My body is falling apart. It was happening slowly, then I had a hysterectomy and now it’s happening not so slowly. When I lie on my left side, now my right leg longer than my left, above the knee.
Which is interesting, because my legs were measured over a year and a half ago from the hips and that’s not the longer leg.
My spine is collapsing in on itself. My hips are contorting, my spine is corksrewing like a single helix, and sometimes when I lie in the bed just right depending on the angle, I can feel the rods in my spine as the only barrier between further collapse.
There was a time when I couldn’t feel the rods at all. And I still can’t, except in very specific positions. Positions that used to be comfortable to lie in at night.
And sometimes I try new positions. I’ve tried lying on my back to sleep. Occasionally I do sleep on my back. And when I do, I wake up feeling like my right shoulder is attempting to cave in toward my left hip. Which, it is. The left side of my body is the weak side of my body. It is the side that is collapsing. And my right shoulder is caving forward. And I lean back when I am not paying attention to my posture.
My posture is much better since we got rid of the reclining couch, now that I am sitting in my rocking chair full-time when sitting in the living room.
I try to resist lying on my left side at night.
I remember after the scoliosis surgery in 1993. I was so young, and the surgery involved an incision that spanned the entirety of my left side. I remember the first time I could lie on that side again after the surgery, for brief periods.
That curve that was around 91 degrees or so the week of the surgery, that got corrected to the 45-degree range ultimately, with a corresponding curve now….and those Harrington-Luque system rods that line my spine from my shoulder blades, drilled deep into my hips. And all those little twist ties, as I call them, still there to this day.
Sometimes, when I feel the force of those rods in whatever position I’m lying in bed at night, I think about those twist ties wrapped around my spine. And I wonder what happens if one gives— whether the tie gives, or whether the bone of my spine gives first.
I remember being in the bathtub in the days before the surgery. At 13 years od, I remember bending my spine in that tub, and I remember knowing that I needed to remember that feeling, that I would never feel it again in a couple of days— maybe the next day; I don’t know.
If I try really, really hard, to remember, I can remember that feeling even now. It’s been 33 years and a few days, and even now, I do remember that one specific moment. I remember telling myself, willing myself, to remember that feeling.
Sometimes I can’t remember. Tonight, I can.
My left side is most comfortable to lie on to this day. The primary curve bends the opposite direction.
But my left side has its own curve now, up above my ribs and into my neck. I know it is not a great idea to lie on it regularly.
And yet, I find myself caving to my most basic comfort positions when I am exhausted. And when I am exhausted, that involves lying on my left side, holding a bolster to sleep. Comfort wins.
Bipolar disorder and PTSD is pretty much the worst combination the universe could have sent me for severe, progressive scoliosis.
I have spent literal years in the bed depressed. Not a great recipe when activity and strength is required to maintain my internal scaffolding.
And queue days like today. Good days make me want to try.
My Daddy and Jared installed a Swedish ladder system in our bathroom several weeks ago. Some days I touch it, some days I don’t.
This morning, I hung for a couple of minutes before we went to Dawsonville.
Tonight, I sat on my stool by the ladder, and just sat there leaning forward, with my arms pulling on the highest bar I could reach. Then I climbed up the ladder and hung, and breathed for a minute. The muscles under my left arm are pretty darn weak. Just hanging on, even while sitting there, stretched them in ways that were strenuous.
So, I came out and worked on my balance exercises I learned in physical therapy over a year and a half ago. I stand on one of my favorite stools to do those exercises. Then I laid on the floor and did some reps with a 2 pound weight. And I tried my breathing exercises while I did my arm reps on the floor.
Schroth breathing exercises involve visualizing inflating the parts of your spine and torso that are deflating. And doing that involves getting in touch with the fact that my body is indeed, contorting in 3D. Which is tougher than it sounds. I can look in the mirror and see that my left side is collapsing with no shirt on.
I can look and see the dip in my shoulder. I can look and see that on the corrsponding side, my hip is higher than the right. But in my brain, my spine feels straight. It fights my brain to get in touch with the reality of the geometry of my spine.
And the amount of concentration required to do those breathing exercises that inflate the bottom back left of my rib cage and lungs and spinal column…..It’s effort. We’ll say that.
And when I am doing those breathing exercises correctly, the intensity of the activation required of my lower right abdominal muscles…..it’s pretty darn strenuous and it requires no small amount of concentration.
And all that is well and good and promising for the Schroth method, except it requires just the right conditions.
And, I’m working really hard on stability. Life is good these days. We have a household routine, Jared and I are luckier than we deserve both with the boys’ health and their determination and ambition and accomplishments and how they carry themselves.
And, the breathing exercises are hard. But with each session, I become more aware of my body’s unique geometry, my own place in space. At 46 years old, I may be late to the game, but everyone starts somewhere, right?
And tonight, doing those breathing exercises on the floor for 20 long reps while I lifted those weights straight ahead and over my body……
Tonight those breathing exercises reminded me that I do indeed remember what it felt like to bend my spine, before that forever fusion that solidified most of my spine.
