Back in the day in Portland, it seemed like you couldn’t open a business without giving it a whimsical name–The Burger Baron, the Mattress Man, Mister Pizza, and so on. Among all these semi-eponymous local businesses, one–the Sofa King– truly stood apart as an exemplar of excellence, to the extent that the name actually became common argot–much as Cadillac once had–so that where formerly you might hype a thing by saying, for example, “It’s the Cadillac of hot tubs,” now the Sofa King filled that role daily parlance.

In that spirit, I will say that today is not merely beautiful. It is Sofa King beautiful.

This morning, at 7:30, Tanja went to OHSU on the waterfront, x-rays were taken and we were seated in an exam room to await, not the posh surgeon–he is out–but his colleague, whom we had yet to meet.

There was, after a minute or two, a knock at the door and in rolled a bright-eyed, immediately engaging woman who introduced herself and the med student she had in tow. She had an aura of kindness and competence about her, an open, pleasant demeanor mixed with a kind of brisk efficiency. And she was in a wheelchair which she maneuvered with an ease that suggested long acquaintance.

“Looking at the x-rays,” she said, “I don’t see real fusion–maybe just the beginning of it here.”

She pointed to a spot on the screen.

“Do you see that darker line,” she said, toggling back to the post-op xray. “See that difference? That’s the start of fusion. Which is great. You typically don’t see fusion at 12 weeks, except in maybe 5% of cases.”

The surgeon had said almost exactly the same thing about fusion at 6 weeks and it suddenly struck me that if you were going to tell someone they were stuck with a discomfiting medical apparatus for another 6 or 8 or 12 weeks, who better to deliver the news than an upbeat, high-functioning, competent, confident, empathetic person who is, not wheelchair-bound, but wheelchair-enabled.

She asked Tanja to take her collar off.

“I’ve actually never taken it off myself,” Tanja said, after pulling at it with little effect. I reached over and pried it off her. She seemed to blossom like a flower.

“I’m going to ask you to make some gentle head motions. Go to the point of discomfort, not pain.”

They went through left and right. Up and down. The doctor seemed satisfied.

“So you can start weaning off the collar,” she said. “Two hours a day.”

“Two hours a day,” Tanja said, fear masquerading as dismay. “For how long?”

“Every day. The collar has been supporting you for 12 weeks. Your ligaments and tendons have had time to recover, but now your muscles are probably a little tight. We want to give them time to adjust.”

“Oh,” Tanja said.

I think the doctor could tell something wasn’t hitting right. She expanded her explanation.

“Two hours today. Four hours tomorrow. Then six, then eight.”

“Oh!”

“Honestly, I think some people leave here and never put the thing on again. But to avoid muscle strain and to avoid introducing new pains into your mix, I recommend the gradual method.”

Tanja had a lot of questions about what she could and couldn’t do. The answers were all pretty much what you’d expect. No skydiving, for example. No bull riding.

And at some point the doctor gave Tanja a little, I guess you’d call it a pep talk.

“Spinal injuries are fascinating. No two are the same. Like you, I’ve got a spinal injury. But my injury is not like yours. All spinal injuries pick from this big bag of symptoms, only they seldom pick the same things–is it pain? Is the pain sharp or dull, is it throbbing or electric? Or is it numbness? Or tingling? Or weakness? Or itching? Or temperature sensitivity? Or the inability to sense temperature? Is it on your left? Your right? Does it move around? You might feel like, “Ok, my injury isn’t as bad as someone else’s?” And yes, you can always find somebody worse off. But they aren’t in your body. This is your injury. You are the only one who experiences it. Now, you are recovering so well–is it going to be 92%? 98%? It’s clearly going to be up there, but I can’t tell you how high. Maybe 100% So celebrate what you have, for sure. But it’s ok to mourn what you’ve lost. Don’t ever feel bad about that. It’s your journey.”

Tanja had made an appointment with her aesthetician today, just in case the news was good. I left her there, just now, dropping her off on Sandy, collarless, looking like a new person, but actually just the same old person she always was.