Waves|Taps|Awake

Spinal taps aren't so bad.

Note: This is (more than) a few weeks old now. I wasn’t going to publish this as it’s sort of about nothing. But maybe the meh-ness of a spinal tap is what maybe gives it some worth to someone, so bear with me.

Nothing is concrete. Everything is in constant movement. I remember an Intro Geology class where the professor made this point: The ground beneath our feet is only solid because of the pace we experience it. Solid rock flows like waves under our feet – just luckily/mostly too slow for us to notice.

My first time surfing was pure uncertainty. Watching sets of early morning waves roll in on Double Six Beach from offshore. Paddling hard to match – and eventually catch – a wave. Everything became solid when this wave found me and we finally synchronized. Wave, board, me. For few seconds (maybe less?), I felt like a hand steadied my blue rental surfboard. So steady that it made me look back to check. Nothing was there.

We all separated. Myself, the board, the wave.

The board’s nose drove downward into the wave (bad).

My self sent forward, feet sent skyward, head sent seaward.

The surfboard’s dried old rubberized leash tugged twice then snapped in two as the churn of the wave pulled it forward. The Indian Ocean, once below me and solid as land, swallowed me whole.

The washing machine of the wave pushed me down, until my butt met the sandy sea floor.

At the bottom, a wave passed over and I could feel the push down, and the next second I could push off. Released from the depths and returned to the surface. The whole experience lasted maybe 20 seconds.

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That feeling of being stuck beneath the waves was the same dread I felt leading up to the spinal tap, but both require surrendering to the process.

I was assured by two neurologists that I didn’t need a spinal tap. A third neurologist at UCSF assured me I did. Nothing is pleasant about the idea of a spinal tap – or Lumbar Puncture. I found myself about to experience something that my head told me was torture, like being forced underwater – waiting to resurface.

The weeks of worrying is the only unpleasantness.

I wish I could hype this up as some traumatic experience that I bravely tackled and came out stronger. I would go on and on about the excruciating pain that I overcame – all the while laying in the fetal position on a cold table. I’d tell you how I felt each millimeter of that needle pushing deeper between my vertebrae and the torture of losing that watery liquid from my spine, as 12 CCs of precious clear spinal fluid drained off. There’s lots online about the torture of the experience. Those who have been bravely spinal tap’d online and survived, traumatized. I won’t discount them, but you shouldn’t let their story be your uncertainty.

Those search results kept me awake in the weeks before it.

The reality was none of that.

The cold table was a soft bed in a quiet room. The worst discomfort was the blood draw after the spinal tap from my right arm. Nothing went wrong there, I was just more aware of that needle. I was assured before that it’s very unlikely to have anything go wrong with a spinal tap.

Also, it’s done well below the spinal cord. No one tells you that, even though a needle impaling your spinal cord fuels your nightmares. The needle is far far away from anything that could cause damage. It’s possible a nerve might get twang’d – this is unlikely and immediately remedied if it does. I was told that would feel like light electricity running through my hips.

The night before the procedure, my mental images flooded my mind. Even Deborah (my dog) seemed aware. Together we paced Huntington Park at 3 a.m., watching sprinklers pop on and off.

The actual process, booked for an hour, barely took 15 minutes, then 15 minutes laying on the bed after. The rest of the hour was spent chatting. The first half telling me exactly step-by-step what would happen, how I would be positioned, what to expect before, during and after. She explained the likelihood of any negative after effects – almost certainly none, maybe a slight headache – so hydrate!

For me, stress is a major trigger for MS symptoms. I’m finding more and more that as I attempt to avoid waves of symptoms the come and go the biggest stressors are in the anticipation – of news, tests, visits, etc. It prevents us (just me?) from looking in the right direction with calm confidence and instead sends us under the waves to be tossed around. The only way through is to surrender, trust, and if the uncertainty pulls you down try to resurface again.

Everything is always shifting.

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