WordSisters

Author: Elizabeth di Grazia

  • Being Heard

    It wasn’t until I emailed a friend that I put the pieces together – I was afraid the doctor wouldn’t find anything wrong with my left knee.

    I couldn’t stand for five minutes before I started feeling the burning pain. I contemplated going up or down the staircase before taking my first step. When my partner, Jody, asked me to walk our dogs with her, I groaned. Still, what if the doctor didn’t find any damage to my knee?

    Finally, I had had it. I was in the back yard pulling weeds from our garden. My excruciating left knee pain had me sitting right back in the lawn chair. I can’t live like this, I thought. I grabbed my cell phone and sent a message to the doctor. I know an x-ray won’t show anything. Can’t we do an MRI? I am icing all the time. I can’t stand or walk without pain.

    In April 2019, I had a full right knee replacement. That was going wonderfully. I had no pain. My flexion was back to normal, and I was soon to be released from physical therapy.

    I’d had arthroscopic surgery on my left knee a few months prior to the right knee replacement. Next a cortisone shot in the same knee, but the pain remained. My left knee had always been more painful than my right knee, but it was the right knee that showed bone on bone.

    What if the doctor didn’t find any injury to my left knee? Even to me, it seemed like with the medical care that I was receiving, I shouldn’t be experiencing this pain.

    When I emailed my friend, my thoughts took me back to the sexual abuse I endured as a child. I was nine years old when I told my mother. She punished me. I’ll never tell you again, I said to myself. No matter how bad it gets. I didn’t say anything until I was eighteen and afraid for my younger sisters who were still at home. I went to the police knowing my parents wouldn’t or couldn’t protect my sisters.

    The sexual abuse that I endured in my family and the results of that abuse were not validated by my parents or siblings. I wasn’t seen. I wasn’t heard.

    I made an appointment to see the doctor. An MRI was ordered. Even though I knew there was pain, I found myself standing and walking to prove to myself that the pain was still there. The pain hadn’t disappeared. Still, I had doubts. What if I was the only one to know how painful my knee was? Prior x-rays showed nothing. I knew the pain wasn’t in my head. I knew the pain was real. What if I was the only one who would recognize the pain? The idea of not being believed haunted me the same as when I wasn’t believed as a child and the same as when my family shunned me for telling the truth when I was an adult.

    Jody accompanied me to doctor appointments. I found it comforting to have her with me. Her caring touched me. Some people might think, of course your spouse would support you. I didn’t think like that. It was more normal for me to go it alone and authenticate my own truth. That was what I grew up with. It was in the waiting room that I told Jody that I made a connection between not being validated about the sexual abuse and my fear of the MRI not showing anything.

    The doctor discussed the MRI results line by line. Postoperative changes of prior partial medial meniscectomy with increased tearing of the body. High-grade chondral loss. Increased bone marrow edema with a suspected new fracture. Moderate to large joint effusion.

    In short, my left knee was a mess. A knee replacement was scheduled.

    I had one final question for my doctor. “I don’t want to be a complainer,” I said. “How bad should it hurt before I call you?” Without hesitation she said to call her anytime.

    A little piece of me healed. My knees will heal, cells will rejuvenate, same as my soul.

    Jody and our son and daughter are traveling to Japan next summer. We will climb Mount Fuji. I imagine, even now, reaching out to the heavens in thanks for the blessings around me and within me.

  • I Killed Her Off

    I Killed Her Off

    Rosie and Oreo

    Now that Jody’s home safe and sound, I can tell you that I killed her off. I often do this. Jody went to India for work for a week. For a fleeting moment she died, in my mind. How did that look? How did I feel? How would I tell the kids? Probably go to their school and take them out, I thought. I mean, I did it for the cat.

    I got a call at work from a person in the area who found Oreo, Crystel’s cat, in their back yard. It was a rainy miserable morning. I told her that I’d be right there. After calling Jody, I drove straight to the middle school. Juan showed up in the office first. I took him to a side room. With tears streaming down my face, I told him Oreo had died.

    Perhaps the school thought Oreo was a cherished Aunt or Uncle as I ushered the children solemnly to the car. Juan and Crystel wrapped Oreo tenderly in a blanket, carried her to the car and sat with the cat on their shared lap. We had surmised Oreo got hit by a car and went in the person’s back yard and succumbed to her injuries.

    Jody met us at home. The four us stood in the back yard, pointing to where our other animals were buried: 4 cats, a dog, and a hamster. Crystel chose Oreo’s resting spot. In the drizzling rain we shoveled a hole and had a proper burial. Crystel asked to take the rest of the day off. No, it’s just a cat, I thought. I bought her a Chai tea at Caribou and returned her to school. The school counselor was very supportive. I didn’t have the heart to tell her Oreo was a cat. I let the kids do that.

