X-ray vision

When I told you about the evening I had with The Other Jessica last week, jumping and screaming and singing at the M.I.A.show, I left out the details of the last act -- the one where we got into a car accident in a cab.

In the moment it happened, we were both startled, probably a bit in shock, and so we did a quick check of ourselves and the scene, gave our information to the taxi driver and hopped another cab home. I fired off the M.I.A. post quickly, pausing only long enough to write a little something about the accident in my Facebook update. Then, completely exhausted, I went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, the full weight of that taxi t-boning a car that pulled a frantic u-turn in front of us from a parking space hit me. My neck ached terribly and the guilt that I was not wearing a seatbelt -- and I am safety grrrl who ALWAYS wears a seatbelt, even in a cab -- ran through my head over and over. The physical pain didn't subside and so I made an appointment for the very next day with the sports doc who has so kindly been treating my lazy ass and running injuries for eight months now.

He took a round of x-rays just to see how serious the whiplash was. Then, he worked his chiropractic magic on me. The heat and the adjustment eased my inflamed muscles and my mind. Until he came back into the office and asked me if I'd been in any bad car accidents in the past, told me that he wanted to discuss my x-rays with me.

Perhaps I am not the only person who has survived a loved one's traumatic brain injury along with them who has a worse-case-scenario flash every time there is any possibility of complications occuring above the shoulders. That part of me is still healing, I guess, and in an instant, I went right to catastrophizing.

Oh.God, I thought, it's a head injury. It's a brain tumor. Something's really wrong.

I told the doctor he was scaring me and after he assured me I wasn't going to die or be paralyzed, he walked me back to a big screen where the photos of all the vulnerable parts above the shoulder were revealed in black and white.

Something wasn't right, but nothing was really wrong.

When I was 21, I was driving on a highway on a beautiful summer day. The sky was a magnificent blue, the sun was shining, the car windows were rolled down. A Carole King tape played on the stereo. As the warm wind whipped through the window, the clothes hanging in the back seat fluttered all around me. I casually waved my hand to get them out of my way and line of site, and in that little instant, I lost control of the car.

My car skidded over to the other lane, back into mine, and then felt sucked off the road into the grassy median.A witness said I rolled the car three times. I remember opening my eyes when the car was mid-air and seeing metal and dirt fly past me. The next thing I remember was scrambling out of the driver's side window because the door wouldn't open. I'd hit my head. I was no longer wearing shoes. My clothes and the contents of the trunk were strewn down the median.

I was, by grace and a seatbelt, alive. And OK. I was achy and jittery and devastated I totalled my mom's car, but I was OK.

Close enough to 20 years later, I could see the impact of that accident in my x-rays. My doctor pointed out the clear curvature of my neck, the vertebrae jutting out with bone spurs as a result of that more-serious whiplash.

"I look at these pictures," he said, "and I think that without treatment now, you'll need surgery in five to ten years."

What I have is pre-arthritis and he says it is remediable with exercises and retraining the brain (ohhh, the brain) to pull back where my neck is now sticking out. He also says that I will need a posture pump. I have no idea what that is yet but it's sounds dirty, so I am totally in.

The injury from last week is healing.With due diligence in mind, I've had a serious conversation with Lil E about the mistake I made in not wearing a seatbelt, I've filed my insurance claims, and I'm doing my neck-cercises every day. I'm also going to do whatever I can to avoid surgery for the injuries I incurred decades ago. But I am still sorting through how long that's been in there and how, at a time when I feel the healthiest and calmest and most athletic that I can remember, there's all this unseen stuff going on inside of me.

But isn't that just the way it is? A beautiful, sunny day with a storm brewing up in the center of it. Outward strength and internal erosion. Blind transparency.

I'm choosing this time not to hate my body for not being where I thought it was, but rather to rely on the strength I've built in my abs and calves and heart to carry the weaker parts through. At least now I know. At least I can see all the way through.