The outdoors are my sweet spot and being able to go for walks and visit gardens and parks has been one of the best parts of my post-hip replacement world. With the arrival of Summer Break and its relaxed schedule, I’ve made a daily commitment to walks outside. Sometimes that’s a stroll around my town. Often, it’s a trip to the familiar landscape of my beloved Colonial Park.
Yesterday, JT and I made a trip west to San Diego. We’re hanging out with family and later in the week I will see my college roommate. It’s lovely to see my nephews and San Diego is straight up splendid.
That’s happy!
For years now, my favorite place to go for a walk is Colonial Park. Its gardens, its roses and flowers, its expansive sky, and its woods have long been a place I visit to refresh my spirit and soul. I missed walking there in the Fall and Winter, when my hip was too painful for any of my usual wanderings, let alone a long walk in the park.
My sister knew this and during the post-surgery week that KO came to look after me, she drove me to Colonial Park. I walked a familiar sunny path with my walker and still recall the feeling of hope that filled my heart: my visits to this happy place could resume.
At the three month check-up for my hip, the Physician’s Assistant made the mistake of asking me if I was glad I’d had my hip replaced. She’s the good PA - I truly like her - and I sensed this was a standard question meant to collect stories to help people considering their options when it comes to hip replacement. So I played along - I have no regrets. None. The new hip has not only given me back my life but it’s eased all of the pain I experienced from hip arthritis. I couldn’t be more thrilled with my new hip.
But the fact is I needed a new hip five months before I received it. From September 2023, when my excruciating, disabling pain was diagnosed as arthritis that had deteriorated my hip so badly that only a replacement would do, to the point of hip replacement in mid-February - well it was a struggle. A colossal, horrifying, miserable struggle. That I was forced to lose 35 pounds and live with increasing pain and disability for 5 more months…..well, I am mad as hell about that. I met the weight loss goal in 3 months by engaging in significant calorie restriction - effectively starving myself - and then continued the food restriction for another two months while I waited for a surgical date. Try as I might, the misery of those months —— the growing disability, the non-stop physical pain, the reliance on opioids for rest (though not actual sleep), the misery and fear, a weight-loss requirement not supported by valid medical research, and living with the stark reality that my life didn’t matter because I am fat —— I find that very, very hard to set aside.
Many, many people feel called upon to recognize the weight loss that occurred as I waited for surgery. I know that they mean well but the need to lose weight so that I could receive life-saving medical treatment created a mental health crisis for me. Long a woman who had come to value her fat body despite social norms, I became a woman who loathed her body. The dysmorphia that I have lived with my whole life exploded in those months of food restriction. Today, three months after the new hip, with much of my strength returning and the pain gone, there are still days when I cannot eat because I do not feel that I deserve to eat. I remain unable to select clothes that fit because I cannot reconcile what I see in the mirror with the physical existence I actually have. Those feelings linger more than I would like.
I am doing the work to like my body again but some days are really hard. I resent the fact that getting much-needed medical care meant having to shrink myself. I am glad beyond measure to have my life back but I am also so fucking angry at what I had to go through. I don’t enjoy living with this anger so I am working on that as well, aware that forgiveness will restore my equilibrium. I’m just not quite sure who needs forgiving.
Now that the school year has ended, I’m faced with the prospect of actually having enough time to do all the things that need doing. It’s a happy development. I’ve got a back log of half written pieces for this blog and I’m glad to have time to finish them and write more. Shorter work days and loads of time off mean that I’ll have time to travel, to garden, to go for longer walks, and to catch my breath. As I approach August, and the one year anniversary of my hip’s collapse, I’m a little more grateful for all the good things in my world. I plan to write about that, to record some of my most pressing thoughts about the medical establishment, and to renew my commitment to daily writing and more consistent posting. The long days of June make everything feel possible, don’t they? That’s happy!
