Tush Cush

Day 72: Tush Cush

I did not know the name of this object
until I did a web search today.
I don't need it any more, praise be.

I've finally gotten over the pain of childbirth, just in time for the children to leave home. I mean that quite literally.

I take that back. I don't mean it. Pain awakened me last night at midnight. I stumbled to the bathroom. Downed three Advil. Stumbled back to bed. Turned on the heating pad. Lay awake until the pain subsided.

Fifteen years ago, these incidents filled me with panic. I imagined bone cancer eating away at me. I imagined my helpless children growing up, motherless. I imagined myself floating on the ceiling, looking down upon myself from a distance. I moaned. I cried. I vomited. I locked the door against my children; I didn't want to scare them. Once, I lost consciousness in the wee hours on my way to the medicine cabinet, and came to sometime later on my back halfway down the stairs, head a few treads below feet.

The GP told me it was irritable bowel syndrome. I said, that doesn't seem right. You don't know, she said, pursing her lips, briskly handing me a gastrointestinal referral and an IBS information sheet. But the GI specialist - and later, the bone doctor - diagnosed a broken tailbone. Nothing for it but to wait.

Ah, childbirth.

Fast forward fifteen years. I don't run any more; running irritates a broken tailbone. I do yoga, or take long walks, or use the elliptical. Sometimes, when I ride my bike to work, I still get awakened in the night. But the pain isn't nearly as acute. I can manage it.

And I'm fearless. I understand. I accept. I wait.

Happy to be alive.