Message to My Tailbone

The jig is up.

What are you playing at, Tailbone? What are you up to?

A few years ago, I had hip reconstruction surgery. The surgeon removed my femur from its socket, pared down the head, sewed up the tears, snapped the joint back together, and, in effect, reset the hip’s clock. I was good as new. I hadn’t been pain-free in five years, hadn’t been able to sit cross-legged for even longer, now I was pain-free and could, if inclined, assume a meditation posture.

Except now sitting itself was a problem, my tailbone wanted no part of it; within months of the operation it started to hurt. I mentioned it to the surgeon. No connection, he said, The hip is nowhere near the surgical site. By which he meant there were several centimeters between the two, light years in medical terms; another physical universe. But the connective tissue, I said, all that yanking and pulling. No, he said.

I started to see physiotherapists and osteopaths, mowed through them like peanuts at a cocktail happy hour. Over the next two years, I did whatever they told me to do, all the exercises they prescribed. This isn’t working, each of the eight said one after the other, and so I gave up. My tailbone felt no better but my lower body was ready for the Olympics, glutes, quads, pelvic floor, and abs all in superlative shape.

I went back to my family doctor. I think it needs imaging, I said, code for “MRI.” I didn’t want to use the letters, didn’t want to spook her; she doesn’t like to be told her business. Fair enough. Why?, she said, Do you think you have cancer? She offered me a rectal instead. It didn’t seem like the moment. I declined.

A year later, tail and bone between my legs, I booked a return visit for the rectal. My tailbone was now at the point of feeling like it was coming through my skin. Just before the appointment, however, I was notified that it would be a phone consult. How’s this going to work, I wondered, pondering my rectum and the size and shape of my cell phone. No rectal, that’s how it worked. The family doctor used the appointment to tell me she was referring me to a specialist. You need an MRI, said the specialist when I saw him. Thank you, I said.

My family doctor sent me the radiologist’s report. “No abnormal cord signal,” “No concerning bone marrow signal,” “ No canal or foraminal narrowing,” “Retroperitoneal structures are unremarkable,” “No evidence of disc herniation.” In other words, nothing was wrong. My tailbone was fine.

In the days that followed, I noticed something unusual. My tailbone stopped hurting as much. I noticed I could sit longer, drive without as much discomfort, needed to stand less. It was as if the MRI had exposed a fraud. My tailbone had been caught, busted, like a teenager sneaking in late at night and trying to escape notice. Was it feeling remorse for having made such a fuss? Had the MRI cured it of an underlying emotional need? Did it feel heard? Until we got an audience, my tailbone and me, until we got a look inside, heard from a technological voice of authority, the pain wasn’t going to stop. Now we had it, our look inside, and it seemed the $1200 worth of public health care money had been well if inexplicably spent.

I once had chronic pain in my right knee and noticed one day that the pain was gone. It had left. I didn’t notice the moment, the day, the week that it happened; I became aware of it only after the fact. I’m heartened, however, by impermanence as it applies to pain, heartened by pain’s sometimes fluidity. I hope the same explains my tailbone. I remember something my family doctor said way back, Many women have tailbone pain. Many?, I asked. Yes, she said. And what do they do about it?, I asked. Nothing, she said, It just goes away. I wanted to believe her then, I may have to believe her now. It goes without saying that I’m happy she may be right.