By Alyssa Silvester

1. Life Raft

A single night light casts a yellow orb on my wooden living room floor, the only light in an otherwise tomblike room. All my weight rests in my left leg, and I drag my heavy right leg like an anchor. I make it to my life raft, toss throw pillows overboard, and heave myself onto it. Salty tears run a current on my temple and damp hair sprawls around me as if I’m a mermaid.

Hours earlier, my body jolted awake into a nightmare, pain ripping from my glute to big toe. I rolled from my bed to the floor searching for relief. Pain waves weakened only when I laid flat on my back. 

On the couch, the tsunami continues to ravage my body. My eyes finally close, lashes sticky and clumpy with tears. My phone crashes into slumber as well, exhausted after its race through Google searches: shooting pain, sciatic nerve, hamstring on fire, calf convulsing, paralysis, throbbing piriformis. 

2. Physical Therapist Assistant 

On my back, I open my red journal and reread physical therapy notes. The therapist prescribed several stretches and exercises to help loosen my hamstring and calf muscles. Is this my new normal, another task added to my daily to-do list? Will the exercises simply manage the pain? Will I ever return to strength training or Peloton bike rides? 

Right hand below left hand. Cup back of right knee. Bend at ninety degree angle. Inhale. Slowly move leg toward nose. Exhale. Extend flexed foot toward ceiling fan.

“What are you doing, Mama?” my three-year-old son asks the first time he sees me.

Leaves on giant oak trees outside the window are just starting to blush red.

3. Orthopedic Physician Nurse

My doctor recommends applying ice and then heat in twenty-minute increments, three times daily. A frozen pea ice pack chills my lower back muscles all the way to the bone, and afterward, warmth from the heating pad spreads like fire. The cushions continue to hold their shape despite increased usage over the last two months. 

“Please don’t unplug the heating pad,” I beg my two-year-old daughter.

4. Temporary Bed

My eyes peel open to a soft living room almost out of focus. I rub sleep from my eyes to see rolling credits of Super Buddies. Both my children are sitting side-by-side next to me, placed by my husband ninety minutes prior, their eyes glued to the screen. The drugs necessary to consciously sedate me for my first spinal injection—nerves in my lower back bathed with steroids a few hours ago—have not worn off yet. 

5. Restaurant Stand-In

For my next spinal injection, I ask for non-drowsy anesthesia. “My husband is out of town for work,” I tell the nurse, “and I only have the babysitter for a few hours. I don’t want to be loopy.”

I move through the rest of the day as though underwater and somehow make it until bedtime. A friend sends DoorDash thirty minutes after my children are asleep. It’s difficult to eat sushi while reclined.

6. Offering
“Your body still isn’t feeling good,” my now four-year-old comments. He returns, his arms piled with new library books and his favorite yellow car. “I’ll get you a blanket too, so you can be cozy.”

Moments later my husband, son, and daughter disappear into the garage dressed for church. Dress shoes click-clack each wooden stair on their way out.  Unable to sit in the pew, I watch the service online instead. 

Her cushions become my refuge. She willingly holds my body while I sing, pray, and cry. 

7. Summer Entertainer 

Summer sunshine sends a siren song to our neighborhood pool. I can almost smell the coconut sunscreen, hear the giggles from unexpected splashes of cannon balls, and witness mothers wiping purple popsicle juice from their kids’ chins.

I turn on a movie for my kids and escape into my seventeenth novel of the summer.

8. Alternate Vacation Destination

Waves of emotion course through my body when I click cancel. I review required documentation for our refund request: doctor notes, MRI report, and a personal letter. 

Overarching reason: Patient has back surgery scheduled for dates she is supposed to be at the beach. 

9.  Writing Retreat

When will my pain be gone? 

Lying on my back, my left arm holds my red journal above my face, and my right hand scrawls. I write so I don’t forget, but at the same time, I question how much I want to remember. 

How can I be thankful in this season?

Today I smiled because I was able to stand for forty-five minutes to bake cookies with my kids.

My usual early morning journaling spot at the end of our dining room table has sat abandoned for nearly a year. Instead, I write horizontal. 

I am Michaelangelo.

10. Legal Assistant

The night before surgery, I hold my husband’s hand during the familiar opening of The Office. Antiseptic scent of Hibiclens soap from my pre-surgery shower clings to my skin. My body is still, but my mind races. 

Earlier in the day, I locked myself in our laundry room to escape my children’s escalating screams to answer the hospital’s pre-surgery call. Late morning sun cut through the large window to warm the back of my neck. 

Have you made a will? the automated voice asked. I pressed “1” for yes.  

11. Medical Assistant 

Beep the alarm calls, indicating it’s time for more codeine and muscle relaxers. I roll my body like a log: a single block motion from back to side and then swing my legs over, exactly as the discharge nurse recommended. 

“Here you are,” says my husband. He hands me three oval pills and a cup of water. My brown eyes meet his green ones, and I smile.

“I feel amazing!” The drugs haven’t worn off yet. “I can’t believe we were in the hospital earlier today!”

I stretch my Disney t-shirt—a nod to joy when chosen that morning—past my hips to cover the four-inch incision to the right of my spine. I furrow my brow, take a deep breath, and reverse the log roll motion until I’m on my back again. 

12. Caregiver

Our beloved babysitter velcros my son’s and daughter’s sandals, fills water bottles, packs granola bars, and takes off for the park. 

Without little feet running, small hands throwing toys, or tiny voices asking for snacks, the house is still. In my post-surgery recovery, I imagined the essays and poetry I would pen and the quantity of books I would read. I never considered how television and Spotify would be constant companions during the month after surgery. 

Surgical glue begins to peel from my incision. I exercise self-control not to itch. Every hour I log roll off the cushions to walk laps around our open floor plan. My slow, steady steps will build up to two continuous miles of walking in the next month.

At my post-operative appointment my surgeon tells me, “Your scar looks perfect. You’re healing exactly as I thought you would.” He removes his blue surgical cap, and his smile stretches across his entire face. He extends his hand to shake mine.

“You are not fragile,” he reassures me.

I shake his hand and resist the urge to give him a hug.

13. Thanksgiver

“Snuggle me, Mama?” my son asks. I scoot over and stretch out, and his body nestles into the crook of my side. My daughter climbs aboard and rests her weight on my other shoulder.

Evening wind blows through open porch doors. Red, yellow, orange leaves dance in the wind, preparing to release. 

It feels good to lay down. My elbows rub the soft textured cushion below us, and I marvel. The first time all day. 

I pat her still-stuffed rectangle cushion. 

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Guest essay written by Alyssa Silvester. Alyssa is a type A Midwesterner who cares for her people through home cooked meals and words of affirmation. She lives in Hoover, Alabama—a born Michigander turned Washingtonian turned Southerner through her family’s journey in military medicine—with her husband, preschoolers (son and daughter twenty months apart), and two cats. Alyssa loves a good spreadsheet, seasonal decorations and foods, great books, and her Peloton streak. You can connect with her online at her blog, Alyssa’s Writing.