Long long ago in a galaxy far away….. In India in the fall of 1999 I was on a 17 hour train ride from Bombay to Goa. I was enjoying a month of traveling after I’d spent the fall volunteering in a rural hospital in the Himalayan mountains with the midwives there. The train cars on the train I am traveling on are so overcrowded that there are people traveling on the roof. That is why in that moment (or in the 17 hours worth of moments) I’d felt lucky to be standing the entire way (yes, the entire way) in the women’s only car. The train pulls into the station in Goa just as the sun is rising. I can hear the Chai wallahs (vendors) ready to sell me a hot cup of team the moment I exit and I am ready. I bend over to pick up my orange REI backpack and I hear POP-POP-POP as my bottom three discs in my spine pop out. Needless to say that I was young so I “just” got through the pain for the first couple of years. But as I’ve aged, well, it’s gotten a lot harder. Fast forward to my soon to be 51 year old self and I am prepping for a major spine surgery this summer. This was always the end of the road. I’ve gotten a lot of relief in the last years from epidural injections and over the counter meds and acupuncture but they are no longer working. Additionally, 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, and so here we are. 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. I do not want this experience to cause undue stress to my household. I do not want caring for me to stress people out. I do not want to feel uncared for. I want to arrive on the other side of this recovery: rested, cared for, nourished, recovered. 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. That said, 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. To do so slowly, making eye contact with everyone. These people, he told us, are here to care for you. 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 substack, asking for your care.