It’s all a journey, Mark says.
Pain is information, Mark says.
What can I even say to a man who says and believes these things? Believes them absolutely.
“Miranda,” Mark says again now.
“Yes?”
“Tell me.”
But the things I want to tell Mark—specific things, important things, I had a list somewhere—have all flown away from my brain or come apart.
“My leg is still stiff,” I tell Mark.
Mark nods. Of course it is.
“I can’t even bend it.”
Mark nods. Of course I can’t.
“And it hurts,” I tell him at last. “A lot.”
Mark nods. Of course it does. And that’s fine. Absolutely. Pain, after all, is information.
I watch him scratch his soul patch.
“Where does it hurt exactly?”
“Here and here and all down here,” I say. “Back here too. Oh, and it sort of wraps around here.”
Mark nods again. Sure. This is all part of it. Part of the journey Mark and I are taking together for the next nineteen minutes, hand in surgically gloved hand. Mark always likes to remind me that he has been hurt once too, oh yes. His lower back, in fact: Just like you, Miranda. A herniated disc. L4 L5, believe it or not. A common injury. His was so bad he had foot drop. He almost needed surgery. Yes, really. He went to see three different surgeons, Mark did, including one all the way in New York. This last New York surgeon told him, You’re lucky I’m a busy man, because looking at Mark’s MRI, he should’ve taken him into the OR that very minute. But because he was busy, the surgeon was going to try to let Mark cure himself. And Mark did cure himself, with back extensions. It took a few weeks, sure. But he improved, why? Because he believed he could improve. Little victories. Mind over matter. The mind is so powerful, Miranda.
“How does it hurt?” Mark asks now. He’s leaning in. So intent, so sincere, that for a moment I almost feel sorry for him. I almost feel like I’m faking.
“Can you describe the pain?” Mark says.
Suddenly I am so tired.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” I say at last. Shaking my head. I feel close to crying. But I won’t. I almost never do.
Mark nods at this too. It’s all so interesting. It’s all just more information.
“Try,” he says.
“I guess… sort of like a burning on this side? And a tightness on the other? And around here, a tightness and a burning too? Almost like the area… I don’t know… feels… red.”
“Red?” Mark repeats.
I nod. Yes. Red. “And pulsating.”
“Pulsating,” Mark says. “Interesting.”
“And my foot,” I add. “It’s like there’s a chair on it or something. It feels like it’s being crushed.”
“A chair.”
Yes.
“Hmm,” Mark says. He refolds his arms. He looks deeply into the middle distance. A chair. Red. Pulsating. He’s really thinking now. I feel hope swell up in spite of my bad faith. Perhaps Mark will have a new idea today.
“All right, why don’t we do some tests,” he says at last.
“Tests?” I feel the dread in my legs. The nerves already humming. How I used to love tests. Tests, yes, let’s do tests! I used to cry. That was back when I thought tests led to something. A diagnosis that led to a plan, a cure. But tests, I know now, never lead us anywhere. Tests are dark roads with no destinations, just leading to more dark.
I look at Mark, who looks so pleased that he came up with an activity for us, and I think, Fucking run. Don’t ever look back. But then I remind myself I can’t even walk. I picture myself hobbling away from him in defiance. Mark watching me drag my dead leg, shaking his head. You’ll be back.
“Okay,” I say. “Tests.”
He leads me through a number of diagnostic exercises he’s led me through a million times before. He makes me bend forward. That’s it. Then backward. Good. He makes me walk on my heels, then my toes. He makes me sit slumped forward on a chair and raise my right leg. Then my left. Nerve flossing, he says it’s called. I do it all with great despair, with great fear that we will only agitate things further and to no end. He watches me with an expressionless face, which is Mark’s diagnostic face, his look of intense concentration. He takes no notes.
“All right, hop up on the table,” he says, patting it. “Lie on your stomach; that’s it. Face in the hole. Good. Now bend backward.”