Hips

Went to a lecture in Malmö (southern Sweden) today. It was very good, but what made me most happy was bumping into an old friend. She had not seen me after the hip replacement operations.

And what a difference she saw, at once! It made me SO HAPPY! ”Could you please walk in front of me, so I can see?” she asked. And I did.

She could hardly believe her eyes! ”Noone would have believed it possible!” she said. Last time we saw each other, just over a month before my first operation, I couldn’t walk. At all. I hung on to, and dragged myself forward by the use of two crutches. A few yards at the most. That was all I could do. I was in so much pain, I just didn’t know what to do.

Now, without the slightest problem, without even holding on to the banisters (which I hardly ever do, these days), I just walked in front of her, down three flights of stairs, in the city Library of Malmö. Just like that!

Oh yes, I do declare the difference is unbelievable! Before, I would have had to use the lift, which she was sure I would want to do still. What a feeling to be able to say: no, my hip joints work now. Why don’t we use the stairs?

It was so nice to see her again. And it did me so good to be in that position again. That feeling of wonder, a miracle almost, when my hips (well, ok, my hip implants) work just the way they are meant to! Without anyone, not even myself, knowing they are even there.

Went to a lecture the other evening. Very interesting, unfortunately not all that many people there. So what I did was noticed, of course.

After sitting there for over an hour, my head was still clear and alert, but sadly my legs began giving trouble. Mostly, I believe, because the chair was a bit too high, so my feet didn’t reach the floor and didn’t get enough support. (Well, I’m not very tall) I began getting ”pins and needles” in my legs, quite uncomfortable and I really didn’t recognise the feeling from after hip joint surgery. I started moving my feet up and down, as well as I could, sitting on that chair. In the end, I had to stand up and even move about a bit.

I do hope I didn’t disturb the lecturers too much, I think they know about my hip replacement (they actually saw me before the operations, but people have a tendency to forget even that, although I was in a very bad state and could hardly move at all). But I did feel a bit silly – though of course I shouldn’t. I didn’t leave. Rather the opposite. I did all I could, to actually stay. I do hope that is how they saw it!

What? How can that be? Well, of course I’m talking about my new hip joints. They are without osteoarthritis nowadays. But instead, they now have hip implants, which I want to take great care of, so that they work as long as ever possible. Unnecessary bumps and falls from buses for example, all the way down to street level, when there is no pavement at the bus stop, I absolutely do not want to expose them for.

That’s why it made me so happy to go to my new job in Borgeby Hälsa, just outside Lund (southern Sweden) and saw that bus stop where I have to change is now fixed. What a difference it made! Now I could just step down from the bus, elegantly as ever (at least no worse looking than an elephant in a glass house) and nimbly as a cat I just boarded the other bus (I hardly looked handicapped at all). Thank you so much! Now I can use those buses without problems. That’s just GREAT!

So it’s time again. I need to take a longish walk, from the station, and then back to the station in a small village with no public transport (except, of course, for that train). In rain and wind. Oh yes, today will be windy and rainy. Here in the town of Lund it is hardly noticeable, but out in the open countryside will be much worse. DMI (the Danish weather service, which is more accurate, usually, than the Swedish SMHI in these parts) have promised (why do they ”promise” bad weather? Isn’t promise a positive word?) high winds and quite a lot of rain.

But I have to go, so I don’t get much choice. Walking shoes, to spare my hip joint implants. Rain trousers and windbreaker, I suppose. The umbrella will be rather useless, considering the ”promised” winds. Here in Skåne, in southern Sweden, we have had to get used to that. Either, the umbrella keeps turning inside-out, or it is impossible to hold because of the wind.

I will get wet. But I will have to take that. At least, it doesn’t seem very cold. I guess I will have to go home, change clothes and dry afterwards.

For the first time, I was able to drive comfortably without the use of my revolving cushion. First time after hip replacement surgery. First time in very many years, actually.

Oh, I had to go without that revolving pillow for a long time. But as soon as I got it, my life was made so much easier. Particularly before the operations. I was unable to bend my left hip at all, and hardly the right one either. Getting into the car was a nightmare, but at the same time it was the only way to stay in some kind of contact with the outer world. So I had to do it.

