On Resiliency, On Recovery

Reflections on five years living in a post-spinal fusion body

On this day five years ago I laid face down on an operating table, blissfully unaware of the surgeon’s expert hands tasked with straightening my spine and fortifying it with precisely 24 screws and 2 titanium rods.

I’d arrived at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis earlier that morning, while the rest of the city was sleeping and frost still smothered the grass, to undergo life-changing spinal fusion surgery to correct severe scoliosis I’d been diagnosed with nearly two decades prior.

After years of X-rays, of physical therapy, of acupuncture, of massage, of yoga positions that promised respite from the pain, my stubborn spine continued its incessant rightward march a few degrees more each year.

The doctors were honest with me:

Avoiding surgery promised more pain in middle age and beyond.

I could very well be wheelchair bound by my 50s.

And, more presently, my mangled mess of a torso wasn’t in any shape to bear the extra weight of a future pregnancy.

It was difficult to hear, but more difficult to envision a future marked by more pain, more limitations.

We set a surgery date – January 29, 2020 – and in that moment, any lingering fear melted away and was replaced by a fervent hope for the future.

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I’d approached the surgery registration desk with my husband, both of us equally bleary-eyed but eager to get settled in.

“So sorry, we’re having to ask everyone this right now,” the nurse chuckled. “But have you recently traveled outside of the country, or more specifically, to China?”

I shook my head no, to both.

Over the last few weeks we’d been hearing news reports in increasing frequency about a yet-to-be-named virus.

I’d made a point to become a bit of a homebody prior to my surgery date, determined to not let illness get in the way of this day I had looked forward to for so long.

Quarantining before it was cool, in retrospect.

Soon after getting settled in, a flurry of doctors rushed in, allowed me to say a hurried and hushed farewell to my husband and before I knew it I was in the operating room and then everything went black.

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I often look at these X-rays and can’t believe that my body endured this, or that this is real – but it very much is.

I woke up in a very different world, and in a very different body.

Overnight I gained an inch in height (an unexpected growth spurt on the cusp of 30? I’ll take it), and it felt like a strange and foreign pleasure to be able to experience a full, cleansing inhale after my lung capacity being diminished for so long.

After an evening spent in the ICU and a week more in the hospital, I was released back into my normal life, which felt anything but normal.

I had to re-learn how to walk again, with my center of gravity completely shifted from where it had lived for so long.

Sitting was impossible without fainting or vomiting in those early days, so I spent nearly all of my time motionless on the couch with a heating pad nursing my new, nearly two-foot-long scar.

I wasn’t prepared for the grips of pain that overtook my entire body as the sutures dissolved and decimated muscle fibers in my back attempted to regrow.

Everything felt hazy courtesy of an around-the-clock cocktail of painkillers and nerve pain medications; each day passed in a blur of quiet victories and small setbacks.

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When the promise of spring blew in and the sunlight grew stronger, I did too.

By March I’d regained much of my strength in my new body and was eager to return to business and clients as the most prestine, productive version of myself.

And then the entire world shut down.

Continuing to recover in the midst of a pandemic forced – required – stillness from me in ways that I wasn’t yet prepared for.

It demanded that I sit with my pain and focus on nurturing my body in new ways.

It demanded that I turn inward and away from the myriad distractions that I’d clung to for so long.

So I sat with myself and wrestled with the pain, my present, my past and the slow, non-linear path of deep healing.

Then, on an unseasonably sunny Friday one year later – January 29, 2021 – an X-ray confirmed that my spine had, indeed, successfully fused.

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My scar reminds me of tenderness and strength. One day she will ask about it, and I look forward to sharing its origin story.

Today as I write this, I look back on my years spent living with scoliosis and the pain endured to correct it – and I am thankful for it all.

I fear that I never would have savored that first taste of slow living had it not been for my body demanding it of me in my season of recovery.

I fear that I never would have taken inventory of my life and dug deep to unearth my values in the ways that I have over these last few years.

And most of all, I fear that I never would have met my daughter – simply because my body couldn’t withstand it.

I awoke from surgery a completely different person than I was before.

There is no going back, nor would I ever want to.

Today is a celebration; a reminder to embrace each day – ever so slowly and straightforward.

Welcome, I’m Lindsay. The Slow Studio is a space I’ve created to write about my approach to slow(er) living as a design studio owner, multifaceted creative, first-time mother and more. Keep up with me on Instagram and Pinterest.