Living Spinefully

Hello Friends,

My surgery is scheduled for one week from tomorrow. How I feel about it changes day by day, and sometimes hour by hour. Overall, anxiety and fear probably come up most often, with occasional bursts of hopefulness, and a chronic mild dread. I wanted to give you all an update on what I’ve been doing to prepare myself, both physically and mentally.

The physical preparation has been significantly easier than the mental overall. In addition to doing gentle body weight exercises with my physical therapist, I have been trying to incorporate more frequent walks and even some light hiking. I try to take the attitude that if I’m going be in some pain regardless, I would rather go ahead and do the activity that may cause a mild flare up, rather than sitting it out. Obviously that’s not always possible but the mindset that “this might make me hurt a bit more, but it’s worth it to me” gives me more of a sense of control and gratitude than “I can’t do this thing.” That being said, there are lots of moments when I’m really fed up with being in pain.

When I originally thought about trying to become mentally stronger for surgery, I thought about increasing the amount that I was meditating, journaling daily, and dedicating all of my mental and emotional energy to therapy. But after weeks of doing lots of self-reflection this summer, I found that I wasn’t interested in spending more time analyzing myself. What I wanted to do was to invest more of my time into living the life that I have, rather than just thinking about it. I wanted to pursue hobbies and personal interests and put myself out there and make the social connections that I’m constantly studying through podcasts and books. So that’s some of what I’ve been doing the past few weeks. I’ve been going to book clubs, playing in a corn hole league (a “sport” I can still participate in), volunteering more consistently, practicing my Spanish, cross-stitching, trying to get to know my co-workers better, spending more time outside, and even going on some dates. Don’t get me wrong, as an introvert with social anxiety, this kind of stuff isn’t easy for me necessarily. But one of the strange benefits of living with a chronic condition is that it reminds me how precious time is. I don’t know how many summers I have left to play corn hole with my friends. I might as well do it now.

I was reminded of a former co-worker who talked about mindfulness as the space between “avoid” (where we push away and ignore all of our problems) and “the void” (where we are so engulfed by our problems that we can’t see the bigger picture). In general, I tend to lean more towards “the void” when it comes to my struggles. I feel and think deeply about life, and as a result, easily get stuck in my head. Engaging more purposefully in activities lately has helped get me out of my head and into my body, perhaps even to the point of avoiding my feelings. But there have also been moments when I’m able to say, “I’m really fucking scared about my surgery. And at the same time, I want to honor and celebrate the mobility I currently have. I don’t want to spend more time inside worrying about my health, I want to go play corn hole.” I don’t know if I’ve found the magical, in between space of mindfulness. But in these rare moments of balance and clarity, it feels like living my life in the present moment on purpose and nonjudgmentally. To me, that feels like mindfulness.

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll keep you all posted after surgery!

Laura