Life is a magical
experience, but it also includes a host of potential #health trials over which
we have absolutely no control. We all have the best friend who has been living
the epitome of health-conscious lifestyle and still died from cancer. We all
know someone who was caught in a freak accident and ended up on a ventilator,
or the person who literally caught a deadly virus in the last days before it
was declared extinct worldwide…. I call this all a subgroup of Murphy’s law and
I am no stranger to its quirks; after all, I had to rebuild myself from scratch
on several occasions before.
It’s been
two years since
I was diagnosed with a fracture of the spine and ensuing complications. This is a
diagnosis that is right there on the same level of terminal diseases (at least
in my mind) because of the probability of becoming an invalid. I am all for
positive body image, being optimistic and looking at the bright side of things,
but any #mobility issue carries the threat of discrimination from society,
regardless of all the supportive laws and slogans out there. If you add to it #livelihood #challenges and any obstacles that an able-bodied person could face, then
it would be even worse for this person. This is compounded multiple times if
one lives in a #conflict zone. But the worst fear is losing #control of your own
body and #privacy.
Of course, there are
wonderful souls out there who have risen to the occasion and overcome all
difficulties by forging a different path against #adversity. These are #exceptional people whom we hear about exactly because they #influence us and
become a role model. We ordinary humans
prefer an easier route and if I can be in the best health possible with all my
wits, limbs and senses, than that would be my first choice. Deep down
we would all prefer that, to life changing #transformation through adversity.
Being someone with a
high #pain #tolerance - because of course it would be shameful to be seen
complaining (another of my pet peeves) -I have been known to ditch a cast after
48 hours and walk with a brace because someone in my family needed help. Most times I have the impression of running on pure adrenaline. I
used to be proud of this to the point of imagining it a #heroic feat. Friends used to describe me as a cross between Wonder Woman and the Iron
Woman. I’m not sure if either is flattering, but I always felt I had to live up
to that hero #syndrome. So that day in November of 2021 when I was in the
emergency room in hospital complaining from difficulty in walking and pain in
the spine, pelvis and left arm and leg after a fall, I accepted with great relief the doctor’s diagnosis that it was just a contusion which would take a
few weeks to a month to resolve itself. What bothered me was the phrase “for
your age maybe a bit more, but you will be fine”. The #ageism, #mansplaining and #chauvinism heaped at me in one single instance hurt me more than the injury. When I
challenged him and requested an x-ray, he refused and maintained that he was
confident I did not need it. Because I was capable of walking despite the pain and my previous experience with sports injuries, I wanted to believe that I was ok. That
was the logic I had used to accept the diagnosis plus the idiotic #hero-syndrome.
I did not need to
sacrifice activities since many of us were still mostly working from home in that late
Covid era. A few days later I had to
travel unexpectedly and this is where it was revealed that my range of activity was
severely limited. Plane seats were terrible, I could not lift my carryon bag let
alone checked luggage. Pure agony. My leg mobility started to become even more restricted,
and the pelvis area felt totally off like I was somehow twisted. Two days later
my initial limp intensified and I was visibly dragging my right leg. The number of locations that became numb in
my body increased too. It was the scariest sensation feeling numbness and being in pain simultaneously. I checked myself into a
hospital. It had been about a week since
my terrible fall and the trauma orthopedist in attendance requested an MRI and
some x-rays after the examination. The results revealed two fractures in the
sacrum that reached the pelvis, some slippages at the level of thoracic and
lumbar areas of the #spine and a hairline fracture of my elbow with a damaged
ligament in my shoulder. The doctor was shocked of how I had been withstanding
the pain, let alone walking. On hearing the diagnosis, I became totally
unraveled and suddenly every ache I had been sucking in became a waterfall of torment
as I had released the dam. The body has
immense capabilities in time of need, but I could not understand why this would
be one? It’s not like I was chased by a #saber tooth tiger and needed to be on
the move! Why did I not allow myself to dwell on the pain and check again its
origin? This is what I kept asking myself. Now I know it’s probably because of
how I have been all my life, that damned hero syndrome and #prioritizing #others, #duty, #work, #deadlines and wanting the best for my family and team because this is what I
had promised. This was actually a rope I had used to hang myself with, and I realised it is in the nature of people to might want to to take advantage of that if allowed, sometimes without an ounce of remorse.
