Page 10

NINE

MARA

OCTOBER

“There’s our favorite shopper!”

Sharese opened her arms with a big smile as I wheeled Hazel’s pumpkin seat into the store with a cart. I was in a bit of a pickle, having the delightful combination of a bad pain day and my daughter not being able to go to daycare.

She nodded toward my cane. “Bad day for Mom?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

They always tell you to rate your pain from one to ten at the doctor. For someone with chronic pain, it’s almost a silly question. Which pain? The burning one? The one that makes me feel like I got hit by a truck? Or how about the one where my sacroiliac joint decides to pop out of alignment and the sheer act of taking a step is murderous?

Or what about when I have that last one, and the pain stresses me out so badly that the full body pain kicks in?

And then, when the full body pain kicks in, I have to question whether it’s just the same old-same old body pain, or an actual illness like the flu?

That’s where I was on this day. And thanks to a gas leak at Hazel’s daycare, she was with me at work. Sharese went right into work granny mode, unbuckling Hazel from her seat and carrying her to go look at apples.

Hazel was a bit of a celebrity in the office and the store. Any time she had a nose too stuffy to get accepted at daycare, I brought her along with me and managed my workload around her needs. We just had to keep it on the down-low from corporate. I’d already been caught once before and given a verbal warning.

But anyone who’s ever been a working parent knows you have to do what you have to do sometimes.

We kept a pack-and-play in a storage closet for naps, and my coworkers got a kick out of taking Hazel on cart rides through the store. She was very well loved, pumped up on treats and hugs and snuggles.

Fortunately, our manager was out at another location that day, so I should have been in the clear. I coasted through the day, only having one instance of Hazel getting excessively fussy.

My back, on the other hand, was significantly more fussy. Because of my pain, I was at my personal limit. I didn’t even injure my back doing something cool. It was really as simple as lifting Hazel out of her crib in the morning. I felt that signature slip in my lower back and voila! A completely out-of-whack back that made each step agony.

This wasn’t my first rodeo with this particular injury—more like my fiftieth. I had an action plan. I pulled out my walking cane to get around the house, which took the pressure off my back while my leg did the basic motion of swinging through for the next step. I took two Aleve per something I found on an internet forum, even though that tore up my stomach. It was stomach pain or debilitating back pain.

Everyone had already taken off or was busy when it was time to leave the store. I was just hauling Hazel’s car seat over my arm when the owner of a severely trendy purple pixie cut appeared.

“Mara? Is that your daughter?”

It was April, our VP of Operations for our small Southern California grocery chain. Because of our location, having a severely trendy purple pixie cut made sense for a company vice president.

“Oh, yep!” I said, trying to cover up my wrongdoing by being overly friendly. Sadly, it did not get past April.

She cocked her head to the side. “Oh. Is it bring your daughter to work day?”

My breath suspended, maintaining my hopefully convincing smile. “Um, no.”

She lifted a brow. “And she’s been here all day?”

I flapped my mouth open and shut a few times. “There was an emergency at her daycare and it was either bring her in or have to take a sick day.”

Which I don’t have any more of.

“You know, they make babysitters for that kind of thing. It’s a distraction for the entire office.”

I nodded. Maybe agreeing and begging forgiveness would work. “Right. Absolutely. I’m so sorry. I should have known better.”

She sighed. “Kai’s going to have to write you up. This is the second time you’ve been warned. If I let everyone get away with this . . .”

“Understood,” I said with a sheepish grin. “I was actually heading out for the day. I need to relieve my son’s sitter.”

Her brow wrinkled again and she stepped aside, letting me hobble through the doorway. “Call me tomorrow about the assortment for Luna, then.”

“Yep! Will do!”

And look, I don’t expect anyone to help me because it’s not everyone’s responsibility to take care of me just because I have a medical condition.

But she didn’t even offer to carry Hazel’s seat down the steps, watching me limp along with my cane and her seat, all while stuffing down tears.

I pictured myself calling Bryce on my way home, venting about my bad day. If it were in more recent times, he would have taken this opportunity to blame me for bearing him another child when I knew it might tear my body apart more. And it did, but I still didn’t know what was wrong with me until after I had Hazel and got an especially astute pelvic floor physical therapist. She put all the pieces together and asked if I had other issues, like blacking out when I stood (check), weird allergic reactions (check), and being super flexible, especially when I was younger (check check).

She was able to send a note to my primary care doctor about her suspicions. It’s a cluster of illnesses that tend to play together. The center of it is hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, an incurable condition where my body makes improper collagen. That causes the hypermobility and joint instability responsible for a lot of my pain. Dysautonomia and POTS were behind my blacking out, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) was why I had a bizarre number of allergic reactions from things that came up negative on a blood allergy or skin prick test.

Basically, my body’s chemical stew makes it hard to function as a human.

But I’m one of the lucky ones. Mine’s not all the time. Some of the time, if the weather is just right and I’m not close to my period, I can get by just fine. I only need my cane when things go awry like this.

I know I’m lucky, but I didn’t feel too lucky this day.

Once I got to the store’s exit, I took a cart, plopped the car seat in it, and put my cane in next to her. “Let’s go home, little girl,” I cooed, forcing a smile as the knife in my lower back panged.

I hobbled out to my car, my stomach still a mess and fighting tears from getting called out by April. I removed my cane from the cart and was pulling my keys from my purse when a gruff voice came from behind me.

“What happened to you?”