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I have always led a very active, energetic life—until recently, when I fractured two vertebrae. In the words of a pain doctor I visited, “You broke your back.”
After recommending a possible procedure he added, “it will also heal on its own in three to six months.” I made my choice on the spot. I decided I would heal in a couple of months and be finished with it.
What occurred next was totally unexpected. On top of my broken back, we were in the middle of moving. Our landlord suddenly decided he wanted to move into our house and we could not find a place to rent. At the 11th hour, we discovered a small house and signed the lease.
And then the nerve pain started, and it hasn’t really stopped. I am usually so proactive. I would’ve been arranging everything for the new house, hiring moving people, being on top of everything. But I was unable to do anything other than occasionally change my position in bed. The moving man was wondering how he would get me from house A to House B. I became what I never was before in life: passive, listless, and feeling utterly useless. Nothing was in my sphere of control. I had to trust other people to take care of the most intimate details of my life. They packed my underwear and unpacked my shoes. They heard me groaning and saw me unkempt.
I fell in love all over again with my husband, because he never complained as he took care of me, the house, organizing, cooking, moving everything from one place to the other, packing, unpacking. In the new house, there was no heat for four days in the winter. Then there was a mouse infestation. There were issues with the electrical outlets. One night we got locked out of the bathroom because the knob failed. He dealt with each issue as it came up and I saw a side of him that I hadn’t really experienced before. A man who could put all his needs, desires, and frustrations on hold as he simply took care of everything as it showed up and tended to my needs with love. His behavior was so mature and self-controlled. I, on the other hand, vacillated between depression and anxiety.
I started physical therapy, and slowly I was regaining mobility, but then I was so anxious to heal that I overdid it and ended up unable to leave the bed, because the nerve pain was so excruciating. All I could do was lie there, looking at the ceiling, wanting to be back in my life. I read that it was good to sing, so in an off-key voice I kept singing the Do Re Mi song from the musical The Sound of Music. "Doe, a deer, a female deer, Ray, a drop of golden sun. Me a name I call myself, far, a long long way to run..."
And as I sang, I came to realize truths about myself I hadn’t faced before. First, I didn’t know how to slow down. I was forced to make every move slowly, and I had never done anything in my life besides accomplish, move ahead, and leap forward at an exciting pace. My nervous system was always on the qui vive, always on alert. I wanted to heal quickly but my body did not obey. It was like a stop sign showed up in the middle of the road of my life.
And second, I had patience for other people, but I had none for myself. I wanted everything to happen now, I wanted the medications to work with no side effects. I needed the pain to stop immediately, and I wanted to get my mobility back at once. I wanted everything to happen now, but no matter how impatient I was, nothing happened faster. I could not even get out of bed. I simply could not move the dial of pain and healing.
Although I have tried to accelerate my recovery, I have been forced to experience what it’s like to slow down. To accomplish nothing in a day. To be unable to read and focus or meditate. To be satisfied that I could sing one upbeat song from an old musical. To be grateful for little things like a shaft of sunlight coming in through the bedroom window. The comforting warmth of a heating pad. The fact that each inhale was followed by an exhale. I needed to be patient and accept that healing has its own time frame. I had to decelerate and give my nervous system a break from fast-paced high functionality.
In life, teachers appear everywhere whether or not we choose to acknowledge them. My broken back is a teacher. My husband is a teacher. My pain is a teacher. I have been a teacher of one sort or another all my adult life. Now am trying to learn and listen. I am trying to embrace fully my new role as student.
