I can't complain + Sandman + Celebrate

At the beginning of this year, I had this major surgery on my cervical spine. A disc herniation was compressing the spinal cord, putting me at risk of becoming tetraplegic. What happened? I woke up and couldn’t move, with pain sharper than knives to the gut or broken glass deep in your skin. I don’t know.

After a CT, an MRI, and two specialists, the verdict was made — it was not like I had any other chance but surgery. The procedure? So simple. They would perform a cut in the posterior neck, move the trachea, the vocal cords, and the carotid, extract the disc and put an artificial one made of titanium.

So impossibly simple right? No risks at all, full guarantee I would be able to move both arms and legs, in a week I could be working from home, an Alice in Wonderland. Only not. When I woke up I had partial paresthesia on my right side and it took me weeks to be able to stand and lay down with low levels of pain, and without numbness. “You are too sensitive!” — the neurosurgeon said. Well, if with 33 years old (now 34) I would not feel my nerves…

Why am I telling you this? Because even though I went through a bit of a hell, I’m so grateful for everything I have and all the opportunities given to me. I was on leave, for months, I did three rounds of physiotherapy, I had to start with a personal trainer, and I still, up to today, have to adapt a bunch of things. Being fully without pain is something yet to be experienced, but it’s manageable at this point.

Tools that helped me throughout these months were walking close to the river, practicing gentle yoga, some guided meditations, and listening to podcasts, and music! You may be wondering about reading… It was very difficult for a while because I lost all my arm strength and my neck was only comfortable in very specific positions. Fortunately this Summer I restarted my readings and I will be sharing my opinions on the blog.

I also moved, just before surgery, to my new apartment with my beautiful Bran. With everything that happened, we are still turning it into a home, but it has been also part of this healing path. We just got that beautiful rocking chair, and when Bran is on my lap there, it’s like he is in heaven. Ahahah.

Wrapping up, I cannot complain much. The semester is about to start in a couple of weeks, so things are getting already pretty busy. I will be teaching three different courses, almost 10 hours per week, so things are going to get hot! I also do have some thoughts that I would like to share about the life of a Ph.D. (at least in Portugal) and how this tenure track thing works, but it won’t be today :)

Let me leave you with two last thoughts!

How amazing is Sandman? I’m a huge Neil Gaiman fan, and I did have fun and wonder watching this!

In this line of celebrating the good stuff, I wanted to share with you one of the best online yoga teachers that is also celebrating 10 years of her online presence — Yoga with Adriene! She launched this new class, that I already did and enjoyed :) Short and sweet!

Any thoughts or comments, let me know! I would love to hear from you and how you find your peace :)