New hip rehab is no joke and it’s taken me a while to return to blog posting. But that’s not because things aren’t going well - quite the reverse, in fact. I’ve started a whole bunch of posts and those half-written thoughts will become fully-developed posts in the coming days. For now, let me simply note that I am back - whole and relieved and - most important of all - finally feeling hopeful again. In time, I will wrestle with the complicated thoughts I have about what my life felt like as I waited for hip surgery. I will post some serious thoughts about the gratitude I have for my sister and JT, who got me to the surgery and then through it to this other side. All of that and more is coming. I’m back, world, and I’ve got a lot to say!
Last week, I had one of those spiraling days of doubt that occur every once in a while. It was Friday and I was physically and emotionally spent. The pain and disability of my hip caught up with me like a fury spinning wildly. Days like that are hard when you are a without a partner and I’ve had far too many of them lately. The fact that the Valentine’s Day sucker-punch was just around the corner didn’t help. My sister’s support, some rest, and a good book got me over the hump.
Today is Valentine’s Day and though I suspect I will forever be sad that I never found a partner willing (or able?) to love me through the hard parts of a relationship, I’m not dwelling on that. I have Valentine treats for some friends and big plans to score some flowers for myself once I have a new hip and can walk into the shop and select a bouquet. As of today, I am 7 days from surgery. Tonight, I’ll open the Valentine treat I bought myself, raise a toast to me and getting through the hell of the last 6 months, and I'll remind myself that I am tough as nails when the need arises. That will make for a sweet - if untraditional - Valentine's Day and I'll take it.
As an adolescent - really as a tween - I learned that some clothes and styles were off-limits because of my weight. Once the dreaded "not flattering" concern was uttered by my mom and grandmother, extreme self-consciousness set in. A fear of being too fat, and therefore unworthy, took hold. I remember dieting at the age of 12 when I weighed all of 125 pounds and was 5’3”. After age 12, I didn’t go to public places where swimsuits were being worn. Rather than reject the message that I was unworthy because of my body, I molded my life around the limits sent by that message. For more than 25 years, I mostly refused to wear pants or shorts because I could not stand my appearance in them. This avoidance continued long after a therapist explained to me that I have body dysmorphia. She helped me to develop the tools to manage the feelings brought on by the dysmorphia and though I still experience an inaccurate view of my physical appearance, I understand it to be a thing that I don’t have to believe or accept. So the dysmorphia exists away from my sense of self.
All of this is relevant because my current disabled status has made pants a rather valuable asset in my world. In the Winter, I wear tights with skirts and dresses. But as my hip disability has worsened, the process of putting on tights in the morning became difficult and then unbearable. This weekend, I gave up Winter tights in exchange for pants. They are loose-fitting pants - in a size too large, as is my way - but putting them on is manageable and doesn’t aggravate my crummy hip. I think that the transition to pants has been made easier by the abundance of wide-leg styles. I regularly buy clothes that are too big (see: coping with body dysmorphia) and wide-leg pants are a style gift. I like them in various forms, though especially soft, flowy knits — pants my sister has named “dress sweats.” I think I will love them even after my hip has been fixed. I’ll not call that the silver lining of the misery - there is not silver lining enough for what I’ve been through - but it is something.
It has taken more than half my time on earth for me to learn the lesson that I must embrace life when and where it happens and not wish it away. I learned the lesson the hard way, mostly after I conceived my son nearly 25 years ago. By then, I’d spent a lifetime believing that there were things I couldn’t do or have because of who I was: a fat lesbian and a smart woman who scared the shit out of patriarchy. Limits were set by society and for many years I accepted some of them. Becoming a mama was something I feared would be unavailable to me. Against that particular perceived limit, I fought back. When I became pregnant, I vowed that I would raise a child who always knew his value and worth and needn’t wait to love, or be loved, or live the life of his choosing. In the subsequent years, I learned to take on other limits and not feel that I had to wait to enjoy the full measure of life. I came to embrace wearing a swimsuit despite my imperfect thighs. I came to love doing things on my own: movies, dining out, going to the gym, going to parks and museums on my own, even vacationing by myself. If I wanted to do it, I could and I did. It was empowering.
