Obstacle Course

Dirty towels are stacked on the seat of my walker. An empty coffee mug, water glass, two rolls of toilet paper, and a bottle of Windex are perched on the top towel. The walker is equipped with handlebars; brake lines run from the handles to the wheels. After releasing the brakes, I roll from master bathroom to bedroom. Books, file folders, and black garbage bags, fat with fifteen years of receipts to shred, occupy a corner. I sweep a lonely group of monthly bills ready to be paid from my dresser into a grocery bag, loop and tie it around a handle.

Steering with one hand and steadying my load with the other, I turtle down the hallway. Bath tissue goes to the guest bathroom. I roll past the den into the kitchen. Coffee mug and water glass join the breakfast dishes in the sink. Sticky spots on the floor cause me to cringe, but cringing is followed by dramatic sighing. In my best Scarlett O’Hara voice, I say aloud to nobody: Tomorrow is another day.

Curving around the corner, I enter the laundry room, only to become entangled with my ironing board—it’s the kind designed to store in the wall, but never stays stored in mine. I encourage the walker to duck under the board, pulling, pushing, jerking, and yelling. I’m stuck. Blue liquid spatters from the fractured spray top of the Windex bottle as it smacks the hardwood floor. Like a basketball player trying to hit multiple shots, I hurl the towels one by one toward the rim of my top-loader washing machine. I’m zero for ten.

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My orthopedist glances down at the floor as though he’s taking time to gather his thoughts to convey unpleasant news. He looks up and says: “There’s nothing else I can do for your back. Curves greater than sixty degrees (off center) will most likely deteriorate one degree yearly, so in ten years, you can expect greater pain and disability.”

My S-shaped spine glares at me from an X-ray film illuminated by light. He continues, “I don’t do adult scoliosis surgery, so I think it would be best for you to see the neuro man here in town who can follow you and determine if you need surgery now. And help you better manage your pain.”

Since I was twelve years old, I’ve had multiple visits—visit sounds pleasant and benign—to orthopedists and physical therapists. After forty years, you’d think I’d be used to hearing state of my spine speeches. Today, all I hear is finality: “There’s nothing I can do for you…”

*****

“Your spine is curvy,” says this short, curly-haired neurosurgeon dressed in a coat with buttons straining over his paunch.

I can’t suppress a giggle. “My husband says I’m curvaceous.”

“Oh, that’s a good one.” We hit it off like two vaudeville comedians.

While looking straight at me, he asks about the severity of my pain on a scale of 1-10. He takes my hand and helps me descend from the exam table. I stretch and try to touch my toes as he runs his fingers along my spine, tracing from top to bottom, a squatty, fat “S.”

“If you are functional, I prefer not to do surgery until you are well into your sixties. You can’t fool around with the spinal cord. We must ask: when do the benefits outweigh the risks?

I nod, listening. He continues, “I could make you straight—straight in your coffin.”

*****

I sit on my walker to rest after preparing dishes for our Thanksgiving meal. As I stare across the kitchen island’s glossy, black surface, I think of my grandma who had a holiday menu a mile long. My menu has shrunk from feast to famine: one meat, two vegetables, rolls, and store-bought dessert. I feel deficient. My dead grandmother is disappointed in me.

I am a mess. My vertebrae are like a stack of plate-spinners’ china: swaying, unbalanced, ready to crash. My body will not move like I want it to. Thoughts are scattered in my mind. My prayers bounce between Help! and Thank you!

I can, in most moments, stash negativity in a dark corner of my mind and will myself through the messiness of life. But, today, I am depleted. I’m taunted by sunlight streaming across the floor, highlighting dried splats of liquid. Crumbs fill cracks between the floor planks.

Then, I glance up and see light and shadows dancing with the colors of glass in my kitchen window. I laugh at myself. Oh, the absurdity of letting specks of dirt impair my vision.