I had to  lie down across the seat with both legs outside the car, and then somehow use my hands to drag and bend my legs in place in the driver’s seat. Mostly with the help of my hands and arms, actually. Lift or bend the legs, I just could not! Once in place, luckily, I was fully able to drive. It was getting into, and sometimes out of, the car, that caused the almost insurmountable problem.

Now I was driving a new car to be tested at the M test centre. Around ten-fifteen miles. I cycled down to the car place. Had accidentally left my revolving pillow at home. Then I thought this will be a test for my new hip joints as well, so let’s see if I can do without it. And it worked. Perfectly.

It was even quite comfortable. Well, of course it is quite a high car with very comfortable seats, easily positioned. So I could sit quite comfortably, driving was a piece of cake (as was sitting beside the driver) and getting in and out was just no problem at all. What more can you ask?

What is the make of the car, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a Mitsubishi Colt. I really don’t know anything else about it, hopefully it’s a good car. Time will tell.

I knew there was something I should have told my orthopaedist. I sat there, talking to him, even telling him I knew there was something more. But I just couldn’t think of it right then.

But a couple of days afterwards, I was aware of the sensation again. Or rather, the loss of sensation, arond the scar (quite a large portion of the outside of my upper leg, actually). I seem to have lost most sense of feeling there, and I do hope it’s temporary and not permanent loss.

Not that it is a terribly important problem. Just that of course I would like to have all my senses intact, so to speak. So I just hope I will have it back. But a year is a year and maybe I shall just have to get used to not feeling very much just there.

Luckily for me, the advantages are so overwhelming! I can walk, I can cycle, I can drive, I can… there is really not a lot I cannot do. Well, OK, squat and run, but hardly anything else. So why complain? I am so happy with the result of my hip replacement. And nearly no pain at all, any more!

Went for the final check-up yesterday. Or so I thought. However, it turned out they have added more check-ups, two and four years from now. But imagine! One year’s passed and convalescence is supposed to be nearly over.

The result was fine, both as to mobility and X-rays. They are going to mail me my X-rays on a CD, so I will be able to post them on my blog shortly.

Isn’t it fantastic, what they can do? Cutting and mending like this? I was a total invalid, just over a year ago, and now it just doesn’t show at all. The scars are visible of course, but they are sort of hidden, most of the time.

I haven’t got a limp, I walk quite normally and even at normal speed, these days. I cycle, as if I had never done otherwise (and if you have read my book, Hips Attached!, you know that is almost the case anyhow). I can do almost everything I would have done, if I had never been ill.

It’s incredible! Twenty years, almost, lost to unnecessary illness. Well, I was not quite so bad to begin with, but still ill enough, not to be able to live a normal life. I couldn’t move and play with my children. I couldn’t do a lot of the things ”everybody else” can do. And that awful, all overshadowing pain, which I thought I would have to suffer from for the rest of my life…

I now have normal mobility and my X-rays, as I said, are quite OK. And my orthopaedist (well, of course he is not entirely mine) keeps looking so happy whenever he sees me. Keeps reminding me how I felt, when we first met, a year and a half ago. Says it makes him so happy to see the result of his surgery.

Happy! Oh, so am I – most certainly! Happy! Happy! Happy!!!

How handicapped am I? I mean, really?

I have been feeling well for so long now, I was really surprised when I had one of those rare déja vu moments again. It was all about high steps. I had really quite forgot they could be a problem.

I was going by bus to my  new job just outside Lund in southern Sweden. The first bus was OK, but then I had to change to another bus line. The normal bus stop was out of order for some reason, so the bus stops temporarily nearby. Now the problem is, there is no pavement there, so I had to step all the way down to the street level.

This was quite an ordeal, as it made the step rather high. I didn’t see quite how high until I actually took the step, so I came very close to falling. But I made it in the end, standing on my own two feet.

This morning I was going the same way, only in the opposite direction. So far so good. I had to change again, same problem. But now, the great ordeal was gettin on board the second bus. It was so high up, I could hardly make it. I fought my way up, hanging on to a handle rail on the bus door, with the driver looking on, quite disinterestedly. How he could just sit there watching me, I don’t understand. But he did. And I made it. Finally. But all of a sudden, I felt so terribly handicapped again.