How Linda, a retired Portland librarian, cured her sciatica five years after her husband's death.
Five years. Three epidural shots. Twenty-four months of physical therapy. A chiropractor, twelve acupuncture sessions, cupping, gabapentin. A Tempur-Pedic mattress and a wedge pillow she sold at a yard sale. An electric mobility scooter at 56 she rode once and returned. Early retirement at 57 she told herself was the sciatica. About $7,200 out of pocket on top of what insurance covered. And a right leg she checked every morning before she checked the weather.
Linda is a 58-year-old retired librarian in Portland, Maine. Her sciatica started in January 2021, the month her husband David was in home hospice. He died in February. The pain stayed for five years, through three epidural shots, two years of PT, and an early retirement. Then her niece asked her one question on a bench by the ocean. Ten months later Linda was walking three miles a day. A 2024 JAMA Network Open study of 126 veterans aged 60 to 95 with chronic pain found that 63 percent of the brain-based therapy group had meaningful pain reduction.
Yarns et al., 2024, JAMA Network OpenFive years of a right leg that started hurting the month her husband was dying, and a story she could not say out loud.
Linda was 53. January 2021. David was at home in hospice in their living room in the East End. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2020. By January the cancer was advanced. A hospital bed the hospice service delivered in November had taken over the living room. Linda had been sleeping on the couch next to the bed for weeks. One Tuesday morning in the second week of January, she woke up with pain. It ran down the back of her right leg.
The pain was not sharp. It felt like something was on. She had been lifting David up to help him sit. Helping him to the portable commode. Sleeping three feet from him for weeks. She assumed she had pulled something. She took two ibuprofen. She got on with the day.
David died on February 18, 2021. The hospice nurse and Linda's brother Tuan were at the house. Linda was holding David's hand. He was 61. In the weeks after, while she was writing thank-you notes and closing his teacher's retirement paperwork at South Portland High, the leg got slightly worse. She did not think about it. She thought about David. By April she was in 5-out-of-10 pain most days. She went to her primary care doctor at Mercy Hospital. 'Probably sciatica from all the caregiving lifting,' the doctor said. 'Rest, ibuprofen, try PT.'
She started PT in May. It became the shape of her week. When PT plateaued, the pain clinic suggested a shot of steroid into the space around the nerve. The first one gave her four days of relief. The second, three days. The third, about 48 hours. Then a chiropractor in Falmouth. Eighteen visits. Then twelve acupuncture sessions in the Old Port at $95 each. Then cupping at the same clinic, which left marks on her back that scared her mother when her mother saw them. Then a Tempur-Pedic mattress. Then a wedge pillow from QVC. Then gabapentin at 300 milligrams three times a day, then 600. She gained nine pounds over eighteen months and lost some of the sharpness she used to have when she was reading.
In November 2023 she ordered an electric mobility scooter online. She was 56. She had walked four miles a day for thirty years. She rode the scooter down her driveway once. She got off it. She felt ridiculous. She returned it the next week. Her mother, who was 80 that year and still walked to the Hannaford and played mah-jongg on Wednesdays, did not say anything about the scooter. The not-saying was the loudest thing her mother had said to her in years.
In early 2024 she saw a spine surgeon at Maine Medical Center. He reviewed her MRI. 'Your imaging does not suggest you would benefit from surgery,' he said kindly. 'I recommend conservative management.' Linda was relieved and stuck at the same time. In March 2025 she retired from the Portland Public Library two years shy of her full pension. Thirty-four years of service. She told her colleagues and her mother it was the sciatica. It was partly the sciatica. It was also things she could not yet name.
A Saturday afternoon in April 2025. Linda had been retired for six weeks. Her niece Mai had driven up from Boston for the weekend. Mai is 29. She is a resident in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess. She was very close to David. She cried when he died. After breakfast Mai said, 'Auntie, let's walk the Eastern Prom. We don't have to go fast. I just want to be outside.' Linda said, 'The sciatica is bad today.' Mai said, 'I know. Let's go anyway.'
