What’s my lucky number? I wondered as I walked in the Hospital For Special Surgery for procedure number 27.

I was greeted like I had walked into the fictional bar “Cheers.” Nurses and doctors shouted my name as I made my way to curtain number four. Waiting for me there were gown, cap, grippy socks and a chance at greater pain relief.

The only downside to my homecoming were repeated requests for me to take a pregnancy test. Three times I nicely replied that a wasn’t necessary. The fourth time I choked back tears and said I can’t get pregnant. It hasn’t been possible for me; that’s when the nurses finally got it.

During my hour long wait, I swallowed Ativan. It calmed my fears about the torture I was going to endure while strapped to a table with my face in a hole and my naked butt and back exposed to a room full of people, many who don’t ever introduce themselves.

When I stepped into the operating room, my mind was quiet. I prayed and focused on what was waiting for me when the procedure was over like possibly walking longer without my cane, dancing and slipping on a pair of high heels for the first time in three years. The sight of radiation suits on the doctors and nurses, cold rush from the iodine cleaning my back, burning from the lidocaine coating my nerves and the turns of the table to provide better fluoroscope/X-Ray images didn’t take me out of the meditative state I’d achieved.

Before I knew it I was in recovery dealing with an allergic reaction, weakness and tingling in my leg and foot, and soreness in my lower back. But, I was determined to go home to start healing. So I took Benadryl, waited an hour and walked out of the building using my cane with my mother hopefully that my future steps will be easier and less painful.

#spoonies #backpain #chronicpain #chronicillness #autoimmunedisease #invisibleillness #hss #igg4 #infertility #meditation