My six month anniversary: a small book

The half-year mark
Today marks six months since my surgery. It was singularly the biggest event of my life thus far. It's hard to describe how everything is so very different when there's many things that are the same. I can't stop thinking today about everything that has happened. This post is going to be a long one. If this bothers you, bite me. This is all for me today.

I remember that day
I will never forget it, how scared I was. Any excitement that I felt before the surgery day had flown out the window when I was taken to my personal waiting room. I changed into the gown they gave me in the bathroom and looked one last time at myself and was suddenly so, so sure that I was making a huge mistake.

My thought process on this day, six months ago, in that bathroom: Why was I such a whiner before this? I could get through the rest of my life like this, no problem. So many more people have worse things to live with the a crooked spine and hump back. I could die. I could be paralyzed. I could never do the things I love again. I may never see my family again. I just get my mind set on something, and it's full speed ahead. Jesus Christ, what the hell was I thinking?

Thank God for my mother being there, or I would have lost it right there. I remember laying there watching "While You Were Out" on TLC with her. Everything felt so wrong. I cried to the anesthesiologist. Asked him to promise that I wouldn't die. Asked him to promise that I wouldn't feel anything.

Then it was more talking to my surgeon, more questions from the nurses, happy juice from the anesthesiologist and good-byes to my family & friends. It was so surreal. Everything was bright and white and so normal seeming. Normal for everyone around me. I was in panic mode.

Changes that change everything and nothing at the same time
Today, I can finally say this: I'm glad I did this. This is one of the first times I've ever said that out loud. I am glad I did this. [It's crazy how choked up writing this makes me!]

Today, I don't experience the same sort of awful back pain that I once did. I feel like the pain I get now will eventually go away. It's not the stiff, pressurized pain I once felt, and I don't have pains when I breathe anymore either. I just get kind of achy, mostly when I'm sitting incorrectly or I spend too long in one position.

Today, I look different. My back used to be so much bigger than it is now, so much wider. I used to have a hump on my right shoulder blade. My ribs weren't centered and pointed to the right. My shoulder was higher. Now I have a massive scar that I am seriously proud of. It is my battle wound. I look at it, and I feel like a bad ass.

The lesser pain and the way I look are big differences, but there's so many more changes for me. I have a confidence that I have never felt before. I feel normal. I think I look normal. I have never felt like a normal person before. I always thought of myself as deformed. Not many people would think of that when they would see me, I know. But once you knew, you saw it. I always would look at my girlfriends from the side. You could just barely see their shoulder from the back of the arm then straight down to the small of the back. Mine was a giant "S" from the side. Strapless dresses with zippers? Forget about it. They didn't make them fit my type. Seems crazy to be so upset over that, right?

I remember in high school being in a high school pageant. I didn't win. Later, a teacher who was very friendly with my group and happened to be a judge, said I didn't win because I looked so bad in my dress. I still get mad about that. And embarrassed.

The big changes for me are all internal. Going through days and weeks and even months of pain changes you. I feel I look like everyone else, but I feel better about it because I had to fight to get here.

I've heard a lot of people tell me how amazed they are at my recovery and how quickly I've come out of it. I still feel like I'm in recovery a little, and whenever they say this I secretly scream inside that they have no idea what it once was like for me, but I get what they're saying, and I agree. I thought I'd still be struggling a lot more at six months than I actually am. Why would this be better for me?

I'm going with a few different theories on this now that I can look back at things with a little perspective.

One thing, I prepared myself as much as I could. I worked out constantly. I gave up smoking, caffeine, all the list of meds my doc gave to avoid. I saw a massage therapist/energy manipulator the night before my surgery to clear the air, so to say. I joined an online support group to learn more about the experience I'd be going through and get tips on how to survive. I started my blog to get all this shit out of my head. I gave myself two mantras to focus on whenever I needed them (1. I will be ok. My angels will guide me. 2. I plant this hurt in a sea of good thoughts and it floats away.).

Two, "buddha, buddha," as my friends and I call it. I asked my angels to be in the hospital with me to take care of me (Sally, Kelsey's uber-buddhabuddha mom said the surgery room was packed). I prayed to God. I prayed to each of my angels by name. I asked everyone I talked to to pray for me. I blogged for prayers, begging people to pray again. If for nothing else, the praying helped me to concentrate on something, made me feel like I had a small army around me. I truly believe I did, though, especially when I think about all the people out there who were concentrating on me and praying for me. I can't prove it, but I know it to be true. Faith, I guess. (I'm not so skeptical anymore.) I was so ready to give up at times, I knew I needed something much bigger than me to pull me through it.

Three, my support. I've read online about people going home, alone after their surgeries. I am so lucky that I had my family to go home to. My mom and dad were there for me day in and day out, and I will never forget how blessed I am to have them. I don't deserve these parents. Few people deserve the great parents I have. Same goes with the rest of my family and my friends and all the ridiculous amount of love, support and care I received. I'm going to include my surgeon and his staff in this. I am lucky to have one of the best specialists in the world for scoliosis practically in my backyard. The care I received is unreal. My blessings go on and on.

Present day
I'm not 100 percent recovered yet. I go to work, just like before, I just have a better chair to sit in now. I am back to working out, I'm just not ready to dance yet. I can't lift more than 25 pounds, and twisting into some of my old yoga positions seems like a funny joke right now. I look similar, but different. I have kick-ass posture. I get a lot of people telling me just how different I look. Quite a few friends have told me it's deeper than that. I have something inside me that's finally showing on the outside, too. People who really know me have actually said this to me, no lie, which is wonderful because that is how I feel. I'm still me, just better, I think.

One reason I decided to do the surgery was to prevent a lot of bad things from happening to me in the future. I am still scared of bad things but from a different perspective now. I am so happy with where I am today that I now worry about what would happen if I started to go crooked again. What if the rods slip or break (this can happen!) and I have to do this all again? Would I do it all again? I am so happy now. [Wow! I can say that!] I would like to think I would do it all again, but I don't know that I could physically, emotionally, mentally go through this ever again. It makes me so sick to think about. Many people have multiple surgeries for scoliosis over the course of their lives. I pray to God and my angels that this one time will take for me. Fingers officially crossed.

So, with all that off my chest now, happy anniversary to me and to every single one of you who has been with me through this! Six months down! I could have NEVER EVER been able to get through this without so many of you. Once again, to mom, dad, Wendy, Misty, the kids, Matt, Kelsey, the Stroopes, Carra, Monica, Janet, Barry&Jayne, the Pollards, Monette&fam, my Oncor colleagues, everyone who visited me or called me when I was away, to Dr. Hostin and his staff, to my beautiful Baylor nurses: thank you, thank you, thank you! xoxo