They walked down to the Eastern Promenade. Slow. Maybe a mile in 45 minutes. They sat on a bench. The ocean was to their right. Mai said, 'Auntie. Your pain started in January 2021. Uncle David died in February 2021. I was 25. I was at the house the day before he died. You were already limping. You were sleeping on the couch. You were lifting him. Your leg has not gone away in five years. You were grieving before he died.' Linda did not say anything. She looked at the water. Then she said, 'Do you think my leg pain has anything to do with David.' Mai said, carefully, 'Auntie. I think your whole body has something to do with David. We don't have good language for that in medicine. I have been waiting four years to ask you if you know that. I am asking now.' Linda said, 'I know now.'
Maine Medical Imaging Associates
10 / 19 / 2021 · 9 mo post-onset
I am a librarian. I have read thousands of books. I did not read the one I was living in.Linda, Year 5
A package from Boston.
Mai drove back to her apartment in Brookline on Sunday evening. The package from Boston arrived eleven days later. A book. A pair of Hoka walking shoes in Linda's size. And a handwritten note on BIDMC letterhead with the Vietnamese words for 'Dear Auntie, you are still strong' at the top.
Linda put the shoes in the hall closet. She opened the book. She read it over the next ten days, slowly, the way Mai had asked her to. Three things landed in order.
The first thing. Her MRI had said 'consistent with age.' A 2015 paper in AJNR by Brinjikji had looked at imaging in adults with no pain at all. 96 percent of pain-free 80-year-olds had disc degeneration. 80 percent of pain-free 50-year-olds had it. Her 'small disc protrusion at L5-S1' was something most women her age have on a scan. The finding was real. It was probably not the reason her leg had been hurting for five years.
The second thing. The timing. The pain started in January 2021. David was actively dying in January 2021. She had told every doctor for five years that the pain had 'started around the time of the caregiving.' She had never said, out loud, the pain started when her husband was dying. That phrasing had not been available to her. Mai had made it available on the bench. The book confirmed it.
The third thing. A 2013 study in the New England Journal of Medicine by el Barzouhi. 283 sciatica patients followed for a year. The MRI pictures could not predict who got better and who did not. The imaging had never been the whole story.
A Tuesday morning in late May 2025. Linda was drinking coffee in David's chair, the one with the good window light. She got up. She walked to the hall closet. She took the Hoka shoes out. She put them on. She went outside. She walked to the end of her street. About 300 feet. Turned around. Walked back. Maybe six minutes total. Her right leg was a 4 out of 10 when she started. A 4 out of 10 when she finished. The walking had not broken her. She thought: I have been afraid to walk for five years.
She called Mai that evening. Mai was on a night shift at Beth Israel. She stepped out of the hospital to take the call. Linda said, 'I walked to the end of the street. It was fine.' Mai said, 'Auntie. Keep going. Slow. Tomorrow, same walk again.' Linda said, 'I will.'
Functional
Her October 2021 MRI showed a small disc protrusion at L5-S1 and what the radiologist called 'mild degenerative changes consistent with age.' Brinjikji 2015 (AJNR) reviewed imaging in adults with zero pain. 80 percent of pain-free 50-year-olds have disc degeneration. 96 percent of pain-free 80-year-olds have it. Linda's findings were something most women her age have on a scan. El Barzouhi 2013 in the New England Journal of Medicine followed 283 sciatica patients for a year. MRI findings could not predict who got better and who did not. Her 2024 spine surgeon told her she was not a surgical candidate. The imaging had never been the reason her leg was still hurting five years in.
Strong matchInconsistent
Pain was worst in the week of February 18 every year, the week David died. Pain was worse before Saturday trips to drive her mother to the Buddhist temple in Windham when her mother had a slower month. Pain was worse after phone calls with her sister Anh in Texas, who kept suggesting Linda move down. Pain was better on quiet Tuesday afternoons with a book. Pain was almost gone during a four-day visit to Mai in Boston in 2024. A spine does not know what date it is. A nerve does not know when a death anniversary is approaching. Linda's leg knew both. For five years it knew both.
