Souperficial Wounds

Mile Marker 8297:

Wow, I walk great in these socks!

Let me stop right there.

If you have a prosthetic leg, don't walk in socks.  And if you do walk in socks, don't carry soup.  And if you do carry soup while walking in socks... ...DON'T admire your reflection in the window.  No matter how well you're walking!

(Also, choose a soup that is not orange.)

Two nights before Christmas, I learn these lessons the hard way.

As I'm carrying my dinner to the couch, my prosthetic toe catches on the edge of the living room rug.

It happens in slow motion.  I step forward, but my prosthetic foot doesn't swing back to meet the ground.  I try to set the plate on the tray table, but my reach falls short.  The corner of the plate meets the edge of the table, knocking the table to the ground.  It tumbles into a plant by the window, and the plant crashes to the floor too.  So does the ceramic soup mug, and the soup, and the plate, and the salad with ranch dressing.

So do I.

Pumpkin soup showers the couch, the carpet, and me.  Something hurts, but I can't tell if I've whacked my head on the coffee table or burned my scalp with soup.  I push up from the floor, limp into the kitchen, and stick my entire head under the faucet.

When I look up, water dripping down my forehead, I'm not sure whether to laugh at my own carelessness or cry at the job ahead.  The couch and carpet are covered in a gory concoction of soup and ranch dressing.  Lettuce and soil litter the hardwood floor.  My wrist is burned, my head is pounding, and I'm not sure the spilled plant is going to make it.

So I do the only thing I can think of.  I dial my brother Mark.  "Everything's fine," I tell him.  (By that, I mean no one needs to go to the hospital.)  Half-laughing, half-crying, I describe the gruesome scene in front of me.  He offers to come over and help clean up, but his moral support is enough.  I've called on him in much worse situations.

Two and a half hours later, I stand at the kitchen counter, still in socks, munching on crackers straight out of the box.  My hair is drying, the carpet is sprayed with cleanser, and the pale green couch is splotched with puddles of stain remover.  I haven't eaten dinner, but cleaning up that mess feels like an accomplishment.

I call my mom.  Tell her the story.  "The thing that's bruised most is my ego," I say.

"Sounds like the wounds are superficial," she answers.

"SOUP-erficial?"  We both groan.

The next morning, evidence of the mess is nearly gone.  Relieved, I text Mark a photo.  He responds, like the homicide prosecutor he is:

That happened months ago, so why write about it now?

Because the "souperficial" stuff never ends.  One thing leads to another.  And who's to say how deep our wounds go anyway?

Take yesterday.  Mile 8,297.  After a fun morning at the climbing gym, I am overtaken by abdominal pain that comes out of nowhere.

This is how it happens.  Always.  It's like tripping over the edge of a rug.  I'm totally fine -- active and healthy and right on step -- until I'm not.

Scar tissue is mysterious, and my abdominal adhesions are no exception.  Without warning, they knot around my intestines, squeezing my insides and cramping my style.  I call Mom to tell her what's going on.  I call Jasmine and cancel our plans for the evening.  I don't call Mark... yet.

Inside that pain, everything else crumbles with impossibility.   How can I go to Vermont for Riley's birthday?  How can I climb at Nationals?  How can I go to work on Monday?  Why even make plans at all?

I lie there on the couch, breathing gently into the pain.  I hope it'll subside long enough to take a shower.  Souperficial?  Maybe.  But I've been here before.  If things go south, there will be an NG tube in my future.  And that's just too much to face with sweaty hair and climbing chalk under my nails.

I love to talk about the positive steps in this journey, but the truth is almost every mile is laced with challenge. And of all the challenges, I find UNPREDICTABILITY to be the hardest.

When I feel fine, the road ahead is open and clear.  But when pain hits, that road is closed.

It's an awkward place to be -- invincible one moment and powerless the next -- stuck, without a map, between "I can do everything" and "I can do nothing."

Finally, the pain recedes.  Cautiously.  Gradually.  Eventually.  Thankfully.

I scroll through my phone and discover a photo I took walking out of the climbing gym that morning.  Less than 6 hours have passed, yet it seems so long ago. I had forgotten about it.

The gym is just north of Chinatown, next to a loading dock for a Chinese food distributor.  And as I walked toward the car, I saw a pallet piled high with boxes of fortune cookies.

It was taller than I am!

The knowledge inside those boxes...  The possibility of it all...  The temptation to rip them open and see the future...

Then again, judging by the rest of the day, maybe it's better not to know.

Relief from pain is the best feeling in the world.  In the kitchen, I fill my water bottle with juice (a.k.a. easy-to-digest "clear liquid") and tuck the bottle into a small bag on my crutches.  Then I head back over to the couch.

On the way there, I hop carefully over the edge of the rug.

Another small victory.

It's souperficial.  But I'll take it.