Screws, bones, and some healing in-between.

Do you remember those flipbooks, the ones you flip quickly and you see a whole scene play-by? But when you look at each page, it is ever so slightly different from the previous one? The past four months have been exactly that for me! It’s flown away in a jiffy, but I remember wondering if each day would ever pass!

For the majority of you who do not know, I had a fall and fractured a couple of bones a few months earlier. A plate, multiple screws and four months later, I’m now back on my two feet, wobbly but grateful! 

These months of recovery haven’t been just of physical healing, but of quiet life lessons too. 

We do take a lot for granted, don’t we? Post my surgery, every week, I used to feel victorious about some milestone, and even simple ones like being able to use the shower all by myself, learning to hop into the balcony, and getting to lie on my stomach felt like big wins! And every time, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for my body. How beautiful is our body; give it some time and nurture it, this vessel is powerful enough to restore, rebuild and rise in its own rhythm. I did ponder a lot on what self love towards the body really means, but that’s for another post, another day. 

I have been my most vulnerable self in the initial stages of my fall. The memories of breaking into tears when my hair was plaited for surgery, when I had to take somebody’s help to clean my stools, and at the sheer pain of everything still feel fresh. This incident has stripped me down to the bone, but that’s the beauty of being human, isn’t it? The real, the raw and unfiltered.  It’s messy, but quietly, strength creeps in to hold you. 

In each of these moments though, I remember the support I had, may it be my husband who stood by me day and night, my mum who religiously focused only on my needs, my child who would cheer on and rejoice at every little improvement, my family who became my steady net, or my friends who dropped everything just to sit with me, hold my hands, to remind me that I didn’t have to carry the weight alone. Each one of them deserve a post in itself for the ways in which they have been there for me. Saying thank you would just not suffice, I’m forever grateful to them, for them.

The most important and perhaps the biggest lesson of it all has been that “worry changes nothing”. Before my fall, I used to obsess about my child’s needs, from his meals to his sleep. But when I couldn’t fix it, life went on. My family cared for him, and somewhere in between, in that space, he grew. Now, I see that he didn’t just cope, he grew more independent, a little more resilient, and more empathetic than ever! Who knew I needed two broken bones to actually let go!!

Until next time,

Aishu.