Strong matchTriggered
Flared in the week of February 18 every year. Flared the week before a Saturday temple trip with her mother. Flared after a Tuesday phone call where Anh mentioned David by name. Flared the weeks leading up to her retirement. Did not flare much from sitting, bending, or lifting, which had been the whole theory for five years. The leg had been reading her emotional weather. Not her body's position.
Strong matchWhat the ten months actually looked like.
Not a straight line. In month two her sister Anh called from Plano on July 4th and mentioned Linda should think about moving to Texas. That night her leg flared to an 8 for the first time in two months. Linda called Mai at 10 p.m.
Read The Way Out over ten days, slowly. Put on the Hoka shoes Mai had sent. Walked to the end of her street and back. About 600 feet in six minutes. Right leg was a 4 when she started. A 4 when she finished. She called Mai that night. She kept walking the same short loop every day for a week.
Walked the Back Cove trail, 2.5 miles, the whole loop. First time in four years. Stopped twice. Cried a little at the second bench, where she used to sit with David in the summers before he got sick. Finished the loop. Came home.
July 4th. Her sister Anh called from Plano. Anh said, 'Linda, you should come down to Texas. You have been alone. It has been 4 and a half years.' Linda said she would think about it. That night her leg flared to an 8 for the first time in two months. She called Mai at 10 p.m. Mai was on a night shift. She stepped out of the hospital. Mai said, 'Auntie. Your sister just suggested you leave the state where your life with Uncle David was. Your leg heard that. Your leg has been the way you have been allowed to stay attached to him. If you leave, it worries what that means. It is not telling the truth. But it is saying something real.' The flare lasted four days. Dropped to a 2. Then to a 1 for the first time since 2021.
Drove to Boston to visit Mai at her apartment in Brookline. Stayed three days. Walked 8 miles across the weekend in the Back Bay with Mai. Right leg was a 1 most of the time. Came home and told her mother. Her mother said, in Vietnamese, 'You look like yourself again. I have been waiting.' Linda did not know what to say. Her mother made tea. They sat at the table.
Volunteer shift at the Portland Public Library for the children's holiday reading event. Stood in the picture book section for two hours helping four-year-olds pick books for Christmas. Walked home in the snow, a mile and a half. On the sidewalk she passed the library board chair, who had not seen her in six months. He said, 'Linda, you look different.' She said, 'I feel different. I'm volunteering Thursdays now if you need someone.'
February 18, 2026. David's fifth death anniversary. Linda put flowers on his grave at Evergreen Cemetery. Walked out. Drove home. Went to Back Cove and walked the loop. Right leg gave her a 2 out of 10 for about an hour. Then it let go. A month later she had dinner with her friend Patricia from the library board. She asked Patricia about coming back part-time in September. Patricia said the board would be thrilled.
The three things that changed everything.
She stopped treating her leg as separate from her grief.
For five years Linda described the onset of her sciatica in medical terms. 'It started during a period when I was doing a lot of caregiving lifting.' She said it that way to her primary care doctor. To the pain clinic. To her PT. To her acupuncturist. To herself. The caregiving-lifting story was not wrong. It was incomplete. The grief story was not a story she had access to.
After the Eastern Prom bench with Mai, she said something else out loud. 'My sciatica started the month David was dying. I think my body has been holding his death in my right leg.' Not as a mystical claim. As a description of what her life had actually been doing for five years. She said it to Mai. She said it to her therapist, Dr. Chen, in Portland. She said it to her brother Tuan on a Sunday phone call. Eventually she said it to her mother.
Naming the grief was a way of letting her body put some of it down. The leg had been the only place she had been letting her body hold David's death. Giving the grief other places to go, a therapist, a walk, a cry at the Back Cove bench, a conversation with Mai, freed the leg. The leg stopped having to be the place.