Then came the wonky hip. Since last August, when the pain became suddenly unbearable, I have faced a world of limits brought on by doctors who denied me care because I’m fat. I’ve rarely been a fan of modern medicine and this circumstance has turned my lack of enthusiasm into palatable dislike and distrust. I am a woman who does not hate but if I made an exception to that rule, it would be for the medical field, which has almost never been my ally. As I restricted food to lose weight and qualify for the hip replacement surgery everyone agreed would cure me, my dislike of doctors grew as their withholding of treatment shrank my world. I resisted as much as I could but pain and sleeplessness are a toxic combination. The last 6 months have mostly been miserable. No longer able to walk very far, I have been confined to a life of home and work, my independence limited outside of my home (and even within it….going downstairs to do laundry is very hard for me; everything takes longer when you are disabled and in near-constant pain). I have found myself wishing away my current existence in exchange for a future when things will be better, the exact approach to life I rejected so many years ago.
With just under two weeks until surgery, I finally see light at the end of the tunnel. With a hip replacement, I believe I will regain my independence. I will once again be able to live my life on my terms. Whether I will be able to let go of my anger at the 6 months of my life lost because of the denial of medical treatment remains to be seen. I’m only 56 years old. I have many years left on earth, though not so many that I welcome my time being wasted by doctors who don’t seem to understand what an oath like “do no harm” actually requires of them.
Most of January was damp and cold. We had a smidge of snow - enough to earn a snow day - but mostly we had endless grey skies and rain. I find January is a bleak month anyway, what with its late sunrises and early sunsets, but add in gloomy grey skies and my growing hip discomfort and the month had little to recommend it. February was less than 48 hours old when it delivered blue skies and sunshine. Though the cold persisted - it’s still Winter - the sun was welcome. It’s also true that our days are lengthening, with an extra minute of sunlight morning and night and that helps. Normally, Winter walks sustain my soul but my temporary disability has robbed me of that comfort. On Saturday, when I could sit out in the back deck and turn my face to the sunlight, for a still-chilly 30 minutes, I felt hopeful. I’m two weeks away from surgery and I am so ready for the return of walks in the woods. Until then, I've had some sunlight and it was glorious.
On Monday morning, I taught my classes and when I returned to my office, there was an e-mail from my surgeon’s office: my hip replacement was delayed, likely to February 28. I was appalled. It took a day of back-and-forth with the office, before we landed on a one-week delay. Now my surgery is on February 21. I’ve been waiting for relief since September and strictly speaking another week is just that - 7 more days - but it was another blow in an already demoralizing journey. I made a last-minute appointment with my pain doctor to renew the meds that help me to get some sleep, updated my supply of ibuprofen and Tylenol for daytime support, adjusted my countdown calendar, and got back to life. Today I have two pre-op appointments: testing at the hospital and a visit with the surgeon’s office. Next week, I'll see my primary care doc for surgery clearance. With 19 days to go, I am lslowly imping toward the finish line.
Today marks my last 5 day week of school before surgery. Next week, I have pre-op appointments on Friday; the week after that features another pre-op appointment on Thursday (side note: pre-op is just code for running up the cost for surgery) and the week after that is go-time. Mornings are brutally difficult for me - getting dressed alone takes me half an hour. I’m up at 5:15 am, not to enjoy my morning coffee and watch the sun rise, as was my old habit, but simply to get my crap together so I can leave for work by 7:15.
This reality of being disabled caught me by surprise. Because I had never had to walk this path, I hadn’t released how difficult it is to try and live a normal existence when one is disabled. I expect to reflect on that when I get to the other side of this chapter. For now, suffice it to say that the abled world gets to take a lot for granted.
Plenty of people have encouraged me to take a few extra days off to ease the burden in advance of surgery. I appreciate the idea. But I like my job and these days it is literally the only thing I do outside of home. I go to work, I drive to pick up groceries that the store shops for me, I go to the library every third Saturday. That is the sum total of my existence. So by-passing a day at school to avoid the morning struggle has costs on the other side. My world has already shrunk and I don’t wish to shrink it further. These days, as things are growing harder, I’m just grateful that the surgery date has hovered into view. I am counting the days.
