Anticipation, ADD and Adaptation

A painting my Mom did of the county fair

I am close to having a total hip replacement and am attempting to be calm and philosophical about the entire experience. Ha. It's like there's a small circus living under the back of my skull, distracting me from today, riotously projecting me into the future.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

When I have a big event in my life my latent form of ADD takes over. I found myself diligently scrubbing my soap dispenser when that awareness hit me. After wiping down the cabinets, making a pie, doing two loads of wash and cooking breakfast, it's all I can do not to redecorate the entire house. Also, in my pre-operative state, I forget to eat and am easily distractable from mundane tasks. Last night I was going to have a glass of wine, but the bottle wasn't cold enough so I put it in the freezer and then set about making a shrimp/pasta/veggie dish for dinner. Lo and behold, when I went to get a few ice cubes this morning, there was my Chardonnay Popsicle. O dear.

I guess that there plenty of up sides to this ADD, the house is in order, the clothes clean, folded and put away. I'm quite ready for my surgery physically. Emotionally, hmm.  I wonder if I'll ever be ready to go into the hospital, voluntarily, to get cut. This is the main reason that I fought this hip replacement for almost five years. This is also the reason that elective plastic surgery absolutely baffles me. Signing up for pain? No, thank you, that just sounds silly to me.

In analyzing why I was so recalcitrant about the hip surgery I came up with a number of reasons.

1. My husband hadn't retired until April and I guess that I felt insecure about asking friends and relatives to be available to take care of me.
2. We had insurance that wouldn't allow me to choose my surgeon myself.
3. I was able to ride my bike literally anywhere I wanted to go in our small town.
4. I was inconvenienced by my hip but wasn't in pain until seven months ago.
5. I was deluded into thinking I could get better on my own.
6. My Grandma died after her hip surgery, [however, she was 86 years old...]

All of the above sounds semi ridiculous now as I write it. But they were contributing factors to my reluctance. That all changed with the negative: the advent of pain, and the inability to walk more than a couple of blocks. And the postive changes: my husband's retirement and our new health insurance. Then seeing the x ray of my poor little bone-on- bone hip made the decision easier.

Let me remind you, I'm very grateful to have this operation, I just wish I was on the other side and well into my recovery. O well.

Wish me luck and a speedy recovery. If you're inclined to pray, please do so, if you're inclined to sweet visualizations and sending healing energy, fling some my way. I'm confident I'll be fine and recover quickly, but there's this small circus...

susansmagicfeather copyright 2012 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved