The Body in Conversation
My body is aghast at what I’ve done to it. Open-mouthed, slack-jawed, incredulous. Like the time in the 11th grade when I was playing powder puff (Ha!) football for the Keyettes. I was standing there minding my own business when wham! I was knocked senseless onto the ground. I struggled upright to see the grinning face of a girl on the other team named Margaret. She said something along the lines of that being her assignment—to knock me out. After many years of watching football, I’ve concluded her move was an illegal block in the back. Be that as it may, at the time I was too discombobulated to even protest.
My body is at the same stage. In shock over the betrayal, really. In every moan and groan, I hear its protest: Why’d you have to go and do this? Things weren’t that bad, were they? We were getting along fine; we were working it out. Your reaction seems somewhat drastic.
It was drastic. As my husband says, a week ago, they sawed off my hip. I am progressing amazingly well, everyone says. Up and out of the bed by myself. Practicing walking with a cane. Good with the physical therapy movement.
Tell that to my disillusioned body.
I’m sure it will come around. Grudgingly, as my movement returns to what it was five years ago, my body will concede the wisdom of my decision. It will see this as a difficult but necessary step in what I hope to be a long road into the future.
The problem? Just as my body begins to put all this behind us, when I am rehabbed, recovered, and back to normal, I’m getting the next hip done.
Be thinking about me when this reality dawns on my body: you knew how bad this was going to be and you did it to us AGAIN? As the characters in the British mystery novels I’ve been reading would say, Bloody Hell!
betrayal of the body, hip replacement, hip surgery, recovering from hip surgery, when you're too young for hip surgery
Joe Hawes
Good writing. I’m sure your body would approve, especially since you no longer subject it to football.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
My body and I try to talk through our differences.
menomama3
I’m sure your body says “Talk is cheap.” So glad you’re up and about, Ellen, and blogging again.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
You’re right –my body has no respect for me right now. My husband says it shouldn’t have started this, messing with me with arthritis. That silenced the ol’ hip’s lip for a while.
menomama3
There’s nuthin’ worse than a sassy hip.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I can see where this blog post could’ve been much funnier.
Jerry Harber
Bloody Hell, indeed!
Ellen Morris Prewitt
🙂
Sybil MacBeth
I wonder if the right hip has spoken to the left?
And what are you reading? xoxo
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Ha! Good question. The right hip probably has its “fingers in its ears, loudly humming.” I’ve read Tara French and Elizabeth George–I greatly overestimated my ability to read. But I have been watching some Perry Mason, who my new mystery main character likes (and me too now)
Luanne Castle (@writersitetweet)
Oh, man, AGAIN? Sorry, I had to shout. Keep on keeping on, Ellen.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Yes, though my eagerness to do so is much diminished right now . . . Thanks for the well-wishes and encouragement.
Marisa
You’ve got many a row to walk yet, and you need solid, obedient, pain-free hips under you to do it. I’m glad you’re on the mend, and remember, anything done once can be done again with the confidence you’re going to come through it.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Thanks for the encouragement (I will share the obedience line with my hips). There is a perverse sense of efficiency involved in not letting the learning from this hip go to waste–I’ll actually be able to put that learning to use.
Joanne Corey
I know with my mom it came down to a choice between being able to keep walking or not being able to walk without immense pain. She chose dealing with the temporarily higher pain of surgery and recovery rather than being permanently hobbled. Best wishes for your recovery and for the second hip procedure and recovery. You can do it!
Ellen Morris Prewitt
When I began considering the surgery, it was kind of “elective”— the doctors were appalled at the terrible X-rays, but I could still get by. Then the hips began to deteriorate rapidly. By the time the scheduled surgery arrived, I was walking like a snail, having trouble negotiating curbs, etc. I was actually grateful that it had gotten so bad: it became no choice. Thinking of you and your mom.
Joanne Corey
Thanks for your thoughts for us. My mom is several years out from surgery now and doing very well. I hope that your recovery will be as quick and as complete as possible, even though it is a “double dip”!
Ellen Morris Prewitt
A double dip hip — nice!