The Pain They Couldn’t See

It didn’t start with the surgery. It started with a fall.

Just a regular workday. Just a moment. But when I fell, something inside of me tore. Not just a muscle in my hip-but something deeper. Something I didn’t have words for yet.

I went to my own PCP first, hoping she would help. Instead, she brushed it off.

I kept walking on it. Badly. In pain. Somedays I limped. Some days I cried. But I kept going-because what else could I do?

Eventually, I went back. This time, she referred me to ortho-but it felt like it was just to prove me wrong. As if she expected the X-ray to show nothing.

But it didn’t.

It showed the truth I had been carrying for months: Bone on bone. A tear. Evidence that something was broken. Not just physically-but in the system I had trusted to care.

We tried everything else. Cortisone. Physical therapy. Delays. All the steps they say you have to take before they’ll really listen.

Cortisone was my favorite, by the way. I walked for one full week with NO pain. I was giddy. I thought maybe this was the thing. Spoiler: it wasn’t.

But when the shot wore off, the pain returned-and so did the silence around it.

And then one day-almost two years after the fall-I made the call. I was having a moment of self-pity. But maybe it was more than that.

Maybe it was a spark of hope. The tiniest belief that maybe I could walk better. That maybe this surgery would fix what had hurt for too long.

When I finally said yes to surgery, I wasn’t just consenting to a procedure. I was agreeing to hope. I was sold a miracle.

They said:

“You’ll be walking the same day.”

“You’ll be back to work in a few weeks.”

“This is going to change your life.”

And it did.

But not the way they promised.

I woke up in survival mode.

Too medicated to think straight. Too broken to make sense of anything. Too fractured-literally and emotionally-to even understand what had been done to me.

And the worst part? They didn’t even tell me the whole truth. Not until sixteen months later.

Sixteen months of confusion. Of wondering why I couldn’t heal. Of fighting for answers. Of carrying pain that no one could see- but I felt every second.

This fall didn’t just cause physical damage. It cracked something wide open inside me. Something I had carefully layered over with years of strength. The kind of strength that gets you through-but never really lets you feel it.

Because this wasn’t just a hip injury. It wasn’t just bone and muscle. It became a mirror. One I couldn’t look away from.

It forced me to face the parts of my life I had once survived-but never actually dealt with.

The grief.

The silence.

The way I learned to minimize my own pain because everyone else did too.

This wasn’t just a physical fight. It quickly became the fight of my life. And I’m still in it.

The surgery was on August 1, 2023.

Today is May 24, 2025.

And I am still standing.

Still choosing to fight.

Still choosing to hope.

Still deciding-on the quiet days, the heavy ones, the days no one sees-that today is still a good day.

Even if I stand on one leg. Even if I need others to help lift me. Even if healing is slower that I ever imagined…

I’m still here.

I tell this version here because it doesn’t belong out in the open. Not because I’m hiding it- but because I respect it enough to only place it where it can be held.

Thank you for being one of the ones who holds it.

Rooted in love