Writing after spine surgery, puppy interruptions, and discovering that creativity doesn’t wait for perfect health.

Content Note: This post discusses chronic illness, disability, spine surgery recovery, grief, and bereavement.

Welcome to the Wyrm Workbench.

Disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and survival without the performance.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.

Professional cryptid.

Former unwilling amateur cyborg.

Medically complex enough to make my chart a jump scare. I cope with sarcasm, snacks, and an ever-growing pile of drafts.

Most days are lived in a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing feud with my nervous system.

Some days, though…

We make things anyway.

Stories.

Worlds.

Half-finished sentences that glare at me from across the room until I finally surrender and open the document again.

I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, writing between symptoms, doctor’s appointments, recovery naps, and whatever plot twist my body has decided to throw at me that day.

I’m rarely alone.

There’s Luna.

Medical alert service dog.

Guardian.

Enforcer.

Official “You’ve been typing too long. Please drink some water.” supervisor.

There’s M&M.

My Player 2.

My soft place to land.

The person who asks how the writing is going, reminds me to hydrate, celebrates every milestone, and gently bullies me into finishing things whenever my ADHD decides there are seventeen more interesting projects waiting in another tab.

And now…

There’s Blitzø.

Our eight-week-old Great Dane × Anatolian Shepherd puppy.

Professional sock thief.

Aspiring writing assistant.

Firm believer that every snack I own should also belong to him.

This space has always been about chronic illness without inspiration porn.

Disability without apologies.

And creativity that exists anyway.

Messy.

Nonlinear.

Real.

If you’ve been here before…

Welcome back.

If you’re new…

Settle in.

I’m glad you’re here.

🐉 On Today’s Workbench

Word counts.

Writing goals.

Research rabbit holes.

A puppy who thinks my keyboard is communal property.

And the narrative gremlin currently refusing to leave me alone.

🩻 Recovery Doesn’t Mean the Story Stops

I honestly didn’t expect to be writing one of these so soon.

When I pictured recovering from spine surgery, I imagined long naps.

Doctors’ appointments.

Pain medication.

Healing.

A lot of staring at the ceiling while trying to decide whether rolling over was worth the effort.

To be fair…

There has been plenty of all of those things.

But somewhere in the middle of recovery, our household also welcomed a brand-new puppy.

Because apparently life looked at my carefully planned healing schedule and said,

“That’s adorable.”

Recovery has somehow taken ten steps forward and ten steps backward all at once.

Blitzø keeps me busy.

He also keeps me present.

When he naps, I write.

When he naps, sometimes I nap too.

Sometimes that’s brainstorming on my iPad while curled up in bed.

Sometimes it’s editing from my MacBook.

Sometimes it’s just getting thoughts out before my brain wanders off to investigate something entirely unrelated.

The writing looks different than it did before surgery.

The pace is slower.

The sessions are shorter.

There are more breaks.

More naps.

More ice packs.

But it’s still writing.

And that matters.

🐄 Apparently, I Adopted a Muse

One thing I definitely didn’t expect?

A puppy inspiring his own blog series.

Blitzø’s Big Adventure started because there was simply too much puppy chaos to keep to myself.

Every day he’s learning something new.

His name.

The dog door.

How couches work.

That baths are apparently a personal attack, or a ton of fun.

That nail trims are deeply suspicious.

That Pup Cups are, in fact, one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

Watching him figure out the world has become one of my favorite parts of recovery.

He’s exhausting.

He’s ridiculous.

He’s growing faster than I can keep track of.

And somehow, he’s become another reason to keep writing.

📚 The Project That’s Been Waiting

Outside of the blog, most of my creative energy has been spent on something that’s been quietly waiting for me for years.

My poetry collection.

The biggest change?

I finally gave myself a deadline.

Whether that was brilliant…

Or slightly unhinged to do immediately after spine surgery…

The jury is still out.

Thankfully, most of the poems already exist.

The hard part isn’t writing them.

It’s gathering them.

Organizing them.

Formatting.

Reformatting.

Figuring out which pieces belong beside each other.

Making the collection feel like one conversation instead of a stack of unrelated pages.

I’m also adding poems that have never been shared before.

Some were written after my mom died.

Some after losing my grandma.

Some after finding my dad.

Some during seasons that changed me in ways I still don’t fully have words for.

Writing has always been how I survive experiences that don’t make sense yet.

Poetry has always been where grief goes first.

🌸 Bloom… Or Maybe Not

Years ago, this collection had a name.

Bloom.

The name it was published under first.

The first iteration of it when I was still trying to be flowery and palatable.

Will that still be the title?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Or maybe I’ve already made up my mind and I’m simply enjoying keeping one tiny secret.

October isn’t that far away.

You’ll find out soon enough.

✨ Learning a New Definition of Progress

Recovery has taught me something I probably should have learned years ago.

Progress isn’t always dramatic.

Sometimes progress is writing two thousand words.

Sometimes it’s formatting three pages.

Sometimes it’s jotting down one sentence before your body decides today’s work is done.

All of those count.

For a long time I measured my success by output.

How many chapters.

How many blog posts.

How many words.

These days…

Sometimes success is simply showing up.

Opening the document.

Trusting that tomorrow I’ll be able to pick up where I left off.

Healing has changed my pace.

It hasn’t changed the fact that I’m still a writer.

If you’ve ever stared down a blank page and felt it stare back…

You’re not alone.

If your progress is slow…

Messy…

Interrupted…

Or stitched together between appointments, medications, and afternoon naps…

It still counts.

We build what we can.

With the energy we have.

On the days we have it.

That’s always been enough.

Be gentle with your brain today.

Stories grow best in places where they’re allowed to take their time.

Until next Monday…

Keep making something.

Even if it’s only one sentence.

🖋️

With gratitude,

-Sky

🐾 Luna Notes

🐾 My human has been spending an awful lot of time in Bed Jail™, which means I’ve had to increase supervision considerably.

I have successfully reminded them to take breaks, accepted payment in snacks, and kept one eye on the puppy at all times because someone around here has to be the responsible adult.

Recovery is going well.

Mostly because I said so.

🐾💛

🐮 Moo Memo

HI!!!

I LEERN SO MANY FINGS!!

I GO IN DOG DOOR!!

I GO OUT DOG DOOR!!

I GO IN AGAIN!!

DEN I FORGET WHY I WENT OUT.

I TRY EAT PAPERS.

I TRY EAT TOY.

I TRY EAT LEAF.

MOM SAY “BLITZØ NO.”

I FINK SHE SAY DAT LOTS.

I GUD WRITER HALPER.

I DO BIG INSPECK OF ALL SNACKIES.

OKAY BYEEEEEE!! 🐄💛

© The Crippled Cryptid

Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.

(And probably a few unfinished drafts.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

There is never any pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, commenting, or simply spending part of your day here means more than you know.

If you’d like to support the long, slow work of healing while continuing to create, you can do so here:

💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility