Looking Beyond Anger

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.