Yesterday marked 9 weeks from the day of my accident. My last check-up was at 6 weeks, right before I left Boulder. The PA (physician's assistant - didn't actually see the Dr. the last time) told me it would still be another 6 weeks before I could take off my brace or start PT, and another 6 weeks after that before I could start thinking about climbing, even in the gym. When I returned home, obviously I had to change doctors and I decided to go see a Sports Medicine specialist who I've seen before. Yes, sadly, this is not my first serious injury in the 12 months since I moved here. I decided to go this route instead of looking for another Neurosurgeon for two reasons. First, I figure now that my brain and actual spinal cord have been cleared, and my main concern is regaining function, that this was a better way to go. Second, I started to get the distinct impression from the neurosurgeon that my case bored him. I suppose it's understandable, he's used to dealing with patients who might be paralyzed, or might die, and only he can save them. That does sound a lot more exciting. I think he got tired of telling me I didn't need surgery.
So today I went to see my new spine doctor (formerly my foot doctor). He started by thanking me for bringing in 27 pages of notes and 5 CDs of Xrays and CT scans, and told me he would have to keep me waiting for a few minutes because he wanted to review it thoroughly and get all caught up. Gold star! Another thing I love about this guy is that he ends every conversation with "Do you have any other concerns today?" and if you do, after you talk about it, he asks again. He keeps asking, until you don't have anything else to say. This is especially great when you are there about your spine but you also hurt your head, and neck, and rib, and also have questions about lung clots and pain medications and insomnia and some other stuff. Also, everyone else in the office is equally awesome beyond description. I sorta want to drop out of grad school and get my medical transcriptionist degree or something from calling that 800 number just so I can go work there.
First on the agenda was another X-ray. Really, another set of 4 X-rays. If I ever get torso cancer of any sort, I think we'll be able to safely trace it back to this Summer of Radiation, and therefore to Eric falling on my head. I hope we're in the same old folks home so I can complain to him about it. The doctor said that my X-rays look good, that my fractures look "pretty stable", and spent a few minutes saying reassuring things like "You'll heal fine, you'll be able to do everything you could before, you won't have pain forever, and you don't need surgery to achieve any of this." Medical professionals have felt the need to "reassure" me with statements like this at every step along the way, which makes me begin to suspect that I've never been properly worried about all of these things.
He did an exam including asking me, sans brace, to try to touch my toes. This was such a foreign concept to me at this point that I actually had to stop and consider it. I didn't make it, but I got a closer view of my feet than I've had in months, which was pretty novel.
So here's all the good news:
I can start physical therapy!! Physical therapy is one of my favorite things in the world. It is probably my third favorite activity ever. I recognize that this ranking is evidence that I have experienced a sad number of functional injuries. I told the doctor that I was hoping he would say that, because I already made an appointment for Friday. He got a kick out of that.
Time to start weaning off the back brace! Weaning means that today I could take the brace off for one hour, and then I add an hour to that each day, as long as I'm doing ok with it and not hurting. That means that potentially, in 16 days, I could be done with this cursed thing forever! Although that "as long as you're not hurting" thing is tricky - I have always had trouble distinguishing levels of pain for my doctors and physical therapists. I can correctly identify "no pain" and "holycrapIcan'tthinkstraightandIjustvomited" pain, but there is a lot of gray area in between that I can usually only identify as somewhere in between. What is my pain, on a scale of 1-10? Um, somewhere between 2 and 9. That's all I got.
I have always thought that pain scale was pretty stupid, anyway. If 10 is supposed to represent "the worst pain you've ever felt", then what does 10 mean to someone who has never experienced anything worse than a skinned knee, vs. someone who's had, say, their eyes gouged out with red-hot pokers? My back pain, by the way, is currently somewhere between skinned knee and gouged eyes.
My doctor almost told me I could go to the climbing gym now. Almost. He asked how I would feel about that, and I said "GREAT!!!!", perhaps a tad too enthusiastically. He said "I meant, would you feel safe trying it out.... "
"...you'd have to be really careful, and pay really close attention to your pain...."
(warily eyeing the twitching hands and too-eager smile of an addict about to get a fix)
"....actually, nevermind. Forget I said that. Do physical therapy, come back in 4 weeks, we'll talk about the climbing gym then. If I set you loose in there now you'll hurt yourself."
Too true, doc. Too true.
I know he's right. I knew it when he said it, and I appreciate having a doctor who knows me and can help figure out what's best for me. But after my first one-hour session without my brace, I now fully realize that if I had stepped into the climbing gym today, I simply would have killed myself.
Physically, the brace doesn't really bother me that much. I don't love it, but I'm completely used to it. I look forward to being healed, and being out of the brace would mean a step toward that, but otherwise I don't particularly long to get out of it, specifically. So I was really caught off guard by my reaction to my hour of freedom.
I went fucking giddy.
There are no other words for it.
I felt I had to make the most of the hour. I couldn't be too active, the doctor said not to choose, say, my daily walk for the hour of no brace. What to do? I decided to bake muffins.
Nothing stopped me from baking muffins in a back brace. But somehow, this was crazy exciting.
I ran out onto my balcony, and stood there just feeling the breeze through my...torso. It was awesome. Just feeling my torso unencumbered was awesome. Look, I know, you're all thinking "sensory deprivation of the torso? psssshhhht. " I understand. I've apparently experienced it for 9 weeks, and I didn't know it existed either.
With ten minutes to go, I started to get stressed. I suddenly desperately wanted a hug. I haven't had a proper hug in over two months, and again while aware of this fact didn't think I was too bothered by it - but suddenly I felt like I had frittered away my precious hour of torso freedom and chastised myself for not planning ahead to have a hug-buddy available.
As my hour ended, I knew I should put my brace back on. Aside from the clock, my back hurt, and I knew there was a reason I was supposed to do this in baby steps. I had a brief mental struggle when I sorta considered running out to the car and driving away somewhere leaving the brace far behind... and then I sighed and put it back on.
My point is, if baking muffins and standing on my porch nearly tempted me over to the dark side, what would've happened at the climbing wall?
That's right. I would've climbed myself into giddy oblivion and died.
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