24/03/2023
✨It's hard for me to share this news not because it's bad, but because it's so good. I'm scared that if I share it, it will all go away... It's illogical, I know; perhaps it's a trauma response... But the truth is, I'm obligated to tell you, because YOU are part of the miracle.
🩻Gokulananda had his 6 month post-op visit last week, and he is doing incredible. His x-ray showed that his vertebra is fusing (this is a 6 to 9 month process, so it's still growing, but the fact that it IS GROWING is a success!) And, not only has he regained all movement and strength that he had prior to the foraminal stenosis (this is what caused him to be bedridden starting in July), but for the first time in 18 years, he says he has no pain at all. He said he didn't even remember what it was like to be pain-free, and realizes how much it affected his energy and relationships.
💪The surgeon released him to live again. He can ride a bike (only, I won't let him because i'm terrified of him falling), work out on an elliptical, lift dumbbells, sit for unlimited amounts of time,etc. It's as though the summer of 2022 was just a very bad dream and thinking about it makes me cry.
💔Did you ever watch old war movies like I did growing up? Movies featuring Civil war hospitals and World War I hospitals? I remember over the summer, sitting beside Gokul's bed, and looking at him. His eyes were bloodshot and wild because he could only sleep 45 minutes at a time because of the pain, his scalp was perpetually damp since his nervous system was in over-drive, he always sweating. He used to moan and writhe in pain-- I would run ice blocks slowly over his shin bone in an attempt to give him relief... He couldn't sit up, so I would spoon feed him... And I just remember thinking to myself, "I feel like I'm in a World War I movie". I felt like I was one of those nurses in the war movies, who had no tools to alleviate the suffering of their patient, so they would just sit beside them and hold their hand or put washcloths on their forehead.
✨continued in comments✨