She stopped treating walking like a risk .
Before, every walk was a calculation. The short loop only. The Back Cove trail abandoned in 2022. The Eastern Promenade only if someone else was with her. Stairs slowly. A high stool at the reference desk. A folding cane she sometimes carried in her bag. A mobility scooter she returned. A wedge pillow from QVC. A Tempur-Pedic mattress. Walking was something to be negotiated. Every step was a check.
After, she walked 2 to 4 miles a day, most days. Back Cove. Eastern Prom. The woods trail behind the Audubon center in Falmouth. 8 miles across a weekend with Mai in Boston. Home from the library in the snow. Her morning routine became coffee, reading, a 30-minute walk. Not 30 minutes of measured careful walking. 30 minutes of walking and thinking about her book and looking at the water.
Every protective behavior had been telling her brain the same thing: this leg is fragile, watch it. When she stopped protecting, the message changed. This leg is a leg. The brain listens to what you do, not what you say.
She stopped letting her leg explain her whole retirement.
Before, she had retired at 57 telling herself it was the sciatica. It was partly the sciatica. It was also that she had not felt like herself in the library since 2021. It was also that she could not sit at the reference desk where David's earth-science students had come to visit her for thirty years. Retirement had felt like the only exit from a body that could not do the job and a self that did not want to. She did not call it depression. She did not call it grief. She called it 'the sciatica made it impossible.'
After, she let herself name the rest of it. 30 percent sciatica. 30 percent unprocessed grief. 20 percent not wanting to sit at the desk where David's students had visited her. 10 percent genuine physical difficulty. 10 percent other things she still cannot fully name. Putting numbers on it did not make it smaller. It made it something she could plan around. She started volunteering Thursdays. She is going back part-time in September 2026 as the summer reading program coordinator, her 35th summer reading program. She leads a Thursday morning reading group in Vietnamese at the West End branch with four of her mother's friends from the temple community.
The leg pain had been a cover story for several other kinds of loss. Naming the loss directly gave her the agency to choose a different future. The leg got to be just a leg. The retirement got to be a choice, not a sentence.
Take the label off the finding and the finding stays a finding. The brain stops running the emergency program.
Back on the trail.
Linda has been essentially pain-free since autumn 2025. Not flare-free. Pain-free.
She walks 2 to 4 miles a day most days. Back Cove. Eastern Promenade. The woods trail behind the Audubon center in Falmouth. She volunteers Thursdays at the Portland Public Library, helping in the picture book section. She is going back part-time in September 2026 as the summer reading program coordinator. That will be her 35th summer reading program.
She leads a Thursday morning reading group in Vietnamese at the West End branch. Four other Vietnamese-American widowed women from her mother's temple community sit with her at a round table in the back. They are reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, slowly, in Vietnamese. Linda prepares the questions the night before.
She drives her mother to the Buddhist temple in Windham on the second Saturday of every month. Her mother is 83 now. Her mother walks to the Hannaford. Her mother plays mah-jongg on Wednesdays. Linda visits Mai in Boston every six weeks. She sees a therapist, Dr. Chen, LCSW, in Portland every three weeks. Specifically about grief. She kept David's cigar box of good rocks. It sits on her kitchen windowsill. She holds one sometimes when she is at the sink.
'I am 58,' Linda says. 'I am not an old lady. I was an old lady at 54 in my own head because I thought my body had decided to become one. It had not decided that. I had decided it. Or David's death had decided it through me. I am still a widow. I will always be a widow. Being a widow is not the same as being old. I am going back to work in September. The idea of me at 58 is a different idea now than it was at 57.'
Does Linda's story sound familiar?
If your sciatica started during or after a major loss, if you have had three epidural shots that each helped less than the one before, if you retired earlier than you meant to because of your pain, if an MRI from years ago gave you a story you have been carrying ever since, there is a good chance your pain follows the same pattern Linda's did.
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