Fear

            I wonder what it’s like when real fear grips you. I’ve experienced fear, but never an all-encompassing, potentially life-changing or life-threatening fear. I hope never to experience that. In my limited exposure to fear, I seem to have a pattern of brain freeze, extreme myopia, and an absolute need to control, which tends to come out as anger. I don’t think I’d do well with real fear.

            My younger son reminded me this past weekend of the time we were driving in Missouri and it began to rain so hard the windshield wipers were useless. The shoulder of the next underpass being already packed, we turned off at the next road, then off that road onto a farm lane. I began yelling at my husband that not only couldn’t we see but we’d be stuck forever in the mud. I didn’t ask which part of the episode my son remembered.

            Before that, when the same son was born, I learned after the fact that the reason everyone in the delivery room told me sternly to stop pushing (you mothers out there will appreciate my reaction to that command) was that the cord was wrapped around his neck and needed to be cut off. His father also denied my desire for a kiss, which I also later learned was because our son was blue and not breathing and the staff could not at first come up with the oxygen mask. He started breathing on his own. So, I had no fear at the time, though I’ve shuttered a number of times since. As our son grew, we learned that he was prone to parent-exciting behavior.

            Our older son was once hospitalized with an asthma attack. When he was admitted as opposed to simply going home after a quick treatment, I experienced remorse at not having been more diligent with his medication, disbelief, and, yes, fear, but I don’t think I ever thought he wouldn’t come home again, good as new. There was a certain amount of mother-knows-best as well, when the staff experienced what I had: even intravenously, the leeway with his medicine between therapeutic and toxic was miniscule. Fortunately, asthma medications soon improved immensely.

            On another occasion, both our sons were at Magic Mountain with their string group following a Southern California competition. There had been a bit of a mix-up, in that while the venue was supposed to be open only to music groups, in fact it had been oversold for a rap concert. The park was closed, those denied entrance were rioting, and our kids were locked inside with no transportation. We managed some phone connections (this was pre-cell phone), and in a B movie scene, my kids’ dad picked up all the kids and their director at a certain gate at a certain time and they escaped the park. I had called our school principal and was ready to call the governor, determined that there was something I, as a mother, should be able to do. Well, at least I kept my mind occupied.

            Keeping my mind occupied—that seems to be the trick. I’m pretty scared about having posterior cervical spine surgery on June 25 to remove bone and ligaments and fuse my C3 (cervical) to T1 (thoracic) vertebrae with screws and rods on each side of my spine. I’m pretty pissed that I’ll have to wear a hard collar and do nothing but shuffle (“don’t walk faster than 1.5 miles per hour”) for six weeks, and then I’ll start physical therapy, after my muscles have atrophied and I’m fatter than the side of a barn.

            Two months ago, my neurologist, on viewing the MRI of my cervical spine he’d ordered because of occasional numbness in my arms and hyper reflexes, told me I should have surgery yesterday and risked paralysis if I didn’t. I coolly said I’d require a second opinion, which took two months, since the UCSF Spine Center sees 10,000 spines annually and didn’t see my spine as terribly unusual. The doctor did, however, recommend surgery sooner rather than later, citing recent research that indicate that  at my level of damage, if I don’t take action, it’s pretty certain I’ll begin to lose coordination and muscle strength within five years and that damage cannot be reversed—only, hopefully, arrested.

            Prior to UCSF, I’d formed the impression, based on anecdotal evidence from a variety of sources, that the surgery might be outpatient, with resumption of more or less normal activity in a week or so. I’d sort of thought I might want to spend at least one night in the hospital after having someone slice my neck open. I’d also thought it might be an anterior surgery, which is supposedly easier to recover from, although having someone cut into the front of my neck sounded pretty gruesome. So I was rather unprepared to be told I’d be in the hospital three days followed by six weeks in a hard collar followed by PT. Yikes!

            It seems like a an extreme first surgery. Shouldn’t one build up to this type of surgery to get an idea what surgery is like? Oh, but do I really wish I’d had other surgeries? Maybe I should have at least had that colonoscopy....

            It’s quite a shock, as I have always been athletic, strong, limber, enamored of sore muscles as indicative that I have muscles. I just assumed my crackly neck was no different than my crackly other joints. I’m also fond of beer, wine, and food, which all my life have been determined to win my weight race. “Rubenesque,” my sister said when I was younger. My cholesterol decided to take a jump this year, which it hasn’t done in seven years. Pre-UCSF visit,  I pledged to lower it with diet. A few days post-UCSF, concluding I should attempt to be as healthy as possible going under the knife, I popped my first 2.5 mg of Crestor.

            I often recall a conversation with a friend two decades ago of our then current problems. When I commented that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, we simultaneously laughed that we obviously couldn’t handle very much.

            Cervical spine surgery is not life threatening. The surgeon is proclaimed by some the best in the world and by many among the best. It’s not a town-destroying, murderous tornado or hurricane. It’s not an injurious, murderous bombing at a public event or 9/11. It’s not Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, rampant disease, or famine. It’s not ALS, MS, Crone’s disease, Williams Syndrome, cancer or any number of other life altering situations friends and family have experienced. It’s just a fairly routine surgery, and I’m a healthy woman who hasn’t even had to fuss with periods for nigh on twenty years.

            But I’m glad my husband is solicitous. I’m glad my sons and one daughter-in-law are all in the medical field and can impart quite a bit of general and specific knowledge. I’m not glad my other daughter-in-law had half her spine similarly fused due to severe scoliosis, but I am glad she shares with me her experience and tells me I am brave. I’m glad my spouse and siblings congratulate me for pulling my head out of the sand and saying yes to surgery. And I’ll be more than glad for anyone to do whatever it is they think or do to send me love and strength as I go through this, because I know that is what gets us through everything.

            And I hope I never have to go through anything truly fearful, and that if I do, I will be able to be half the person of the heroes in my life.