Happy New Hip

Check me out in my uber sexy hospital robes and facemask – attractive RIGHT?

This was the morning of the first major surgery I’ve ever had in my life! I wasn’t dreading it, I wasn’t nervous about it, in fact I would safely say I was excited, which sounds so weird – even now when I say it. What a weirdo! But I had been living in chronic pain for almost three years, and I was exhausted; mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually so I was ready to be pain free and back to normal, whatever normal even means anymore.

I ‘checked- in’ to the hospital at 7:15am, was on the operating table by 9:30am enjoying the effects of the drugs – which after my years of pain were all kinds of awesome. By 4pm that same day I took my first steps on my new hip, and then proceeded to vomit all over myself in front of the very attractive physiotherapist. Oh, and did I mention I was wearing Christmas pajamas, so yeah, not the most glamourous I’ve ever been in my life!

To be honest, I do not have any regrets about opting for this surgery, but it was a really painful and incredibly lonely experience which forced me to rethink my understanding of pain, all kinds of pain and what it has the potential to teach me. The epidural wore off completely after two days and I cried from a deep part of myself I didn’t even know existed, such was the pain. This coupled with the confusion and grief of the energy maps in my body trying to figure out what this foreign object is brought a different kind of agony. There is also the acute sorrow of the loss of a body that is now permanently altered and scarred, a body that I never fully appreciated and a body that I now have got to learn to fall in love with all over again.

So yeah, I guess that’s some of the work 2023 has in store for me.

Rachel Roberts