the nerve (don’t ignore NIAW)

This post is my contribution to RESOLVE’s National Infertility Awareness Week Bloggers Unite challenge. Given my affection for the metaphor, another blogger pointed me to The Analogy Project as a starting point. Writing this was important to me. Please, don’t ignore…

When I was 14, my family spent Christmas at my grandparents’ house in Florida. My brother and I were playing catch with his new football when, not surprisingly, it sailed over the fence into the neighbour’s yard. The “closer to you” rule was enacted and over the fence I went. I threw it back, and as I climbed up to jump back I was met with a chorus of “Go through the gate!” from the adults on the porch. Being smarter than all of them combined, I jumped down from the fence. Unfortunately, my t-shirt got caught and acted as a slingshot, aiming me straight at the ground. I attempted to defy physics with my left arm with predictable results.

My forearm* had essentially snapped in half like a green twig. Because my arm could not be put in a cast due to massive swelling, I was strapped into a series of splints. The possibility of surgery was floated. My mother (a nurse of many years) decided that if surgery was happening, it would be happening back in Toronto, thank you very much. We spent several days driving back to Canada; every bump in the road excruciating. Upon arrival in Toronto, it was decided that as the bones had been healing for a few days, surgery would not be prudent. Instead, it was decided that they would simply re-break the arm and ‘set it properly’.

I was in a series of casts for three months. I complained constantly of numbness in my hand, which was attributed to swelling, healing, my imagination and everything in between. At the same time, even feeling the air on the skin of my fingers was unbearable. When the cast finally came off, I could not feel my index and middle fingers. I could not feel my thumb. I could not move it. Something was wrong.

I underwent a series of very painful tests to diagnose the problem. It was determined that I had severed the median nerve when I broke my arm. In order to restore any level of function to my hand, I would require surgery. When they went in, they could not find the nerve ends where they expected to. They had to open up the entirety of my forearm to find them. It was then discovered that they would not be able to reattach the ends, and so a length of nerve was removed from my ankle and grafted into my arm. I had to miss the rest of the school year to heal.

The recovery process was long, arduous, and incredibly painful. Not only did I have two massive incisions, but I was trying to ‘grow back’ a major nerve. For months there would be waves of unrelenting sensations that felt like an electrical fire pulsing down my arm. Slowly, over time, the waves subsided giving way to something of a burning itch under my skin that no amount of scratching or rubbing could ease. I have rubbed my skin raw trying. I have spent years learning how to use my hand again.

If you spend a little time with me, you will notice the scars. They are hard to miss. They were red, angry, and took years to fade. I will tell you the story, and you will gasp, and then we will laugh. Because I have learned to use my hand again – I have adapted. It is not perfect, and it never will be. It is what it is, and I am very lucky. Some of the feeling has even returned, little by little, year by year. It is slowly healing over time. Still. But every once and a while, without warning, an electrical fire burns; an itch I cannot scratch returns.

This is what infertility and loss feels like to me. It should have been like hopping a fence for the thousandth time. Instead, it was a broken arm. It was a severed nerve. It was nerve endings that could not be found, that had to be patched up. It was a medical problem that required medical interventions. It was a nerve graft that somehow stuck on the third try. It was an electrical fire, and every so often the pain flares up without warning. It is a burning itch that no amount of scratching, only time, can soothe.

You cannot see these scars – they are (literally and figuratively) on the inside. Right now they are red, angry, and will take years to fade. But they will fade, and someday I hope to hardly notice them. HGB is my nerve graft – he is teaching me to use my hand again so that I can hold his.

Don’t ignore the scars of infertility and loss. Some wounds heal more quickly than others. There are many ways to stitch up the wounds, but every cut leaves a scar.

SRB

*Yes, these are my real x-rays. Souvenirs from Xmas ’93.