November 9 was my second day of physical therapy, and I’m going to be honest: I was scared.
After the first visit, I had pushed myself. Apparently, my body wasn’t quite there yet. Surgery was Tuesday, and I made it until Friday before the swelling started. I felt lucky to have gotten that far, but once it came, walking became harder. Even doing the exercises correctly became a struggle.
And that’s where the negotiations began.
If you see John and me working, I’m the safety engineer. John is the risk taker.
If you see us dealing with my physical abilities, we apparently trade jobs. 🤣
Some of those days were spent negotiating what I could and couldn’t do. John even called in help.
“Don’t you think she needs to rest?”
Now, in his defense, he cares about me.
In my defense, I had waited 1,190 days between that first hip replacement and this surgery. That is a long time to want to walk without significant pain.
So I reminded him.
“I wanted to walk after the first one, remember?”
And after the second surgery, I woke up arguing with him because I wanted to walk the entire hospital. Somehow, in my mind, getting up and going was how I would show that I was grateful.
There is something I should probably explain.
My body has been through it.
After the first surgery, I never learned to walk properly with the parts that had been put in my leg. I hadn’t actually been cleared by a doctor to walk. But I was afraid that if I didn’t do something, I would lose the ability to get up and fight.
So I figured out how to move.
Through the pain. Through a body that no longer lined up the way it should. I compensated, and I went.
I hated how I looked walking. I would have told you that then, and I’ll tell you now. But I wanted to be up and living my life, so I found a way.
When the antibiotic spacer was put in during 2025, I was told again to be careful. And I tried to follow the rules, even when they didn’t fit very well with everyday life.
After all, it was supposed to be temporary.
Finish the antibiotics. Get a new hip. Move forward.
But there were complications along the way, including a three-in-the-morning trip to the emergency room after I straightened my leg and it broke.
Because I was so close to finishing the antibiotics, the orthopedic doctor decided the fracture could wait to be addressed with the next surgery.
I was back to no weight on the left leg, wondering what would become of the things I loved.
Like hiking.
Like walking without planning every step.
Like getting up and going somewhere simply because I wanted to.
Then, around the end of those treatments, something else felt wrong.
C. diff. For the second time in my life.
After sixteen weeks of antibiotics and daily trips to a hospital an hour away, I was exhausted. Even the bathroom stops along the way had become their own obstacle course.
I won’t get too sidetracked here, but trying to keep weight off one leg in a public bathroom with slick floors is an experience.
And the hand dryers.
If there were paper towels, I could get one, wash my hands, and dry them right there at the sink. But if the only option was a blower across the room, I couldn’t safely get from the sink to the dryer with wet hands on my walking aids.
Something as ordinary as washing my hands had become a problem I had to solve without falling.
I grew up with a disabled mother. I knew the world wasn’t always built with disabilities in mind.
But this was the first time I had stood at a rest-area sink, trying to figure out how to wash my own hands and stay upright.
Those things stay with you.
The broken leg. The infection. The plans that changed. The things that were supposed to be temporary and stretched into months, then years.
So when my leg swelled after this surgery and John asked me to take it easy, he was talking about rest.
My brain had a whole history to bring to that conversation.
How long this time?
What if I stop and can’t get going again?
How many times have we been told it would only be for a little while?
I have legitimate fears about things that have already happened. I can acknowledge those fears and still recognize that I am here, in a different moment, trying to learn what this recovery needs from me.
And I trust that John cares.
His concern isn’t harsh. He wants his wife better.
I have spent so long trying to carry this journey that I sometimes forget he has been living it beside me.
He’s the one who has been woken up at three in the morning by a crying wife trying to explain that she thinks she broke her leg in her sleep—and, somehow, also trying to convince him she doesn’t need to see a doctor about it.
Imagine being on the other side of that conversation.
My trust in medical help had worn thin. There were reasons for that.
But had I started hearing that same threat in the voice of a husband who was only asking me to rest?
Had I carried my mistrust into a conversation with someone who had been there, awake in the middle of the night, wanting so badly for me to be okay?
The therapist who comes to the condo to work with me is very kind. He has laughed with me when I struggled and reminded me that I am essentially learning to walk all over again.
Most people don’t think through how to get up and walk. You want to go somewhere, and your body gets you moving.
But for more than a thousand days, I practiced something different. I learned to force my body to compensate for the pain, the misalignment, and everything that wasn’t working the way it should. Those movements became my way of getting around.
Now I have to pay attention to things most people do without thinking. And when I’m scared or tired, I have more than a thousand days of practice doing it the old way.
Even this stubborn personality has to admit that I deserve at least ten days of practice before I start critiquing my attempts. 🤣
I can probably give myself that much grace.
And perhaps give John a little room to remind me when I forget.
I don’t have that all sorted out yet.
November 9 was only day two of physical therapy.
I want to walk. I want to hike. I want to trust my leg again. And I’m beginning to see that I have some trust to rebuild beyond my leg, too.
For now, John and I are still negotiating.
I’m grateful he’s here for the conversation.