It is an established fact that I love to cook. When I was denied a hip replacement until I could achieve a qualifying BMI score, my world - already being shrunk by my growing disability - shrank even further. Once a woman who read new recipes and tried the ones that sounded good, I was now a woman who could only eat 800-1200 calories a day. Briefly, that level of food restriction took the joy out of cooking. Then I resolved to be on the lookout for recipes that were delicious and manageable with my restrictions. Spinach, broccoli, and carrots were my friends, packed with vitamins and fiber to be filling. I upped my fruit and veg consumption from 4-6 daily servings to 5-7 and used intermittent fasting on the daily so that with the exception of coffee, I didn’t eat between supper and noon the next day. Lunch was confined to less than 300 calories. That saved some space for supper, where my plate could be anywhere between 500 and 800 calories, allowing me to continue to try new recipes, even those that did not strictly fit low calorie specifications. Cooking was physically hard (see: hip disability) but became enjoyable again from planning point of view. We ate pretty well in the past month, thanks to my cooking skill and desire to try new things.
I offer this information not as an endorsement of diet culture or food restriction. They are physically and emotionally destructive, the biggest predictor of the development of disordered eating, and unlikely to reduce weight in the long run. Bodies need nourishment and kindness; diet culture and food restriction denies both of these important things. Medical science should know this but orthopedists are not very enlightened when it comes to weight and I was forced into food restriction. When my new hip is installed, I will keep to my daily food and veggie commitment but look forward to renewing my relationship with cheese, which I have missed terribly, nearly as much as I have missed being able to walk more than a few minutes a time.
There is an inevitable moment in the Winter season when I have had enough of the cold and snow. When it happens, I turn to pink sweaters to see me through to the day in March when I will pack up my Winter tights and wool sweaters and declare Sassafras Spring. That moment of Winter weariness came earlier than usual this year - likely because the cold aggravates my already unhappy hip - and last week I began to actively fantasize about Spring. Usually I get through the last week of February and start of March by wearing cozy pink sweaters. This year, the pink sweaters will start before Valentine’s Day. For starters, I’ll be off work for my surgery. Without the need to appear sensible at school, I can sit around home wearing whatever I damn well please. And what I please is looking to be a whole lot of pink.
With luck, one month from today, I will be on the other side of the hip replacement surgery that has occupied my every thought since the pain first became constant last August. When I received a surgery date earlier this month, my heart opened up to the idea that I won’t have to live in the small world of crippling pain forever. The relief I feel at having a surgery date is palpable. Aside from the pain and disability of the last 6 months, the way the situation has untethered my general optimism has been hard to bear. It will be a good long while before I recover from the mental health disaster of draconian food restriction brought on by the requirement that I lose weight to receive medical treatment. Being denied much-needed healthcare because of weight, especially in the absence of scientific research to support such cruelty, is appalling. I don’t expect that I will ever again trust a doctor. When I have seen to my recovery, I intend to speak out about the injustice of the whole situation.
For now, I am focused on getting to my February 14 surgery date. And I am incredibly grateful to my son, my sister, my family members, and the friends who have helped me to get to this point and who will see me through to the other side of surgery. Their help and willingness to celebrate the surgery date have been an incredible bright spot in this very hard patch. My heart is full of gratitude for them, aware that I could not have made it this far alone.
Today is my sister’s birthday. I’m the oldest and when we were little girls, she used to threaten that one day she would be older. I like to think that I was gracious about this - confident that time and space were on my side - but we’ll need KO to confirm that. As adults, I joke that there was a screw up in the birth order continuum, because she’s the level-headed family general and we march to her orders. That’s fine by me: she’s smart and funny, sensible and loyal and when my hip went suddenly south in August, she was unfailingly the solid rock that I needed. She put up with endless whiny texts and phone calls and was supportive and sympathetic, whatever the circumstances required. The harder things got, the more she stepped up. It is no exaggeration to say that I wouldn’t have made it this far into the journey without her good cheer and good sense. Before I could summon the courage to ask, she volunteered to come East and look after me post-surgery. That right there is KO in a nutshell: she knows what you need and she will get it done. She is the very best sister a woman could ask for and I love her beyond measure.