The injury undid all
the hard work achieved during lockdown in gaining my fitness back. It
hurled me from someone who was preparing herself since September 2020 for the ski trip of a lifetime in February 2022, into a person lying in bed for
months and who could not control her right side nor get up without massive
effort and pain and we won’t even mention the bladder issues and other ugly
stuff. I was supposed to rest and take strong painkillers, surgery was out of
the question, a cast was not possible either. I just had to let nature mend my broken body.
When you are a “certain”
age, people immediately imagine that you might have osteoporosis and it gets implied very discreetly into conversations even in the work environment. It was
somehow pure chance that I had done a routine Dexa test before the injury which
proved that I did not have osteoporosis. But even if I had osteoporosis, I did
not need to feel “guilty” about like it was an accusation of wrongdoing? it is a normal process in life. Moreover, accidents do happen, and I was both unlucky
yet extremely lucky. This kind of injury I was informed can result in severe
neural damage or potentially bleeding to death for the time it took an
ambulance to arrive at the scene. The average response time we are told should
be 7 minutes, and 90% of ambulances
should arrive within 15 mins. From my experience in Libya this is not realistic
plus our ambulances are really just two guys who carry a person on a stretcher
to hospital. I somehow managed to avoid both fates although I did get neural damage, but it did not leave me
permanently in a wheelchair as I keep being reminded. I still don’t have #osteoporosis by the
way!
The first 10 days
after the diagnosis, the pain was becoming magnified now that my body was
finally resting, and I was not holding it off but rather letting it take its
course. I spent more than 20 hours per day in a state of slumber, like a
particle suspended in time. At times I thought I was even hallucinating. Then
when I started regaining consciousness, I was in terrible pain but refused
drugs fearing I might become an addict or worse unable to deliver my work
tasks. The pain was #debilitating, the fog it created in my mind was unbearable
and I felt sorry for myself at the physical state I reached. I was thinking my
life was potentially over, my dreams of athletic prowess gone, my ambitions for
a family unattainable, I mean who would want a burden. The lowest point was
having my father take care of me at home and drive me to doctors’ appointment.
That felt so wrong on many levels. I was the one supposed to take care of him
in his old age and not vice versa. I feared my job would be at stake if I could
not be on top of everything as I was #bedridden with no clear date of when I
will be better. My #mental health suffered greatly as from there to thinking I
was headed for the poor house and a life of begging in the street or having to
do horrible things to survive or not being able to afford #healthcare or pay bills… there was one step and somehow with
my #feverish imagination I jumped it easily.
I had neural #compression and bone marrow edema in the spine I was given dexamethasone
injections. I don’t know to this day why did the specialist prescribe (I live in fear of cortisone and its family) but somehow, it relieved the
inflammation which decompressed the nerve it was blocking during the fracture
and I was able to get myself to limp and eventually walk albeit with difficulty
again. In the meantime, I gained weight, started eating all the fattening foods
including sugar and chocolates which had not touched my lips for a long time.
All the fears that I had about the future, meant I could not even relax to get
better, so I came back to work from bed with a vengeance. I think I worked even
more than if I were healthy, I was so afraid to be cast aside, as the #weak are
usually #trampled by the #strong. As my body healed, the pain would just not go away,
and the mobility would just not be taken for granted anymore. Feeling #overweight and a shadow of my former self with no one providing me with a
treatment plan to follow because we needed the fracture to close first, I
sought doctors’ opinions who all recommended some form of strong analgesic…One
of them even joked that maybe I should get “high”. I did not take him up on
that as again I feared loss of control and abilities.
