Standing

A friend took this photo of me at a party Thursday evening.

It has thrilled me to no end because I am standing straight. This feels like some kind of combination of a miracle and a profound achievement.

Six months ago. I was not standing straight. I probably hadn’t been standing straight for a long time, but by that point, late April and early May, it had reached a point where even I could not ignore my own disability. I could not stand for more than 5 minutes, often no more than 2 or 3 minutes. I often had trouble walking. I knew I leaned forward, but I could no longer force myself to stand straight.

I went to PT, beginning in early May, and I have been going ever since. It has been an ongoing challenge, and probably will be for some time. I learned that my right leg and hip muscles were so tight that I effectively had what I think of as a peg-leg dragging me around, doing it what it had to do. MY left side was very weak, as it had been hauled around, captive, for some time. All this developed over years, secondary to my completely fused back (T1 to L3-4 with a steel rod, L4-5 and L5-6 self fused). The body does what it has to do, until it needs help. And I can be a master of self-deception.

As we loosened tight muscles and started to strengthen weak ones, my body felt like a battle ground, a mini-revolution in my own muscle, the stiff muscles did not want to relinquish control, the weak ones clamored to be heard. Sometimes I tilted less forward, sometimes I tilted left, or right, or some odd combination of the two. I began to realize that I was not as “normal” as I always assumed I was, and I was engaged not only in that physical battle on a muscular level, but in my own cognitive and emotional battle beset by ever-new reminders of how I did not move or appear to move in normal ways. The tree that has been buffeted and twisted by winds does not know that it is not straight like the other trees, it only perseveres, convinced of its own survival. In my heart I had always been a straight tree, and here I was learning I was anything but.

Today, I still have a long way to go. My muscles are still tight. I am still learning to walk normally. But the photo above serves as a reminder, a talisman almost, of my progress. At Aunt Lillian’s funeral I stood for over an hour talking to people. At the above party I had already stood for well over an hour, when that photo was taken, and I was still straight. I stood another hour before I had to sit down. Slowly, I am walking more easily. Slowly, I can do more. Slowly I have less pain. I had always assumed that pain was a constant fact of life. Now it appears I can question that belief.

Today, I am filled with hope. I CAN do this.