Long long ago in a galaxy far away….. After a long train ride in India I bent over to pick up my orange REI backpack and I hear a quiet and life altering POP-POP-POP. My bottom three discs in my spine pop out. And that was that. Needless to say that I was young so I “got through” the pain for the first couple of years with ibuprofen and yoga. Then we advanced to weekly acupuncture. Then we moved on to serious steroid injections a few times a year. As I’ve aged, well, the pain has gotten a lot harder to live with. Fast forward to my soon to be 51 year old self and here I am prepping for a major surgery this summer. This was always the end of the road we just got here quicker than I thought we’d get here. The difference between the health of my discs between last year’s MRI and this year’s was radical. Not in a good way. Due to menopausal bone deterioration the discs themselves are almost gone now. That has seriously changed the quality of the pain, not for the better. My surgery will be on Tuesday, August 12th. I will be in the hospital for a few days, home on bedrest for a few weeks, and then in PT for 3 months. As most of you know, I am married to a professional care giver (a Pediatrician) so I will be in wildly capable hands. He cares for people all night and day. He is happy to care for me as all loving spouses are, this is what we signed up for. Our kids are wildly capable teens who take loving care of each other and us. We’ve scheduled Naz’s wisdom teeth surgery for a few days before my surgery so we will be recovering together. All of this to say: I do not want the added care that I will need for the weeks following my surgery to stress out our household. When we got married our Rabbi paused during the ceremony. He asked us to look out at the faces of the people who’d come to our wedding. He told us to move our eyes through the crowd gathered, slowly, to make eye contact with everyone. These people, he told us, are here to care for you throughout your life. For your marriage. For your kids, should you have them. For your dreams, failures, and all the spaces in between. Ask them for help when you need it. They will be so grateful for the opportunity to care for you. So this is me, here in your inbox/on the substack app, asking for your care this summer while I recover from surgery.