17 Weeks Post-Op and Getting Ready for Round 2

I have failed in my aim to thoroughly document my recovery from arthroscopic hip surgery. I was dismayed when I saw that my last update was 9 weeks ago. Oops! Funny enough, that update was written on a day when it was rainy, and today’s update also finds me writing while it rains (and rains and rains and rains) outside. My hips definitely don’t like the rain, and I hope all the aches I have been feeling diminish once the rain leaves.

As the title of this post would indicate, I am now 17 weeks out from surgery on my right hip. I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor (I’ll call him Dr. P) on Feb. 24, and I was very ready for it to come. I was discharged from physical therapy on Feb. 2, after about 2 months of therapy, and at that time I felt pretty good. I felt like I was finally seeing a decrease in my pain and felt more confident in my movements and in the strength of my hip. Then, just a few weeks later, I noticed that the intermittent pain I’d been feeling in my groin was increasing and becoming more frequent. So by the time my appointment arrived, I had worked myself into a panic. I was convinced I had somehow done something to reverse my progress and that the surgery hadn’t worked and that I would never find relief. (It’s a real party in my brain most of the time, let me tell you.) Before the appointment I asked some friends to pray for me because I needed peace and clarity, especially because I knew that at the appointment we also needed to also discuss moving ahead with surgery for my left hip. I was scared to move forward with another surgery when I still had so much doubt about the first one being successful.

However, I left my appointment feeling reassured and comforted. The setback I experienced is not uncommon and pretty much par for the course with recovery from hip surgery, and Dr. P said that there will be times when I will see these types of flare ups but that they will hopefully be few and far between as my recovery continues. He spent some time examining my hip and testing my range of motion and said that I’m doing well and he sees no reason not to move forward with the surgery on my left hip.

Soooo…I’m scheduled for surgery on March 28. It’s really soon, and I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m ready to get it over with and work on completely healing BOTH hips, but I’m also dreading it because it’s such an ordeal that will disrupt my life and my family’s life for weeks. I wish I didn’t have to put Stephen through the experience of being the primary caretaker of both Charlotte and me. I wish I didn’t have to rely on other people to help with meals or drive me places. I wish I didn’t have to use crutches and be stared at every time I go somewhere. I wish I didn’t have to do any of it again, and in a way, I don’t have to. The surgery is my choice. However, I know if I don’t do anything, my hip definitely won’t get better, and the pain will not go away. So I’m choosing to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced and needy now, in the hopes that a year from now this will all be a distant memory.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think every now and then, “What if this is all a waste and I’m always in pain?” Even though I believe in God and trust Him with my life, that trust doesn’t guarantee me a pain-free existence. Of course I will pray for and hope for complete healing. I will do what I can to pursue treatment that will lead to that outcome. But I know that no matter what, God is with me. No matter what, He has my good in mind. And if pain is what He chooses to make me more like Him, then so be it.

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