Several #consultations
later I learned that I had also become pre-diabetic, apparently this can be
precipitated with weight gain, stress but most likely the dexamethasone injections. All this change in my metabolism was messing up with
how I perceived hunger. I never felt sated. The doctors said I was looking at
physiotherapy once my fracture had healed fully. I was afraid to take the time
off to actually heal lest it delays work #milestones or damages my #career or both, especially in the post pandemic times.
A work that you enjoy with a team in an organization that you like are not easy
to come by in a conflict riddled country. I had to exert humongous effort to
concentrate. I had 3 different diaries and agendas for to do lists just to keep
track of my tasks and to feel adequate. A seeker of perfection, I feared any
criticism that I would construe as failure. So, I persevered, repeating to
myself that I was #resilient and had surmounted challenges before so I could
perhaps just combine rehabilitation with the job. I did not succeed with this
plan as I kept missing my #physiotherapy sessions as work deadlines were more
insistent in that feverish phase getting things into place. On the other hand
at work I kept resenting that I was working instead of getting myself back on
track, I kept #resenting that others seemed to have prioritized not just their
health but actually their #leisure time and that somehow I had signed up to help
them do that and insist they do it.
By then I was not only
having mobility issues, but I was also overweight and tired. My body image was destroyed
– at least in my own mind, and I had to
contend with this sinking sentiment of feeling decrepit and less than what I
used to be all while being 24/7 in pain and hungry. It’s difficult to keep up
the resilient act when at the same time you want to continue growing as a
leader and be there for your team and colleagues and family while you know that
you are just too weak physically. People
will tell you to snap out of it and it’s not the end of the world and you will
recover in time but tell that to the person who is suffering and is visibly
distressed bodily and mentally. This person is only seeing a stretching tunnel
with no end. It’s a vicious cycle. Sometimes being a good leader is when you
know your limits and let go so you can come back strong again. With hindsight,
I find it terrible that I feared disruption to my work more than permanent
health damage. The agony I put myself into, in response to some human reactions
as a result of my situation fueled the misery. Of course we know that no one is indispensable;
if I had died of Covid 19 or by one of the numerous bombs launched on Tripoli,
I would have been replaced after a certain time anyway. It’s cold and logical.
But I was not dead. The last straw was when on top of everything else I caught Covid
in the summer of 2022; I had to accept my limitations without feeling shamed
that this time I could not grit my teeth and bear it. So when I felt that my
absence will not be as disruptive, I finally took the long term sick leave to mend my
battered body and probably my heart and soul
in the process, but I was profoundly #mortified that I needed to do so.
I have been working
hard on this healing journey and to rise above the #indignity and #embarrassment
I felt at having to check out from work and focus on walking again. I had to get used to strangers accessing my body, hooking weird
machines to stimulate the muscles, heal inflammation, increase bone, infra-red,
ultra sound, water exercises, lymphatic drainage, magnetic therapy and God knows
what but everything felt like I was losing #agency. I had to leave #modesty at
the door. Doing some real assisted exercises brought tears of pain and cries of
frustration, because movements that used to be normal before were now something
to re-learn. I had forgotten normal posture and how to walk without
compensating for pain. My muscles were weak and tight. The book of cures was
thrown at me, cupping (very painful), myofascial release (pure torture). My
body was covered in bruises, some of which have
become permanent alas. I even had something called #kinesiology tape to
help hold my shoulder and undertook #stem
cell harvesting from my own body (brutal) and grafting in my knees to avoid a
more invasive surgery. I braved my fear of #anesthesia to which I had PTSD and
accepted to be anesthetized albeit through the navel – which was the most frightening
sensation ever on a cold operating table in a freezing room full of strangers
speaking an unfamiliar language in a foreign country, #alone.
I had to carry out
Pilates exercises on a machine that reminded me of
evil medieval instruments and yet is supposed
to help with my movements without straining my limbs, because I cannot even
lift my legs up properly on my own, I felt horrible. I tried to joke at myself
and laugh with my various #therapists, men, women and even the interns who were
learning on my body, because these were the people helping to put it together.