    I once went to a therapist who told me that my house would never burn down so I didn’t need to worry when I was away on a trip. I had confessed that I found myself sneaking a look around the corner to my house whenever I returned from traveling. I quit seeing her. What she said wasn’t true. A house could burn down. A barn could burn down. I had experienced both traumas as a young child. Don’t tell me it won’t happen.

    Out of curiosity, I did look up to see whether worker’s compensation would apply if Jody died while she was in India. It does.

    Killing Jody off doesn’t have anything to do with how far she travels. When she and the kids traveled to Maplelag, four hours from home, for a Nordic ski weekend, I killed them all off. Just for a moment. In that moment, I had their funerals planned, felt their absence and wondered what I would do with my sudden free time.

    All week while Jody was in India I felt her absence. I noticed how her absence changed Juan, Crystel and me. The house was quieter, we were quieter. Her energy was no longer visceral. Gone were the hundreds of kindnesses she does in a week such as making me breakfast before the kids get up on the weekends. Later in the morning, on request, making Juan pancakes with chocolate chips. Grocery shopping with Crystel. Making me a week full of salads. It was like the three of us were in a holding pattern waiting for her to return to start our engines. Everything stood still. Except when I opened the door to bring the kids their latest takeout.

    Jody most likely doesn’t know how important she is to me, Juan and Crystel. To our household. To the two dogs and two cats that are still living. She is our engine, our heart. What makes our family work as a whole.

    I’m so glad she’s home.

  • Birkebeiner or Bust

    Birkebeiner or Bust

    Birkebeiner photo credit to Joy Jurewicz

    It was bust for me. Even though I had every intention of going—- since March 2018.

    I asked Crystel right after the 2018 Birkie if she would like me to plan a Birkie outing for 2019.

    I had a lodging reservation within days of her saying, “Yes.”

    I did everything that one would do to accomplish their goal. I wrote it down. I emailed an invitation to a group of people and I set it in my mind that I would get out on the ski trails.

    Birkie 2019 was going to happen for me.

    Even so, today, I’m sitting on the couch in my living room while Crystel, Jody, and friends are at Birkie 2019. When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to go to the Birkie, even though I was the organizer, Jody stepped in and took the reins.

    What happened?

    It wasn’t the three lodging changes. My first reservation was canceled when the resort was sold, the second reservation when the owner decided to move back home. I reserved a third lodging option. After the sale didn’t go through on the first reservation, I reserved our original lodging. I remained steadfast throughout.

    I must have appeared as if I was in the throes of a personality disorder as I continually updated our group on lodging changes.

    On the bus to the start. Crystel and Allie

    It wasn’t that I didn’t get out and ski. I skied two or three times. Enough to know that I could do the Prince Hakken 15K, the shortest race of the Birkebeiner.

    No, it was something else entirely. Something I had to face. Because even though I did have meniscus surgery three weeks prior to Birkie 2019, I could have joined our group and been a spectator.

    It was the fact that I knew that I would be miserable. I had to acknowledge it. All the facts pointed to it. I don’t like the cold.

    I had a goal this year to be at every high school Nordic ski race. I was determined. I declared to Juan Jose’ and Crystel that in 2018-2019 I’d be at every meet. In their 2017-2018 season, I made it to half of a race. I say half, because I never showed up at the start line. Instead, I snuck on the course at Hyland Hills, by walking through dark woods in deep snow. I stood at the edge of the lighted ski path, yelling, “Go Crystel, go!” to anyone who looked remotely like her.  Later, I did learn that one of her friends heard me. It could have been her that I thought was Crystel. Skiers are bundled from their neck up, hiding themselves from the frigid air. With uniforms that hug their slight bodies, they all look alike. I hadn’t been to enough races to know Crystel’s nuances.

    Athletes

    I knew Juan’s. He dislikes the cold as much as I do. And, he’s on the team. If a race was optional, which this one was, he usually chose not to participate. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he must. Heck, I couldn’t get out to even one race in 2017-2018. This season I didn’t go to any.

    Jody told me not to discourage the kids. I didn’t, I insisted. I just looked at her skeptically each time she headed out to a meet. “Why do you do it?” I asked her. “Why?”

    She said it’s fun and that she likes the community.

    Jody and Nicole

    I scanned the crowd at the Nordic ski award banquet this year. Yes, the people seemed nice and the end of season slide show didn’t make me cold in the heated auditorium where we sat listening to the accolades.

    There wasn’t a bad parent award. Thought I might get that one if there was.

    Maybe I will get out next year to a Nordic ski race.

    But, let’s face it, probably not.