By the way, my therapist has no idea about my party plans, and somehow I'm guessing he's not the partying type. The other day, he had me do a balancing exercise and acted sort of surprised when I could do it. I mean, not totally; hopefully he wasn't having me do an exercise he really didn't think I could do, but he told me to hold it 'for as long as I could.' Ten minutes later, I was like, DUDE, I'M STILL HERE, do I really have to hold this for as long as I can?! (Okay, so it probably wasn't ten minutes, maybe more like four or five, but still!) He made some remark about my sense of balance, so I told him that the exercise reminded me of the Bongo board my best friend had in college that we used to mess around on for fun. I mentioned that it was not normally super challenging, but that it got more difficult as the evening progressed and more drinks went down the gullet. He did not even crack a smile at the mention of the drinks.
Speaking of imbibing, if you are American, you are probably thinking that I am a huge alcoholic right about now. In fairness, I should warn you that it's likely that a lot of my entries will include alcohol in them, ha ha. I really don't think I'm an alcoholic, but I am part French, and my French grandmother saw wine as an essential part of meals, and alcohol as an essential part of life in general (which I'm sure was exacerbated by her life circumstances, which I would expand upon if this weren't a blog dedicated to my hip :)). I have spent a fair amount of time in France and in Europe and have found that they have a very different attitude about drinking there. This more relaxed attitude toward alcohol is one part of my French heritage that really works for me. During the summers when I was in college, I worked in a deli, and my boss had a poster in his office that said, 'Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.' That pretty much sums it up for me.
Anyway.
It was very cold today - it rained all day and the high was 60 degrees. I had to break my 'no hip flexion past 90 degrees' restriction to put on socks. (Seriously, how do people who have this surgery during the winter do it? How do you put on socks without flexing your hip past 90 degrees or doing external rotation?!) Also, today is Wednesday, which is farmers market day. I went with my parents, as usual. I should mention that I live in place with a ridiculously short growing season, and I don't know how anyone can make an actual living growing things here, but never mind that, this is a blog about my hip. ;-) The point, however, is that the farmers market is pretty small, so it's not that hard to get to know the vendors if you frequent it.
Today, a woman who runs one of the local farms, finally asked me, 'What happened to you?!' It was sort of funny considering that this is the third week I've been to the farmers market on crutches, and last week, when it was also raining (even though I live in a place that gets no more than 15 inches of rain per year, it never fails to rain on the afternoon of the farmers market), she commented on how dedicated I was to be out in the rain on crutches, and offered to let me stand under the tent in the vendors' space, yet never inquired, 'What happened to you?!' I guess after three weeks she just couldn't stand it anymore, and had to say something, ha ha. So today, in response to her inquiry, I told her that I'd had hip surgery, which was of course met with the usual, 'But you're so young!' I've found that a lot of people think that hip surgery = hip replacement, so I told her that I just had some torn cartilage fixed, and left it at that. Then she said that her husband (a firefighter/farmer who is much older than I am) had recently had a torn labrum in his hip fixed, and I said yes (!) that's actually what I had done, too. We had a brief conversation about having the cartilage repaired as opposed to removed, and it turns out that both her husband and I had the same surgeon (which is not that surprising considering this is not a surgery that tons of orthopedists know how to do). The woman proceeded to tell me how life-changing this surgery had been for her husband, and how happy they both were that he had had it, and how great the surgeon was, and on and on and on. She did mention that the recovery was a little long and rough at times, but in the end it had been worth it. Then in the midst of the conversation, her husband actually came sauntering up with a friend, and we mentioned that we had just been talking about him, and he confirmed his happiness and said how amazing it was to be totally pain free. Plus I made a note of noticing that he was walking totally normally, so that made me feel really good. :) I don't know how long ago he had his surgery, but as I've mentioned, my surgeon is very young, so I can't imagine that his surgery was that long ago! Regardless, it was a good to have a positive, unpaid and impromptu testimonial from a living, breathing, former patient of my doctor that This Is Worth It.
Also, as my mom said, this was the most loquacious that this woman has ever been, despite the fact that my mom has been buying things from her farm for years. After my conversation with her about hip surgery, she then started talking to my mom about farm stuff and whatnot. I guess it just took me on crutches to open this whole dialogue.
The interesting thing is that every time I open Facebook, I feel like one of my friends has shared an article about 'what not to say to someone who...' Someone who recently had a divorce. Someone who is a single mom. Someone whose child has a chronic illness. Someone who has lost a child. Someone who has had a miscarriage. Someone who is adopted. Someone who is overweight. Someone who is underweight. Someone who cuts. Someone who has an undiagnosed condition. Someone whose child has an undiagnosed condition. Someone who had this happen, someone who had that happen, someone who... is alive. OMG do not offend! Just do not say anything!! Every time I read these things, I think Uh-oh, I know someone who recently had X, Y, or Z, and I recently said A, B, and C to them, they must haaaaate me!! OMG, I am a hooooorrrrible person!! I have enough trouble coming up with things to say to people, and all these rules sort of freak me out. And I'm not trying to be flippant about these situations; I always try to say the right thing, or at least the best thing I can think of. But if we all knew the right thing to say for every moment, we'd all have jobs designing cards for Hallmark, lol. To use a personal example, my daughter has a chromosomal abnormality that no one seems to know anything about. I don't know exactly what I think about this, and even the geneticist we met with who discovered the anomaly told us she wasn't sure what say. My daughter is, for the most part, fairly normal, so this isn't a topic that comes up frequently. If it does, however, the last thing I want is for people to feel like they can't say anything because they read some article about '10 things not to say to people with kids who have abnormal chromosomes.' Seriously, just bring it on. Even if you say something stupid, I know you're trying. And I'll tell you if you're being stupid.
Of course, due to my recent circumstances, I've been reading a lot about being on crutches, and inevitably, I stumbled across a site about things you should not say to people on crutches (http://www.livinglifeoncrutches.com/crutch-talk-etiquette/). While I don't mean to belittle the plight of people who are permanent crutch users, and I understand how annoying it must be to be constantly answer questions about their situation, I think it's natural for people to be curious and inquire. I guess what I think is that you should never assume the worst of someone who is trying to make a conversation with you. S/he may be annoying, but that doesn't mean s/he doesn't have good intentions. And this really isn't just about crutch conversations, it's about a lot more than that. For instance, my brother and his wife lost their baby at 25 weeks in utero, which was awful, awful, awful. My sister-in-law had to go in and be induced and deliver a dead baby in a place with a bunch of happy new moms; I seriously can't imagine what that was like. What do you say in a situation like that? There are no words. But ultimately, I think saying nothing is worse that saying something, even if that something violates someone's '10 things you should never say' list. Because ever since my brother's tragedy, everyone has been too afraid to say anything, lest they say the wrong thing, and now we barely talk.
But whatever, why would you take the advice of a total stranger who, for all you know, is the weirdest, most socially awkward person ever, and who has a really weird relationship with her family? And never mind all that; this is a blog about my hip. :)
omg i love your new blog.
ReplyDeleteI also love that wine poster.
I also could stand to learn a little from this:
"never assume the worst of someone who is trying to make a conversation with you. S/he may be annoying, but that doesn't mean s/he doesn't have good intentions."
yeah....you're right. People aren't meaning to say the 'wrong' thing, and SOMEthing is better than NOTHING. yep.
How cool about the farmers market woman/her husband - gives you hope, yes!
And great Photoshop job! :)