Day 4 Post-Op: Long Screws, The Olympian’s Sparring Partner, and Jacob’s Full Circle

It is Monday morning, and the air in this room feels subtly, blessedly different.

The first gift of the day was seeing Lindsay walk back through my door for shift change. She was an absolute angel yesterday, steady, gentle, and infinitely capable, and having that continuity in a hospital room is an instant exhale. You don’t realize how much nervous energy you spend bracing for a stranger until a nurse you already trust steps up to your bedside.

The second gift, small as it sounds, is that my body is finally asking for fuel. For the first time in five days, I actually have the beginnings of an appetite, and more than anything, I am craving real coffee. 

Then came the clinical highlight of the entire stay: Dr. Allison walked in with my post-op imaging.

Looking at my new X-rays and CT scans was an absolute holy wow moment. The side view took my breath away. You can clearly see the sheer length and heavy gauge of the screws anchoring my pelvis and vertebrae. The titanium cages sitting between my lumbar vertebrae are huge, lifting those collapsed disc spaces right back into the sky. And my spine… it is visibly, undeniably straight.

Dr. Allison looked at the scans with me and confirmed that the reconstruction was an absolute success. I looked over at him and laughed, “Well, you did a pretty good job!”

As a yoga teacher who knows my anatomy pretty well, the very first thing I asked him about was my quadratus lumborum (QL) muscles. For years, that deep low-back muscle had been locked in a screaming, 24/7 spasm, single-handedly trying to prevent my collapsing spine from folding over. I was so excited for that muscle to finally get some relief.

Dr. Allison gave me a knowing reality check: “Well, I had to cut through them, so they’re not going to feel very relaxed for quite a while.”

Fair point. But just knowing that once the surgical trauma heals, that poor muscle won’t be held hostage by a crooked, crushed foundation anymore brings tears to my eyes. Sitting here propped up in bed, letting that reality sink in, my mind keeps drifting back to the morning of September 22nd; the literal eve of surgery.

Over the last few years, Stoicism has become a big part of how I frame hard things. I have a daily flip calendar sitting on my desk, and on Tuesday morning before we left for Porter, I felt drawn to flip the page.

It was a passage from Epictetus (Discourses 1:24.1–2):

“Difficulties show a person’s character. So when a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat. I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner.”

Reading those words twenty-four hours before a surgeon’s scalpel touched my spine stopped me in my tracks.

It framed everything that was about to happen. This massive two-day reconstruction isn’t just an ordeal to passively endure; it is a sparring partner. It is a grueling, sweat-soaked training ground. I have the choice to use this mountain to become a better human, a more empathetic teacher, calmer, and more grounded in the face of what I cannot control. It is preparing me for whatever comes next, and somehow, I will be better for it.

The other reminder of why I’m fighting so hard came through a sweet phone call with Jacob. He is carrying a mountain of responsibility right now. When he was assigned to present a major lesson plan to his college peers on economic disparity in the classroom, he was slated to go first. Feeling completely maxed out, he approached his professor to ask if he could swap for a later date, mentioning his heavy workload and that his mom was facing a major two-day spinal surgery back in Denver.

His date didn’t end up getting moved, but when he went into her office to have his lesson plan approved she looked up at him out of nowhere and asked, “Are you Erin Sampson’s son?”

Jacob, totally caught off guard, said, “Yes… why?”

She beamed and said, “Well, I literally just did an online class with her last night and knew she was having surgery, I had no idea you were her son!”

Jacob called to tell me the story, and I laughed and thanked him for sharing that moment.

Five Parks Yoga has always been this sprawling, beautiful web of connection, but having a teacher hundreds of miles away rolling out her mat with me in her living room while guiding my own son into his teaching career felt like the sweetest full circle.

The sparring partner is tough today. The muscles are stiff, the incisions burn, and the back drain is still tethering me to this room. But there is hope that I will get out of here and that is putting a huge smile on my face.