By that point, I could barely walk.
My hands were shaking from pain.
Kaylee got me a cart so I could lean over it and push myself through the store.
MY LIFE
Warrior Tears
Sometimes the fight doesn’t look like fighting. Sometimes it looks like putting on mascara while tears run down your face.
After finally getting a little relief, I tried to step back into my life. I walked, took Kaylee shopping, cried through mascara, pushed until the bill came due, and discovered that even temporary relief could feel enormous. This is about the strange middle ground where the pain is still real, the good moments are still real, and both can exist at the same time.
I slept.
Actually slept.
Eight hours and forty-eight minutes.
After the kind of week where four hours had started to feel normal, that alone felt like something.
I woke up and, for a little while, I felt almost like me.
Not fully.
I stayed in bed. Drank coffee. Moved slowly. Let myself take my time getting going.
But there was something different.
Yesterday I wrote about feeling like a wild mustang trapped behind a fence, still remembering exactly what it felt like to run.
This morning, I could see a crack of light.
So I pushed.
I got outside.
I walked about two miles.
By the time I made it out, it was already around 11 a.m., which in Florida means the sun has begun actively filing paperwork against you.
It was hot.
Really hot.
My new waist trainer was dripping with sweat by the time I got home.
But I was happy.
Not because the walk fixed anything.
Because I was outside.
Because for a little while, I was moving through the world instead of watching it from bed.
And I wanted more of the day.
HE ALWAYS SHOWS UP
When I got home, I was already visibly in pain.
Rob could see it.
He was ready to wash my hair for me.
He had already showered, but he turned the water back on anyway.
I told him I could do it.
He insisted.
That is Rob.
He does not always get everything right. Neither do I.
But he shows up.
Wholeheartedly.
I have not had my hair professionally done in more than three years.
I used to go every few weeks.
My finances do not allow that anymore, so it became one more thing I learned to do without.
Recently I bought a protein treatment for my hair. It is a whole process, and Rob knew I wanted to do it.
Apparently he decided today was the day.
He washed my hair.
Blotted it dry.
Sat me on my vanity chair.
Combed the treatment through it.
Used my blow dryer to help harden it.
Got me back into the shower.
Rinsed it out.
Then did the final wash with the second step.
He offered to dry my hair too.
That part I wanted to do myself.
So I thanked him, and he left me to it.
And then I had to lie down.
Because the pain was catching up.
I could feel the day trying to close back in on me.
I was not ready to let it.
WARRIOR TEARS
Kaylee needed art supplies.
She wanted to go to Michael’s.
I wanted to take her.
Not order the supplies.
Not send Rob.
I wanted her and me to get out of the house together.
So I told her yes.
I just needed to finish my hair and put on some makeup.
While I was getting ready, tears started streaming down my face.
Not because I was sad.
Not because something had happened.
Pain.
Just pain.
There are tears I call warrior tears.
They are not the tears that come when I decide I cannot take anymore.
They are the ones that come when I am still taking it.
My body reaches a level where it apparently needs somewhere for the pressure to go, and my eyes volunteer.
I do not even want to cry.
The tears just come.
And I keep going.
I wiped them away.
Finished the quickest makeup possible.
And told Kaylee we were leaving.
Michael’s did not begin as the peaceful mother-daughter outing I had imagined.
She is fourteen.
Her attitude also wanted art supplies.
We had a discussion in the car.
Then we got there.
And then something shifted.
Her attitude lifted.
We started having fun.
Actually having fun.
She found what she needed.
We laughed.
We took pictures.
On the drive home, we had a nice conversation.
If someone saw only those pictures, they would see a normal mother and daughter at Michael’s.
Smiling.
Shopping.
Out in the world.
And that was real.
I was happy to be there with her.
What the picture would not show was that I had cried from pain while getting ready to take her.
That my hands were shaking.
That the cart was helping hold me up.
That getting there had required more fight than the photograph could ever explain.
Both things were true.
The smile was real.
So was the pain.
THE BILL CAME DUE
As soon as I got home, I was done.
Straight to bed.
The pain had turned burning hot again.
Whatever I had spent to get through the day, my body had come to collect.
Rob finished his live, came to check on me, then headed to the market.
When he came back, he had groceries.
And my new pain medication.
I had not expected that part.
The pharmacy had been having trouble filling the full thirty-day prescription.
Rob talked to the pharmacist.
If thirty days was the problem, fine.
Fourteen worked.
Problem solved.
He came home with it.
At 6 p.m., I took the first prescribed loading dose.
At first, my legs and feet became tingly and numb.
Then the feeling slowly spread through my body.
And I became very, very drugged.
High as a kite.
There is no elegant medical-journalism wording needed for that part.
I was high.
But then I stood up.
And I could stand.
Upright.
I could walk.
I could WALK.
Not fighting against muscles that felt restricted.
Not contorted by a vice grip pulling my body into itself.
I just walked.
Apparently in a very drugged-looking manner, because Rob and Kaylee were laughing at me.
Lovingly.
I did not care.
I was proud of myself for walking around my own house.
Which is a sentence I never expected to write.
Then Kaylee went back upstairs.
I walked to the couch where Rob was sitting.
I looked at him and said:
I can’t tell you how good it feels to stand. To walk.
And I cried.
Different tears this time.
Earlier, the tears had come because the pain was too much and I refused to stop anyway.
Now they came because, for the first time in what felt like forever, the pain was not a ten.
Because my body had loosened its grip just enough for me to remember what normal movement felt like.
Because standing upright should not feel like a miracle.
Walking across my living room should not make me emotional.
But it did.
For a couple of hours, I got relief.
Not a cure.
Not my life back.
Relief.
And I will take that.
I even played a game of Fortnite with Rob and some friends.
They were happy to have me back.
For one game, I was there.
Then the pain started returning.
The burning crept back in.
The numbness faded.
The vice grip began reclaiming territory.
And that little window closed.
My next scheduled dose was 6 a.m.
I went to bed already waiting for it.
Because if another dose gives me even a few hours where my body loosens enough for me to stand and walk without fighting every muscle—
I will take those hours.
Yesterday I wrote about remembering what it felt like to run.
Today I did not get the whole field back.
I got a few steps.
And somehow, after everything,
that was enough to make me cry.
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