already? I thought I was taking better care of myself, but my body is proving it needs more from me. A LOT more. I’m just not sure what. More gentleness? More strength? Probably more patience. At the heart of most of my bitching and moaning in life is a profound lack of patience.

I’ve had to ask for a lot of help this week from my girls, and they love it to a point. They love, as we all do, feeling needed and important. And I’ve also had to say yes to mess. Sometimes the mess is beautiful. Like this morning - our table made me happy.

our dinning table - now the art and flower table

But other times, like when the dishes are a mile high and the laundry glares at me from the unmade bed, and the weeds are starting in the yard, it makes me crazy.

I can still move gingerly. I can still walk - tentatively, slowly, and with pain, but it’s still available to me. I’ve had to slow down and take the day in small pieces and say begrudgingly but clearly when I’m done, even when I feel like I should be able to go further. We went to Eloise Butler to walk a little earlier this week. And it was so good to see the signs of spring, say hello to the little cottage, the trees getting ready to bud out, and put our binoculars to our faces.

looking for owls - always looking for owls

I want this cottage to be mine

And Lorelei again made me pause with her words. She wrote a little poem on a leaf in the cottage.

Alone, Alone, you sit

on a wide sea - on a

pebble that glows on

an ocean floor.

-Lorelei

She just pulled that out of her heart pocket. Wrote that in six seconds flat. Kids have the right words!

This whole adventure has been more emotional than I would have expected. The not knowing if whatever was happening to my body was irreparable. And subsequently, what that might mean as a parent.

The guilt that crept in as I thought about all the ways my body carries me through my days and all the ways I have not been showing up for it. I tell myself I take care of myself, I’m an active person…but not really. I ask a WHOLE lot and I give a wee little bit. My body is last on the list of things I take care of, and it has had a lot to say about that his month.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the time it takes to actually - really take care of ourselves in the way we need to. I don’t have any answers on that just yet — but I do think the time it takes — is the time it gives.

I stopped taking the muscle relaxers three days ago because things were getting weird. The sure-fire sign that it’s time to stop taking your meds is when you decide to take your shirt off and make a peanut butter and banana sandwich at 1 a.m. — this can really upset the kittens and also, honestly, be quite messy.

72 hours later, and I am finding my words again! I haven’t felt any numbness, which is such a relief; it makes me want to jump up and down. But I will refrain – juuuuust in case.

I’m going to be a good patient and go to my physical therapy next week. I’ll come home most likely with a piece of paper, with nifty illustrations of stretches which I will tape up on my attic wall and do with my kids. I’ll be meeting my old lady friends at the pool on the regular. I’ve ordered my swim cap. I googled local Tai Chi groups because that’s something momma loons do. This relationship with my body is going through a rough patch, but I’m in it for the long haul, so here we go — I’m being patient¹. I swear!

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1. said while wondering if it’s too soon to go for a bike ride, while also lying flat on a hearing pad because — muscle spasms.