Repair and maintenance. Part 1.

I pinched a nerve, that is what I said to myself. I went for a walk mid February and my leg hurt a bit. My back, and my hip. I pinched a nerve, it was that simple. I would let it rest a few days, and never look back.

It didn't get better. I said, “screw it” and started walking again. Mid March, spring was coming, and a stupid pinched nerve wasn't going to stop me. I would fight through it. I walked. When it was warm, I biked. It hurt, but not enough to stop me.

Mid April, it still hurt. Weird, stuff usually heals. One day I was working on a piece of machinery and lifted it a few times. It weighed about 150#, not a huge deal. I hurt, bad. Could barely walk for a week. It was time to see a chiropractor about this stupid pinched nerve.

Went to 2 different ones. It was feeling better, healed or not, my mind said I was better. Fixed. I wasn't going on long walks, but I was biking. I was going to get better. Period. This nerve was going to heal!

I remember the day after one of the appointments, I felt great and was pondering a nice bike ride. I was sitting on a bench swing and the wood gave way on one of the supports. I fell 2 ft onto my hip. It should not have been a big deal. I laid there for probably 30 minutes, beyond pain. If I moved I was going to vomit. Finally, I decided it was time to stop being a wimp and walk inside, drink some water and move along.

It took 30 minutes to walk 50ft. I grabbed some water, my mp3 player, sat on the couch and digested the pain—let it run it's course so I could move on. This was a good day and this stupid pinched nerve was not going to ruin it. Screw chronic pain. I relaxed and resolved the bike ride would go as planned.

A simple 10 mile ride, no big deal. I went out. For perhaps the first time ever, I cut the ride short and only did 7 miles. It felt like someone was plucking the entire nerve running from my back to my foot every time I moved my leg. I got home and sat down, frustrated.

I thought to myself, “okay, take it easy a bit”. I did. That was late April. For the next 2 weeks, I barely walked, but I did bike. In total I biked over 300 miles this spring, all of that unknowingly on a broken hip. A hip bone that was so weak that back in February the simple act of walking on it had fractured it, but I didn't know that yet. I was fine; figuring out how to wade through chronic pain, but fine.

Chronic pain is an experience you cannot understand from observation, I had always thought you could. Watching and sympathizing with someone in chronic pain is not the same as enduring it. It de-saturates life. It complicates every action, every moment. You are not free, you are a prisoner inside your own body where pain is dolled out randomly but consistently. Some-times you have the illusion of freedom, of health, but it is a ruse which is cut short randomly—try living your life when you are not sure when or where your ability to function will be cut off, that is chronic pain.

Mid May when it still didn't feel right I decided I needed to try a different chiropractor, after all, why couldn't anyone fix this pinched nerve? I didn't get it. This time, on a “feeling” I went to a chiropractor that could also do x-rays.

I went down on a Monday morning, the chiropractor talked to me for about 40 minutes about how my hip was probably out of alignment and how we would fix it. Right before we started he said, “I always take x-rays just to be sure”, so we casually did an x-ray of my hip.

Immediately, he said, “You got a big problem—see that white area, that is where bone should be but isn't.” This was followed by, “You are going to need surgery and might have bone cancer”. “Don't jump, you don't have much bone left”.

An hour later I was waiting for a CT scan. Cancer?! And where the hell did my bone go?! You know you are having a bad day when the news that you only need major hip surgery was in fact the best possible news you were going to get. I waited about 2 hours for the radiologist to read the scan. His view: “See an orthopedic doctor immediately. Walking might break the bone”.

I was amazingly fortunate and 3 days later was in an orthopedic surgeons office. The bone was clearly broken in a few places. There was a tumor in my hip bone, and it had destroyed an awful lot of the bone. I was going to need surgery, but not yet. Cancer was back on the table. I was told to be “careful”, no impacts, but walking was ok.

A few days later I was scheduled to be in an orthopedic oncologists office. A good friend went with me, and we had just finished a short stroll around Morgantown and had an amazing lunch. Walking barely hurt at all, I thought maybe things were even healing. I was actually certain that things were healing. My spirits were high, I was nervous but optimistic. I figured he'd go, “Yeh, no big deal. We'll get you fixed and out the door soon.”

“You have a big problem” were his first words when he walked through the door. “You don't have enough bone left to safely support your weight, no walking, no driving, no pressure on that leg at all, or else you will break it”. He went on to say, “60% chance that is not cancer, but you will need a biopsy and we will go from there.”

I went home shocked to the entire core of my being. 40% chance I had cancer. No walking, no driving, no independence.

Two days later I got a call scheduling the biopsy. They were going to jab a needle into my hip bone while I was in a CT scan. I hate needles. I wasn't thrilled about cancer either, but I really, really hate needles.

Again, my friend went with me. We sat for hours waiting (hospitals seem to run a few hours late all the time). I am rarely genuinely scared, but this was one of those times I was. They were going to jab a needle through my hip bone into this tumor, and then tell me if I had cancer. No part of that was pleasant sounding.

While we were waiting there was a child in the hallway crying, “I want to go home, I want to go home.” I wanted to go over to him, sit on the floor and scream with him. I wanted to go home. In my entire life, there may never have been a time I wanted to go home more than that moment.

They finally called me back to get prepped. I didn't faint when they put the iv in, but I hated it. When they finally said they were going to take me to the operating room I was in full resigned terror; they were going to knock me out, then do their thing—hopefully i'd wake up.

I did wake up, in the middle of the biopsy. I screamed, “I'm awake, please, please, knock me back out”. I was strapped down. My leg was numbed with local anesthesia, but I felt what I thought was a jackhammer hitting my leg. “Crack”, “Crack”, I only heard it a few times before I went back into unconsciousness.

I waited. The first few days I didn't think about it. The results take time. By day 7 I though I was going to go crazy. It's like living in a limbo where you have no idea what reality you are going to be released into. The possibilities for this ranged from benign to certain death.

Mid morning on day 7 I got the call: benign, but surgery was needed. A thousand pounds evaporated off of my shoulders. I was still not okay, but it wasn't cancer. Everything else was annoying, a horrible inconvenience, but life would go on.

On a side note: I have a new found respect for people with or who have had cancer, not that I didn't greatly respect them before. But, having experienced seven days of not even having it, it's stunning how fast the facade of mental strength you think you have can crumble when something out of your control and potentially deadly comes into your life. In the face of something like that we are so human, so mortal and so fragile that the terror of how vulnerable you really are can sink in and completely undermine whatever “strength” and “resolve” you built your life on.

Surgery was scheduled for 3 weeks later... 21 more days before I even started to recover. Unable to drive, work, or even walk. Fuck—this was going to be hard.