The Saga of the Spine

The first spine surgery happened when the kids were 6, 3 and less than 1 year old. That surgery was supposed to be an easy one--outpatient with a bed, but Ren ended up in the hospital for a week at a facility 90 minutes from our house.

The second surgery was done to repair a newly herniated disc that announced its presence the day before my dissertation defense. We waited the entire summer--first, for the test results and then for the doctor schedule that surgery--eliminating any chance of taking the celebratory post-Ph.D. family vacation we’d been promising the children for what seemed like forever. Ultimately, the second surgery ended up happening the first week of the new academic year, and just over five months after the first one.  Stow was 15 months at the time and still not walking or talking.

When Stow was two, Ren had his third spine surgery three months after we'd packed up everything and moved six hours away from family and friends for my new job. This time, it was a lumbar fusion that kept Ren essentially bedridden for a month and confined to the house for four months. Our new neighbors must've all wondered what happened to us that long cold winter. Did I mention there was record-breaking snow that year? And that Sky wasn't quite tall enough to shovel, yet?

The fourth surgery, a cervical fusion, was the easy one, but by then I'd become so traumatized by so many surgeries that I had a hard time keeping my cool sitting in the waiting room. It turns out there are only so many long surgeries, recovery room stays, and fresh surgery wounds I can handle. That time, I got home at 8:30 p.m., after 8 hours of sitting and waiting, only to discover that Pink was having an asthma episode. I went back to the hospital with her around 10 p.m. and didn’t get home from the ER until 3 in the morning.

The fifth surgery is scheduled to happen four days before Christmas. It’s another lumbar fusion, so the “recovery” will be long. I don’t expect Ren to go out again (except for doctors' appointments) until spring. Fortunately, Sky’s tall enough to help with snow removal now.

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When we wrote our own wedding vows, they didn't include the words "in sickness and in health," but the sentiment was certainly implied. Like most people, when we got married, we had every intention of sticking together through thick and through thin. But, I don’t think we imagined a thick and thin that included chronic pain, the loss of mobility, and the inability to parent the kids the way we wanted (not to mention all the stuff going on with the kids with their autism, asthma, and allergies). If you've gone through serious illness or injury with your spouse, you already know what I'm about to tell you, but "in sickness and in health" doesn't prepare you for the sheer trauma of watching your loved one suffer through things you can't change or control or even lessen by the tiniest degree.

When your spouse is down and out, your life gets turned upside down, too. Not only do you have to figure out how to deal with the day-to-day grind down a parent, but you also have to figure out how to support your spouse and help nurse him or her back to health. There isn’t much space for a caregiver to feel sorry for herself/himself when a spouse is struggling to overcome some really hard stuff.  Your only option is to deal with it, find outlets where you can, and keep your cool every time you have to tell a well-meaning inquirer that he's not going to get much better.

I don’t know what happens when you realize that your spouse will never get “back to health.” But, I know that, whether I like it or not, I am going to find out. In the process, I have a feeling I will learn more about myself than I ever wanted to know. I’m just hoping there will also be some moments of intense, if sometimes bittersweet, joy along the way!*






*This blog post is about the spine surgeries. For the record, there were also the shoulder surgeries that happened just before and just after our wedding and the eye surgery that kept Ren from going blind when his retina detatched when Sky was still a baby. The surgery in December will be Ren's 9th major surgery of our marriage.

Letters from the Edge (November 2015 Version)

Dear People Who Burn Leaves Instead of Bagging Them,

Stop. Just stop. The air has been hazy with smoke for weeks now. I know there's a legal burning season, and that this is it, but, why not just pay a couple of bucks for the lawn bags at Ace Hardware,  fill them, and put them on the curb? The yard waste collection service here is pretty efficient, and you'll be surprised at how much those bags hold! And, heck, given the money we'd save by avoiding the ER and asthma-related hospitalizations, I'll even buy the bags for you.

Sincerely,

Your neighbor

I contemplated enlarging this and hanging copies of it all over town, but then I decided it would be too mortifying for my kids and we don't want to move again any time soon.

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Dear Local Church with Your Stupid Bonfire (Alternate title: How Can You Have "Life" in Your Name When You Tried to Kill My Sister?),

As your close neighbors to the east, my family and I have appreciated the many different ways you've engaged with our community. The various events you host each year seem intent out reaching out to a wide audience, and as a fellow Christian and church-goer, I appreciate your church's clear commitment to making a positive difference.

Today I write to ask that you reconsider your use of bonfires during your various fall events given the church's close proximity to a residential neighborhood. The bonfire you had on Sunday filled our yard, and even our garage, with a thick layer of smoke that triggered an asthmatic reaction in my 7 year-old daughter that will most likely result in an ER visit and possibly a hospital stay. I get that bonfires are exciting and fun, not to mention warm on a cold fall evening, but they also make it nearly impossible for children like my daughter to breathe. In the future, we hope that you will think about foregoing the bonfire or at least holding in on the opposite side of your campus so that houses like ours aren't so heavily impacted by the smoke.

Thank you for your consideration,

Moe

This one, I actually did send, last Monday, when Pink was starting to look like she might be on the downhill slide. I haven't heard back from them. I hope they respond because Sky just can't abide by the irony that a Christian organization would do something to harm people in its community, and I'm getting tired of hearing about it.

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Dear Second Grade Teacher,

I think it's great that your class will be singing for an all school assembly for Veteran's Day, I really do! But, I wonder if you might be able to send a note home about this next time? In it, I'd love it if you could tell me ahead of time that my daughter will need to wear something that is red, white, and blue, AND that has pockets. When I get a text about this at 8 p.m. the night before, I'm kind of stuck, especially in November when it's hard to buy patriotic cold weather wear. I mean, we have a couple of great red, white, and blue sundresses left over from the Fourth of July holiday that still kind of fit, and one of them even has stars on it. They don't have pockets, though, and apparently that's a deal breaker since Pink needs to be able to pull out a streamer and wave it at the end. When you put me on the spot like this, our options are limited: I could send Pink to school in her blue and red Japanese national soccer team jersey (though I don't know how the WWII veterans will feel about the Japanese flag placed prominently on the front of it). Or, I could send her in this (spoiler alert--I DID send her in this):

You could argue that a patriotic Hello Kitty isn't much better than the national soccer jersey for a former war enemy, but at least I didn't send her in hot pink as a close approximation to red (like we debated doing). Hopefully in the future, school-home communication won't depend on those last-minute mass text messages!

Oh, and I do love patriotic music, but it creeps me out every time I hear my little girl sing--

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife

--especially when she dips down into the low register and holds out the word wiiiiiiiiiiiiife. Thanks, by the way, for getting that song stuck in my head for days! It turns out there are all kinds of awkward moments in which you can find yourself humming it at work. Maybe next year you could just go with "God Bless America" instead.

Sincerely,

Moe

I actually really love the kids' school, so I didn't send this letter. Given the stress of the past month or so, though, I couldn't resist writing it in my head (and then feeling compelled to put it on the blog).