My story

They had found a tumor in my back that was pushing out between the vertebrae and pinching all my nerves. It was no wonder that I couldn't sit, stand, walk, lie down anymore. Now followed a time of much reflection, terrible medications and even more struggle.

At the end of October, the day came when it was time for surgery. Stubborn as I am, I refused to be wheeled into surgery in a hospital bed. I was gonna walk. Who knows, maybe it was the last time. Because the tumor was pressing so hard on the nerves, I couldn't lie down when I was going to be anaesthetized, so I asked to sit up when I was sedated and after some fussing, everything went black as I sat wrapped in warm blankets on the operating bed.

During the procedure, two sensory nerves to the right leg were cut and a motoric nerve to the left leg was peeled off and damaged at the same time. But the operation was successful and went well after all. Although I have lost feeling in my right leg and will never be pain free in my left leg, it is manageable.

When I woke up, I now lay straight on my back in a bed for the first time in over a year without it hurting. Or it hurt, of course, I've probably never felt that much pain before, but it hurt in a different way. In a daze, I tried to get the nurse to tickle my nose to make me sneeze. Sneezing when your spinal canal is bursting with something that shouldn't be there is not pleasant. It should be a good test if the operation went well, I thought, and I had actually longed for over a year to be able to sneeze again without screaming straight out in pain. Now was the time, I thought! But the nurse didn't think so. So I had to wait a while longer..

Now a new journey began with new motoric learning and building strength. My amazing physical therapist taught me how to walk, bend over and sit down again. The first time I went down in stairs I tripped and fell. The muscles didn't do what I wanted anymore and controlling the position of the foot was completely impossible. Everything that previously happened automatically, I suddenly had to think about to perform. So I started climbing stairs. Up, down, up, down. People thought I was crazy when they met me several times in the stairs. Every staircase I saw I would go up.