FullSizeRender(42)Images by Lisa Taylor Phillips

Lisa bio YAH

Backbone

I stared at the prosthetic arms, legs, and other fake body parts displayed in the shop’s front window beneath the steady glow of a neon sign advertising: ARTIFICIAL LIMBS.

Mama and I walked through the front door of the shop. A short man dressed in a white jacket approached us. He was a hairy man; hair was sprouting above the top button of his shirt, and his arms were hairy all over. His name was Leroy Cook.

I was in this house of horrors because I had been diagnosed with scoliosis—curvature of the spine. An orthopedist had prescribed the treatment, a Milwaukee brace, a monstrosity of metal bars, screws, belts, pads, and hard plastic. This thing would be my closest companion 23 hours a day, corseted tightly around my hips and pelvic area with anterior and posterior bars attached to a circle of metal outfitted with a chin-rest in the front. My head would be thrust upward and backward, changing my field of vision.

Mr. Leroy led us back to a space resembling a large garage. Artificial flesh-colored body parts were resting on workbenches. Pails the size of paint buckets sat in the corner.

Mama and I followed him into an examining room. Mr. Leroy asked me to hop up on the table covered with white, crinkly paper.

“I don’t want to embarrass you, but you have to undress and put this on, so I can make an impression of your body.” He handed me a long length of stretchy material the color of an ACE bandage. “Pull it up under your arms and pull it down below your bottom,” he said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Mama turned her head away while I undressed. The mini tube dress accentuated my flat chest and protruding shoulder blades.

Mr. Leroy re-entered the room and instructed me to lie down on my back. He held a fancy ruler and a Sharpie-like pen. He gently explained what he had to do. Inked marks were drawn at the lowest part of my abdomen, lower than the waistband of my bikini underwear.

The next step in the process would be the plastering. It would be spread over my body like smooth icing. I would hold my arms over my head while keeping a firm grip on a metal bar to ensure a full extension of my torso. The plaster would dry while I stayed in the stretched position. A small round saw—it would not cut me—would cut the cast. It would come off like a rigid dress, and Mr. Leroy would make my brace using the sculpture of my body as his guide.

I looked at my mother at the end of the table. I will not cry. I will not cry.

*****

It took Mr. Leroy two weeks to complete my Milwaukee masterpiece. I spent a second morning in my underwear in his exam room learning to slip on the brace like it was a casual piece of clothing. Arm to the left. Arm to the right. And the wide, rigid bar in the middle separating the two “armholes.”

I learned to secure the Velcro straps, linking the back bars to stabilize my corset. I was stuck.

*****

The Captain D’s restaurant was bustling with the lunch crowd. It had been a difficult morning, and Mama wanted me to enjoy my favorite meal: fish and chips. Perhaps, she thought it would be a good place for me to experience my first public appearance wearing a brace. School was in session; there was little chance I would be seen by one of my classmates.

The hot and flaky fish refused to stay on my fork, sliding down my chin onto the cold metal bar jutting out from beneath the top of my blouse. When I lifted my drink to my lips, I couldn’t maneuver the straw to get it into my mouth. I was thirsty. The straw could not bend, and neither could I.

Pushing back hard from the table, I rocked front to back, plastic on plastic, attempting to propel myself from the unforgiving chair. I pitched forward, hit the edge of the table, and wobbled backward into the chair.

I shoved my food tray to the floor. Fish and french fries flew from their paper basket. Coca-Cola spattered on my pants. Mama grabbed napkins and knelt to soak up the Coke. She looked up at me.

“I want to go home,” I pleaded.

*****

I flopped down on my bed, relishing the feel of my green, chenille bedspread beneath my back like a cat rolling around on a warm, asphalt driveway. The late afternoon sunshine filtered through the sheer window curtain splashed with orange, green, and pale pink flowers, creating a kaleidoscope of shapes on my wall.

I caught the glint of light off metal. My hour was up.

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photo by Lisa Phillips