Ignorance is bliss. Not knowing what you don’t know is like skating on a frozen lake riddled with thin patches of ice. You glide along enjoying the brisk air and winter sun on your face, as long as you make the right moves. Yet it’s all chance. You don’t see the thin patches in the superficial skin over the deep water. You get away with the gamble, until you don’t.

This was me on August 7 sitting on a hotel bed in London, organizing my treasures from Festival of Quilts. I was fretting about the draconian luggage allowance, dreading having to say goodbye to my mom. I had no idea the ice beneath me was about to give away. I don’t remember what I picked up, but apropos of nothing, I felt an explosion in my lower back, akin to a water balloon bursting. I yelped and immediately laid back on the bed. Movement of any kind was out of the question. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. A court of demons kicked in the front door and set up shop inside my head, firing one terrifying possibility after another at me. What if you can’t move before you have to leave for the airport in the morning? How can you pull your suitcase? You can’t even roll over. How are you going to get to the bathroom when you need to go? How the hell are you going to manage a 7-hour flight home alone? What if your mom leaves and you’re still here and the hotel comes to kick you out onto the street? You have no place to stay, can’t move your bags, and have lost your flight home. What if you ruptured your spine and your nerves are spilling out into your abdominal cavity? What if you can’t walk again? Can’t make quilts again? I couldn’t fully process one thought before the next one hit. My heart felt all of this. My mom suggested sleeping and hoping for the best in the morning. Like a drowning person thrown a life preserver, I clung to that irrational hope and went to sleep.

Day dawned, and my mobility was only marginally improved. At most 10%. The demons and nausea woke up and stretched in readiness for a busy day. My mom threw everything in my suitcase and called the bellhop to carry our bags to the Uber. I managed to hobble to the elevator with a borrowed cane. I laid down for the whole journey to Heathrow and got out at a separate terminal than my mom. I managed to organize wheelchair assistance. Sitting in that chair was an open invitation to the demons to start another barrage. I got Pepto from the pharmacy and drank a third of it straight from the bottle. The demons kept up their chatter the entire 6.5 hour wait until takeoff. Between borrowed arthritis medicine, prayers, and friends distracting me with a nonstop stream of texts, I survived the wait. I didn’t eat or drink during the 7-hour flight to avoid needing to use the bathroom. I made it.

Relieved to be home where I wasn’t alone and where I understood how and where to go for medical care, I spent days in bed, getting x-rays, an MRI, and recovering by leaps and bounds. I’m sitting here at Cheesecake Factory after my final medical clearance, writing all of this down. In a cooler state of mind with the demons underfoot, I’m pondering the lessons to be learned from this. The silver linings. For now, I’m happy to reach the end of this particular story and stuff this quilt in the back of a closet. It’s time to begin a new story.

Title: Demons

Materials: commercial fabrics, batiks, fusible web

Size: 20″ x 39.75″