Broken Spine

I like to find used paperbacks for my ever-churning library of reading material. I usually have at least one book and one magazine in the process of reading all the time. For that reason, I always have a plethora of used books ready for sale. Therefore a few weeks before Christmas, I sold five used books (I think I made $2.00) and bought three used ones for $15.00. Believe it or not, I took that as a fair trade given the local market and choice of material (almost all of it is history).

Separation

I was reading one of my used finds, and then about page 90, a page fell out. The page had separated from the binding, clearly not something that I expected. Well, I was not be deterred; I kept reading. Somewhere around page 160, the last half of the book fell out. Now I had two books, part 1 pages 1 – 240, and part 2, pages 240 – 520. Then along the way, pages started separating. I had a multipart book eventually strung together with paper clips and a hope that I could finish it before the whole thing turned into a jumble of loose paper.

My spine is treated like that book

My book was still okay, even if it was lying in pieces each time I picked it up. I began to think about ankylosing spondylitis and how my spine was now being considered in parts and pieces. I was still one person, but my doctors talked about me as L4, L5, C3, and T6, among others. I have to confess I am not tuned into the spine's shorthand, so those designations make no sense to me. All I know is that, like my book, my spine seems to be failing. Granted, nothing is falling out of my spine, but I think it could.  Sometimes I expect to wake to find vertebra lying about the house. Honey, have you seen my L3? I know that would not happen, but darn, my doctors need to understand I am a person, not just a collection of joints stacked on top of each other.

Sometimes my well-meaning doctors treat my spine like a loose collection of problem areas. I might describe it as the human Jenga puzzle. Let us remove this piece and see if the tower still stands. Shift that block and look he is still upright. I have had two spinal surgeries, and I am glad I had both. But I also need the surgeons to understand that I am more than a 3D vertical puzzle. Sure remove that and slip this in; let us make this channel bigger, or wait, can we do that since this piece has been removed?

More than pieces

That brings me back to my little book. With papers all over the place, I finally finished the book. The book that I paid around $5.00 for is destined for recycling. I got the value of my purchase out of the book. I completed the story, but no one else would want this book that now lays in pieces. It served its purpose for me, even if it was inconvenient to read.

My surgeon still has more work to do, so I likely will be back in surgery for a correction later in 2021. I need to have the original surgical wound reopened to adjust some hardware holding my back in its new shape. It is all routine. But before I have this done, I have to be sure my doctors will treat me like a whole person, not just L4, L5, and L6 or whatever the area needing to be operated on. While I like Jenga, I am more than that puzzle. I am a whole person, and rearranging my spine is a big deal, even if it is routine to the surgeons.