The Woman in the Mirror

Each time I see her, I recoil in shock.  Her hair is greasy, uncombed, and tinged with so much grey, I turn around to be sure a smoker is not ashing on her.  Her face is pale, so pale that she knows that when she tries to use foundation, even the lightest shade is going to be too dark.  Her eyes appear larger and larger each time I pass, as if to encroach upon her face so she is eventually just lank hair and dark eyes peering out of spectacles.

She is always hunched forward over a walker.  This posture, combined with the grey hair, makes her appear so much older than she really is.  Today there were tears as she angrily tried to stand up straighter, only to lose her balance and almost reinjure herself.  She struggles for independence every day, telling her ever patient husband, no, I can do it by myself almost as often as her two year old nephew says that same thing to his mother. The independence is hard won, but he still won't leave her alone for longer than an hour.

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Today my doctor made fun of himself as he talked about how I had to embrace the injury, to accept it - work around it. My life is a stream and there's a big boulder in the stream bed, he said, and I can either stop flowing or I can go around that boulder.

I have embraced my injury. I examined the HUGE incisions and watched as they pulled out stitch after stitch after stitch today.  I will do the exercises and hopefully regain full range of motion.

But I have a harder time with the accident itself. It was a stupid slip and fall accident, but when I close my eyes at night, I see it over and over and over and over and over again.  Falling, crawling, begging, alone, scared, and helpless.  I stay awake for hours, knowing that when I close my eyes, every nightmare will be me at a low point in my life when I felt most powerless.  I wake up sobbing, clutching my leg, unable to articulate to that ever patient man what is wrong with me.

When the paperwork first came that said all of this was going to be covered by workman's compensation (which: weird, but thank your own mystical deity), we pored over it and laughed about the part that said it would cover any mental health counseling needed.  What on earth would I need that for? a slightly moronic me laughed.

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She gets stronger every day.  She can use the walker to get down the hallway and back now without being winded.  She can stay awake for longer than three hours at a stretch.  She can go to the bathroom without help.  She can read without the words swimming in her vision (finally).

She will get through this.  Because the woman in the mirror is stronger than she looks right now.