Happy Birthday, KO!
My office in the Middle School has a Magic 8 Ball, which mostly serves as a source of comic relief. When a visitor asks about it, I explain that it’s the primary decision-making agent of the Middle School and then we all laugh. But this '70s era toy brings amusement on the daily and I should show more respect to the Magic 8 Ball. On Tuesday, thoroughly fed up with my lack of a surgery date, I shook the 8 Ball and asked if the scheduler would call today. The 8 Ball answered, “It is certain.” I responded with a smart ass remark and then limped my way to class. But you know where this story is going...at mid-day, the scheduler called. She was all business, with pre-op appointments and a surgery date.
February 14.
Valentine’s Day has little charm when you are single but you can be damned sure that I will be celebrating this year.
Last night found me back to form, completing my Sunday night chores to be ready for the school week. I organized my school bag, changed the sheets on my bed, watered my pants, and got the bullpen ready.
At the December 15 appointment where the surgeon qualified me for the hip replacement surgery I desperately need, I was instructed that I could expect surgery in 6 weeks and that the scheduler would be in touch within 10 days. When 10 days without a call passed, I called the scheduler. She was polite but had no date - or even a prospective date - and indicated that I’d have a four week lead when she finally got me on the calendar. It’s been three weeks since that first appointment; and more than one week since I called the scheduler. I still don’t have a surgery date.
The joy and relief I felt on December 15 has begun to wane. As each day without a surgery date comes to a close, I make the struggle upstairs to bed where in the quiet darkness, I fend off the waves of despair that I feel. With the help of my amazing pain management doctor, I can get some rest, but I haven’t had a full night of sleep since August. January 16 will mark the start of my 6th month of living with crippling hip pain. Over the last 5 months - 5 months - I’ve learned some tools to manage the disability. But my world is small. I go to work and then I come home. Once home, I mete out the last of my energy to cook supper or run a load of laundry. Groceries must be picked up as I can no longer walk through the store. JT is indispensable; he does the bulk of our household chores while also trying to keep my spirits up. He is my daily source of gratitude and grace and he never complains about helping me. Walks outside, a trip to the movies or a bookstore or to a cultural event are simply not an option. Food restriction remains in place so even if I could go to a restaurant (I can’t), what would be the point? My life now is small and getting smaller. Everyone reassures me that once I get a hip, a life rich with prospects will re-emerge. I hope so, but I fear otherwise. I recognize the dangers of that fear. It’s incredibly easy for me to slip into despair and to wonder if any of these doctors who swore an oath to do no harm actually give a damn about me. In this case, actions speak louder than words, so I know the answer.
Still, I try to choose hope. For my Christmas stocking, I bought myself a mystery box from my favorite jewelry shop. Inside the box was a tiny silver ring engraved with the words “I Am Worthy.” It feels like the universe delivered this timely reminder just when I needed it. Being required to lose weight to qualify for necessary medical care is demeaning and demoralizing; a daily reminder that my needs matter less and that I am not worthy in the eyes of some doctors. I play a waiting game for medical care denied me because I am fat; it’s a game that makes me feel that I am not worthy at all. So I slip my silver talisman on my finger and struggle onward.
The woods around me are quiet as Winter takes hold. A Nor’easter is forecast for the weekend - our first prospect at real and significant snow in nearly two years - and I continue to wait for word of when my hip replacement surgery will be scheduled. Without the hip, mobility is a challenge for me. I miss the ability to walk at all, but especially to walk outside in the Winter woods. Without a surgery date on the horizon, I don’t think that February will find me able to make the solitary Winter walks I used to enjoy. I have great hopes for March forays into the trees. For now, the backyard dogwood branches remind me that even in Winter’s cold, Mother Nature is making plans.
