A Comeback Story (Part 1: On Recovery)

Here’s the crazy thing about time: Some years, life feels like 365 days flash by in the blink of an eye. But yet, change happens slowly, constantly, almost imperceptibly. Our hair grows a little longer. Our desire to procrastinate on laundry, a little stronger. Same same, but different. 

Other years though, life feels like the finale episode of some TV show. $#%! hits the fan. And you’re sitting on the edge of your seat, thinking “DUUUUDE WHAT???” There is conflict, and there is resolution. Fireworks, dynamite, and a little bit of WTF. The plot twists and turns. And just when you start to think that everything is falling apart…everything falls together. 

If I’m being honest, this past year has been wilder than anything I’ve seen on Netflix to date. A year or so ago, life looked like a shattered pelvis in a foreign country — like hospital rooms and wheelchairs and x-rays. It sounded like beeping monitors, nurses whispering in Spanish, and insurance phone calls. Most of all though, it felt like chaos. A kitchen sink soup of intense pain coupled with even more intense determination. That story is a different one, but it lives HERE. ("The Price of Living")

Fast forward to present day, and life feels different from where I stand. It looks like planes, trains, and Impossible Burgers. Like moments of peace teaching at MOXIE and rogue adventures, scaling Half Dome (Yosemite) or cartwheeling around the world from Costa Rica to Alaska to Mexico to New York. It smells like fresh air and even more freshly baked sourdough…plus some not-so-fresh humans on the subway. 

It feels like resilience, like healing, like home. Like one hell of a year. 

That story begins here. 

ON RECOVERY

I’ve spent the better part of the past year trying to figure out how to explain the recovery process. Both to myself & to others. Most often, I’m asked, “Are you back to normal now?”

It’s a fair and genial question. But to answer it prompts bigger questions: What does it mean to define normal? To define our present based on a past definition?

By my doctor’s standards, my body’s physical healing has been nothing short of miraculous. Two weeks post-accident, I went to my first yoga class in a wheelchair. Four weeks out, I debuted my walker at a bar for a friend’s birthday. (A huuuuuge hit, let me tell you). And six weeks out, I had figured out some amazing dance moves on crutches.

Candidly though, recovery from trauma has been a process — an everyday reminder that “getting back on the horse” is about far more than physical recuperation. In actuality, injury is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to trauma. Physical disability is the most visible element to the world, but it’s only a small piece of the bigger picture. In my case, it was evident to onlookers that trauma had resulted in broken bones. But it was far less obvious how trauma had fractured my sense of normal.

Throughout recovery, “progress” was a frustrating regression. Each day was filled with relearning to walk, sit, stand, run, jump, drive, etc. And whatever normal was before seemed beyond my wildest dreams. Using the bathroom entailed Herculean efforts. Climbing stairs felt like summiting Everest. Navigating intimacy was like learning to drive on the opposite side of the road.

Those were, perhaps, some of the most humbling moments of my entire life. And while I reflected & wrote about those experiences, few people outside of my family witnessed me in such a state of raw exposure. After the accident, I refused visitors and declined invitations, feeling disconnected from the "normal" everyone else knew. I lived in a state of civil war with my own body -- my bones splintered, my muscles exhausted, my nerves overloaded, my visage ghostly. My mind, however, refused to present an identity that was any less than strong + fiercely independent.

In retrospect, I wish I’d shared more of that vulnerability with the world. Because by the time most people saw me post-accident, I appeared to be “back to my old self.” I didn’t know how to explain—even to my closest friends—that my definition of normal had changed. I didn’t know how to recount those moments without prompting head-shaking stares and echoing silence at the dinner table. I didn’t know how to tell a story that didn’t have a conclusion.

But what I do know now is this: Trying as those moments were, they became the backbone of my recovery. Because in those small feats, I came to understand two important lessons.

The first lesson was rooted in realizing what it means to be a young person with able-bodied privilege. At my first orthopedic doctor appointment, I was stunned by the age gap between other patients and myself. In fact, I was an outlier of epic proportions — more than 50% of all pelvic fractures in the US occur in patients over 65 years old (Source). Somehow though, I felt that I had more in common with those patients in our mutual disability than I did with others my own age. 

It was our divergent trajectory, however, that made me deeply aware of my privilege. For me, disability was a temporary condition. But for numerous seniors, it was a long-term reality and an uphill battle. Even so, many of those elders remained steadfastly optimistic. They reminded me throughout recovery that trauma & disability profoundly shift your perspective, but they don’t wholly define each step as you move forward. If that isn’t enough to make you want to high five every grandma/grandpa in the room, I don’t know what is. 

The second lesson was grounded in developing deep awe & respect for the human body. More than all the episodes of Grey’s Anatomy & House that I’ve seen, the accident gave me a newfound appreciation for how intelligent our bodies are. 

For example: I learned that when broken bones heal, it isn’t simply the old bones being repaired. Rather, new calcium clouds form, fortifying the site of the fracture even more than the old surrounding bone. Simply put, we bounce back even stronger than before. Like something out of The Incredibles…but with less spandex. 

I’d like to think that our sense of “normal” is restored in a similar manner. We don’t merely return to an old state. Instead, we find a new equilibrium. We evolve. We make peace with our scars. We begin again.

Then when asked, “Are you back to normal now?” We invite others to consider that recovery isn’t just about normal. It isn’t defined by when your bones heal or when you can walk again or when you don't feel pain or when you are okay, fine, alright. It isn't the finale episode of some TV show or a definite moment in time. It isn’t even about getting back on the horse. It’s about something even better —

It’s the start of a comeback story. 

[To be continued...]