The evening before my surgery, I sat in front of the television, restless and tense. A programme called Vinger aan de Pols was on, and by coincidence my orthopaedic surgeon was featured, performing a spinal operation on another patient. It felt surreal to watch him at work, knowing that the very next day I would be lying on an operating table under his hands. As I stared at the screen, I tried to gather courage. His precision and calmness offered me a strange kind of reassurance, even though I knew the road ahead of me would be painful and uncertain. Eventually, I switched off the television with a deep sigh and tried to prepare myself for what was coming. The fear was still there, lingering just beneath the surface, but underneath it I could feel something else too—a quiet determination. This time, I was ready to fight. Ready to endure the pain and hold on to the hope of recovery.
The operation lasted longer than expected—ten hours instead of eight—and when I finally woke up, I found myself surrounded by tubes, pumps and machines. My first instinct was to speak, but a tube in my throat made that impossible. Panic rose inside me, sharp and immediate. I gestured desperately for pen and paper, and the nurses understood, placing them in my hands. I began writing feverishly, page after page, as if the words needed to escape me all at once. Later, they showed me what I had written. It was nothing but scribbles, completely unreadable. Still, they reassured me: everything had gone well.
During my MAVO years, I had read two diaries—The Rotten Life of Floortje Blom and Weeds and the Flower—and at school there had been a strong focus on drugs and the impact they could have on a life. And here I was, heavily dependent on morphine. The memory of those books stayed with me, and I became determined to come off the medication as soon as possible. The nurse advised against it, warning me about the pain that would follow, but I was stubborn. I wanted to do this on my own terms. And I paid the price. Even the light touch of a bedsheet against my legs felt like thousands of needles piercing my skin at once. The pain was unbearable, deep and raw, as if it came straight from my bones. For a week I held on, refusing to give in, until one night the pain became too much. A doctor was called, but he refused to prescribe anything. The desperation nearly drove me mad. The next day he returned, apologising. He had assumed I was older, and therefore less in need of pain relief. The logic made no sense to me—how could pain be measured by age? As if my suffering would somehow matter less. The frustration and disbelief cut deep, but in the end he gave me the medication I so desperately needed. That moment, that combination of pain and misunderstanding, stayed with me. It was a harsh lesson in vulnerability, and in how easily others can misjudge what you are going through. But it also taught me to hold on to my own boundaries, even when I felt powerless.
Next to me lay a girl with scoliosis, her spine curved from top to bottom, her entire back needing to be fixed in place. She too was confined to her bed, but she couldn’t cope. She stopped eating, overwhelmed by homesickness, pain and loneliness. Eventually, the medical team allowed her to go home for the weekend. It made all the difference. She returned with colour in her face, slowly regaining her strength. Physically, I was also improving, but mentally I was spiralling downward. I felt lost, frustrated, weighed down by emotions I had been holding in for too long. One day, it all erupted. I lost control completely. Everything I had suppressed came out in a single burst of anger. In that moment, I broke up with my ICT boyfriend. I had been wearing a gold chain his parents had given me, and in my rage I tore it from my neck and threw it at him. It felt like I was throwing away not just the chain, but part of the weight I had been carrying.
The day before, my mother had visited and brought freshly squeezed orange juice. That small, loving gesture struck something deep inside me. It made me realise the value of effort, of care, of the quiet ways people show love. It stayed with me. Yet when I was transferred to a rehabilitation centre, the loneliness returned. It had been four weeks since my surgery. At first, things seemed to improve. I was given a kind of rolling stretcher that allowed me to lie on my stomach and move myself forward using my arms. It felt strangely liberating. I was still confined to bed, yet suddenly I could move, explore, see other people, experience the world beyond my room. Those small movements, those short journeys through the corridors, gave me a sense of control again—something I had been missing so desperately.
Life in the rehabilitation centre was filled with ups and downs. Some days I felt stronger, almost ready to face the world again, while other days I felt small and overwhelmed, afraid of what lay ahead. In the meantime, my ICT boyfriend and I had reconciled. It was also there that I met my DJ friend, who quickly became my closest companion during that time. He was twenty years old and almost completely paralysed due to a spinal cord injury from the neck down. What stayed with me most was his ability to remain positive despite everything he had lost. The rehabilitation centre was a harsh lesson in how quickly life can change. The stories around me were confronting and heartbreaking, reminders of how fragile everything is. My DJ friend’s life had changed in a split second—one moment at the beach with friends, the next unable to move. His friends had pulled him from the water, not realising that leaving him there might have stabilised his neck. In their panic, they had made it worse. And he was not the only one. A girl across from me had slipped in the bathroom and was paralysed from the waist down. Another boy had dived into shallow water and broken his neck. These stories left a deep impression on me. One careless moment could change everything.
At the end of the corridor sat a man in a wheelchair, crying. When I tried to approach him, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Go away.” It hurt, but it also made me understand how deeply pain can isolate a person. Still, in the midst of all that heaviness, I found connection with my DJ friend. Despite his limitations, he held on to his humour. We laughed at moments when he raced through the corridors in his wheelchair, his arm locked in spasm, everyone jumping out of the way. It was rough laughter, but we needed it. We smoked together in the smoking room, and when he couldn’t get out of bed, I would hold a cigarette for him. It became our ritual. Even when my relationship with my ICT boyfriend improved, that bond remained. When he visited, he would joke, “I’ll keep my hands to myself.” That kind of humour carried us through the darkest days. When they tried to close the smoking room, we protested—with banners and demonstrations—and we won. It was a small victory, but it meant everything at the time. My DJ friend taught me about perseverance, about holding on even when everything seems lost.
After three months, I was finally fitted with the plaster corset again, this time with one leg fixed at a 45-degree angle, and at last I was allowed out of that damned bed and off the rolling stretcher. I could walk again. My rehabilitation was harder than before, though. This time I had a drop foot because a nerve had been damaged, leaving me unable to lift my big toe, and part of my leg felt numb, as if the skin no longer belonged to me. When a nerve is only touched, recovery is possible, but it can take up to a year. To stimulate the nerves and muscles in my legs, the physiotherapist placed electrodes on my skin. It felt like torture, like thousands of needles piercing through me, and I dreaded every session. My muscle loss was also greater than before, likely because I hadn’t exercised at all between the two surgeries. I was starting from an even weaker place.
Something else shifted too—my friendship with my DJ friend changed. At first, I didn’t understand it, until a nurse explained that I would eventually walk out of the rehabilitation centre, while he never would. Whether consciously or not, that created distance. Others with spinal cord injuries began to avoid me as well. I understood it, but it left me feeling deeply alone. On weekends, some of the nurses allowed us to sleep in, and those extra hours of rest felt like a gift, a rare moment of freedom. But there was one nurse who refused to allow it. You could hear her coming from far away, the unmistakable sound of her clogs echoing through the corridors. As the sound grew closer, a sense of dread crept over me. Not her again, not now. And then it would happen—the curtains would be flung open, harsh light flooding the room, hurting my still-tired eyes. She would rattle the basins on the bedside tables, the sound cutting through everything. “UP!” she would shout, her voice leaving no room for protest. It felt as though my small refuge of rest was taken from me again and again.
But there was no stopping it. It was time to get up, to continue the process of rebuilding, of learning to live again. And then, finally, the day came when I was allowed to leave the rehabilitation centre and go home—to the house of my ICT boyfriend’s parents. ❤️
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