When I got pain relief in my back I hailed it as a breakthrough, when my arm
could be fully raised, I cried. It took 4 sessions just to have my arm move 1
cm to the back. When I was able to do 3 sets of leg raises, I was singing the
“Eye of the Tiger” anthem from the Rocky movies. When I was able to do a mini #squat and to raise myself up, with extreme pain mind you, I felt I had
completed an #Ironman challenge.
After two months of
sick leave, I finally learnt to stop checking my work emails, it was
liberating. I could focus and quiet the internal dialogue going on in my head. It’s
a testament to all the lessons I learned from my Mental Health First Aid classes which
I started to apply on myself. It’s been 11
months since I am back to work. I can confidently say that I will make
it, the #tunnel is shorter, I can see the light peering through, I am finally on
the road to healing. I still think I am fat, I still won’t be skiing anytime
soon, at least not in 2024, I still have pain, but some days it almost
decreases to none for a few hours and it feels like I am in #heaven. I still
have difficulty rising from bed or from a chair or taking the stairs, but I can
do it faster and I’m told this will get
better with my muscle strength increasing. It’s been two years of hell and this #injury has also left me with something called #fibromyalgia. Uncle Google tells us that it is a chronic disease
causing fatigue, all over muscle and joint pain, which may come and go.
Apparently, it is often triggered by an event that causes physical stress or
emotional stress. I learned that it shares some symptoms with multiple
sclerosis but is NOT MS and also that it has no cure.
The hero syndrome,
combined with #impostor syndrome and my habit of competing with myself, meant
that in the summer of 2022 I climbed #Mount Etna with diapers on and the
help of my walking sticks and also went down inside a cave, I don’t know how I
managed that. It also meant that in the summer of 2023 I completed several zip
lines and a forest activity adventure without the diapers this time. I’m very hard on myself and maybe this needs
to go.
At my last check up
with the #neurologist in August 2023 I learned that neural damage at S1 has
reached the limits of its healing and what is left is permanent which means I
have to live with the consequences of this injury. Acceptance is not easy, having a disability
is not easy even if it is unseen. I also developed some veinous insufficiency
in the legs which I need to see a vascular surgeon and apparently with all the radiology + cortisone + resultant diabetes I developed cataract (I'm too young for this to occur); the
specter of multiple surgeries scares me.
When hearing these
news this summer I was heartbroken and ended up binging on Netflix. I immersed myself in Korean Drama to the point that now I can watch without subtitles and have come to
love the characters, culture and country.
I am bit sad to be
honest, but I am learning to work on taking one step at a time. Firstly, I am grateful
that my fractures have resolved cleanly. Secondly that I can move my body
almost 80% of what it was before the accident, which is another #blessing.
Thirdly I am getting better at physical re-education which means with
perseverance I will see my muscle mass stronger, and my fitness level improve,
which in turn means I could enjoy life better. When my muscles are stronger and I
am more active, I will lose weight and reverse the pre-diabetes. I have already
started working on accepting my current image and not struggling against it
because I know it’s not my fault, I am not a lazy glutton, it was just an unfortunate accident. With this acceptance, I
hope to translate it into health life habits soon, up to the level of pre-injury. I know
it’s not easy to retrain a sluggish metabolism, but I did lose 2 kg in one year
that’s encouraging. I am excited about not only the future but also the present.
The #pandemic had thought us the importance of living in the now, of family of
friends of freedom of movement of not taking anything for granted, and my
injury had thought me that self-care is not a shameful or negatively selfish act. It’s a
necessity. I am not going to worry about the fibromyalgia now, I just know that
I will be OK. The first step is the hardest and I already took it when I
accepted to take a long sick leave and I am persevering by writing this story
publicly to prove that having health challenges is not a sign of weakness nor is
something to be hidden and that it is unjust to be discriminated against
because of it. I had an accident, which
happened to be at work, there is no shame in that, I survived, I beat the odds,
had some setbacks and found my way back after a hard battle. That’s life!
In the meantime, I am
grateful for having a loving family, amazing friends and wonderfully supporting colleagues.