I remember the headlights cutting through the rain and fog and I remember screaming. I remember waking up to ambulance lights flashing intermittently through the night and hearing my name called. I remember the pricklebush under me and a vague annoyance that no one would move me off it.
I don’t remember the flight. Or the landing.
I imagine a rag doll pitched and bent sideways by half and an angel blowing on me to guide me to a padded landing.
Cut forwards a month.
I remember the compact mirror stuck to my wall so I could watch TV on my left side to give my right a rest. I remember calling mum in the night who would come help me put on the medical corset to get up and go to the toilet.
I remember the strangeness, discomfort, strength and freedom it gave me. I remember the relief of the corset coming off and the euphoria of pain lifting off me as I walked into the water for therapy. And the tears as the pain, forgotten for a while, came back on me with every step out of the waters depths.
I remember the the woman whose prosthetics travelled like floating twin pyramids as she backstroked down the lane who, scarred, nipple-less and flat chested in the change rooms, pyramids dripping on the bench, was so kind to this 18 year old again being dressed by her mother. What strange ways life can level us.
I lovehated that corset.
The strength it loaned my busted up spine.
The ability to stand. Go to the toilet. Walk a little. And then more. And more while I got stronger inside it. The unnatural shape it gave me. The heat of summer without air con. The new wounds as I scratched back and belly till it had to go on again. That I needed it.
It had a job to do.
It gave me time to mend.
A peach coloured exoskeleton to be what my bones could not.
For a time.
Eventually it was time to start moving without it and allow the bones to do what they’d mended for and the surrounding muscles to begin to build again.
This season hurt different, and not as much, but it did hurt. A lot. But the doctor knew it was time. Knew it would hurt and gave me strategies for managing and becoming strong again. Bones had knitted. Time to stop the muscles wasting away. Use them. Repair them. There were days I’d strap myself back into it but sometime, was the last time and I don’t even know when that was.
I healed so well I bore 7 babies without harm.
Imagine if I’d worn that corset for ever?
How wasted my body would be.
The life and lives that might not ever have been if I’d stayed in that belief of need. Had rejected the pain in the transfer of strength. Had not followed the way marked out for me by those who knew what could be restored to me.
Not having this family is a life I cannot bear to imagine.
I wasn’t consigned to it.
I had a way forwards of healing and restoration.
Exoskeletons have a time.
And their putting away has a time too.