X-Ray Cercie

This is not a new year post.

OK, maybe it is.

I'm trying to see through the year that just passed; not just reflect, not just project, but, see it. Was it really like what could be observed on the surface?

2018 was my X-Ray year. And as a result, I was granted {multiple} X-Ray Cercies.

Sometimes we live with a lot of pain. We deny ourselves relief. Maybe we are busy. Maybe we are not facing reality. Maybe to ameliorate our pain we have to work too hard, or change something we feel is too big to change. Maybe we don't love ourselves enough. 

What modern day American doesn't have back pain, right? It's the agony of our 21st century, sedentary lives. No one wants to hear you complain about it. Get up and move around. Do the physical therapy exercises they told you to do. Lose some weight. Take the meds.

I am the classic case. I have lived with back pain most of my life. Dance, and movement have always helped cover it up, or make it better, but I've been rather sedentary the past couple of years. 

I've had three big accidents in my life.

The first was in college. I was waitressing at Saskatoon (made $3,000 that summer). It was my lucky night, and I got the big table with ten people ordering lots of alcohol. I sauntered up to the bartender with the naive confidence of the 20-year-old that I was, and had him load up my tray. I was so full of pride in this massive order that would win me the tip of the night, that I insisted on delivering the tray and its array of exotic beverages back to the table myself. It was a large, round serving tray with hundreds of dollars of booze balancing on it. I lobbed it onto my shoulder, turned around to walk past the swinging kitchen door, and remarked to myself, "I'm golden." Whoops! I slipped on the floor. Someone hit the slow motion button and I {slowly?} landed on my right hip, feet flying up. The tray went up, the drinks crashed down. I'm fine. I'm fine. No problem. I can pay for the drinks out of my tip. It's all good. No, I'm fine.

The second accident was after college, in the year 2000. I was at Middelbury that summer immersing in the German language. It was a good day for a bike ride to get a break from studying, and while trying to slow down coming around a bend in an empty parking lot, I looked down at the bike gears, and decided that moment was the perfect one to review counting auf Deutsch as I read the gear numbers ... "eins, zwei, drei, SMACK." I hit a light post, flipped over my bike, braced my landing with my chin, and fractured my right arm. I spent the next hours in the hospital practicing how I was going to explain my face bandage and sling in the German language to my classmates. "Unfall?" Of course I did not cry. Not once. Not a tear ...

The final accident was in 2016, just before I moved to Atlanta. I was cruising along Devine Street in my hometown, heading back to work after my lunch break. I looked up, and all of the cars in front of me were at a dead stop. I slammed. I swerved. I missed. I looked up and into the rear view mirror. A Ford F-150 was about to careen into me. Bye-bye Infiniti Convertible. It was nice loving you with your all-mechanical, robotic, computer-operated hard top. I braced for the impact {figuratively and literally} with my left leg and hand on the steering wheel. I felt a sharp tinge go up my leg that still lingers.

I moved to Atlanta at the end of that year for a traveling job. In one year, I put 25,000 miles on my car driving around Georgia. 25,000 miles with the "death grip" on the steering wheel, lots of sudden breaking in-and-out of Atlanta traffic, and expletives {!!}. I was sitting in a car all the time, and wasn't taking care of myself. While I resisted, the leg and low back pain persisted {and not in the good Elizabeth Warren kind of way}. By the end of 2017, I reached a breaking point. 

And here's where the Cercies come in. 

My neighbor Debra Williams is a yogi. She has a studio RIGHT next door to my apartment. What excuse did I have not to at least try it? We started weekly sessions. I didn't even know there was such a thing as YIN yoga. Enter Patience in the form of Debra, one of my Cercies and Healers. For four months we worked and stretched and strengthened. I would tear up through some of the sessions; it hurt so much. Every time I walked in the door I had a new complaint about the pain. Debra carefully and ever-so-thoughtfully helped me through. One day, she got adamament: "Amy, you need to go see a doctor. You need to get an X-Ray." 

So I got a referral to see Dr. Schiff. On the day of the appointment, I navigated Atlanta perimeter traffic to his office. When I finally found it and a parking spot, I was 30 minutes late and exasperated. I figured this appointment was routine. He would do the X-Ray, tell me I had a disc issue, prescribe PT and an MRI, then give me a shot ... you know the drill. The clinician X-Rayed me from every possible angle. "Are we done, yet?" I thought. "It's like a photo shoot for spine models." I went back into the room with my robe on, and sat down. Dr. Schiff came in with his laptop. He nonchalantly pulled up beside me, flipped open his laptop to this image, and told me I have scoliosis with a 23.9% curvature, which is "significant." Then he told me he'd like to focus on healing what he suspects is a disc issue: "PT once a week for four weeks, then MRI..."

"Dr. Schiff, is this normal?" I ask. "No, Ms. Love. A straight spine is normal."

Was it one of the three accidents that caused this? Was it hereditary? Can it be fixed? Will I become crippled and unable to move freely?

Now I'm starting to remember the pain in college, the chiropractic visits, the heel lifts, the ibuprofen, crying in my room for hours. I'm realizing that the right side of my back seems like it sticks out more than the left. Wasn't that just because I was right-handed and that side is just stronger?

"I am deformed," I thought. I've had a crooked backbone for how long? I'm beyond imperfect. I'm debilitated. Off balance. Mal-aligned. Twisted. 

My friend Kat Reynolds introduced me to her friend Lola, who became my uh-MA-zing massage therapist. Lola got pregnant, which was a blessing for both of us, but mainly for me because she couldn't see me and therefore referred me to Scott Oglesbay, who is one of two Myoskeletal Massage Therapists in Georgia. Lola also referred me to Dr. John Wittle, a Kinesiologist (a what?). 

Debra, Lola, Scott, and John. These are my X-Ray Cercies. They are my healers.

In my X-Ray year, each of these Healers has given me the check mark: "You are going to be OK, Amy. We have your back." {This is where you observe how clever I am with words.}

Each of my X-Ray Cercies, aka Healers, in his or her own way, has opened my mind, and has taught me something new about my body and what it means for me to have a torqued spine. Each has shown me patience, and taught me to have some {yes, Mom, I am learning}. It has been over a year, and I am still healing the disc and trying to correct, or inhibit worsening of, my spine. Every single one of these magical humans has given me hope and helped me rid the pain.

The year of the X-Ray has show me that we don't know what is seeding within us, what is growing or morphing. We don't always listen to ourselves enough, and pay attention to what our bodies are telling us. The year of the X-Ray has shown me that we can't always tell what is happening on the inside. Maybe we don't even want to know.

"Frame that X-Ray, Amy!" said Lola. "It's beautiful!"

So ... what if we get the X-Ray?? Look at what life can deliver: an army of Healers, a panacea to the pain, a tribe {how many of you have Scoliosis - or anything causing you pain - and you've never told anyone, or thought it wasn't worthwhile to share?}. 

I will endeavor to heed the pain in 2019. I will try to see through things.

What's really going on? What clues do I have that something isn't right? How do I name the pain? What if I resist it for too long? Will I be able to endure it? Will I be forever twisted? Will there be Healers to get me straight?