Anniversaries

On the ninth of every month for five months, I have “celebrated” or at least marked the anniversary of my November 9th spinal fusion. Tomorrow is my six-month anniversary and the most significant so far. It was at my six-month appointment after my first spinal fusion that I found out that the surgery had failed and I would need a second operation. At my last appointment, three months ago, the doctor was optimistic about the success of my fusion and I have no reason to fear a third, but I can’t help being nervous. I know that when I’m lying on the metal X-ray table tomorrow, I will be suspicious of the friendly demeanor of the technician. I will not be able to stop myself thinking that she already knows whether something is wrong, whether my screws have broken again.

I try not to focus on the screws and instead on the positive, on the complete unlikelihood that my fusion could fail again. But I can’t stop myself from dreaming - from waking up in the middle of the night thinking that I’m back in my hospital bed or in my surgeon’s office receiving bad news. I don’t blame myself for having dreams or being anxious about my second six-month appointment (when there should have been only a first). I just wish that I could feel something in my body telling me that this time is different - maybe a lesser degree of pain or exhaustion than I felt after my first six months. At this point, I’m operating on a combination of faith, positive thinking (with the exception of this blog post, of course), and percentages. As in, there’s less than a two percent chance that my surgery could fail this time. Unfortunately, I’m one hundred percent sure that I’m dreading my doctor’s appointment.

Up there with anxiety and dread, is a sense that I have no control over my future. I was never someone that needed to feel in control of my destiny. I’ve always had tons of ideas about what I could do with my life, plenty of plans, but usually found that any target I had paled in comparison to reality. For example, during my sophomore year in college I spent months planning a summer trip to California to be an actress. I even tried an extreme diet – my very own combination of Atkins and Suzanne Summers – to get ready for all the bikinis I’d be asked to wear in suntan lotion commercials. Instead of going to Hollywood, I went on two amazing volunteer trips, one of which put me on a roof in West Virginia, partially in charge of the high school students tasked with replacing said roof. I mourned my summer plans for about a minute, feeling that the surprise trip to the edge of a Mountain in McDowell County was better than anything I had envisioned.

I always felt that relinquishing control over my plans worked in my favor, until six months after my first spinal fusion. I started looking into MFA programs for Poetry and found out, instead, that I’d be having another surgery. Suddenly I felt that a little more control over my ‘destiny’ wouldn’t be a bad thing. Who was I kidding? I was all about control. My first surgery was on my terms, after I’d gotten through college and could take the necessary time off for recovery. The second surgery was totally out of my control, unless, of course, I wouldn’t mind being a cripple. So even as I was looking for job possibilities on the internet this morning in hopes that my six-month appointment will lead to physical therapy and increased mobility, I do so only because I have to plan. I have to do something to mark these six-months, to acknowledge that they occurred and are significant. So I look for jobs, write this blog, and say a prayer that my second six-month appointment will be cause for celebration. And that the next surprise that life gives me will have nothing to do with a hospital bed.