looking back
Mar. 2nd, 2013 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hip_hoorayI last posted here in December 2009. A lot has happened since then.
It took a long time to improve enough to move from wheelchair to walker, and a long time to improve enough to move from walker to quad-cane. I still use the quad-cane now and then, a bit more than three years later. It took several years for the pain levels to abate enough so that I was only hurting as much as I had before the surgery.
Then I started having trouble with heterotopic ossification, which is random bone spurs forming. In my case, they formed at the surgery locations. They hurt. Even so, I don't hurt quite as much as before the surgery.
Would I have the surgery again, if I knew how it would result? I'm not sure. For the first three years afterwards, I would have answered "No!" in a heartbeat, though, which will tell you how the aftermath went.
One other loose end: that email someone sent me, about how I only posted to have people pity me? That was sent to me by my girlfriend at the time. I broke up with her shortly thereafter. It wasn't the only reason, but it's a good example.
If I had had any sense, I would have broken up with her before the surgery, but I was chicken. Having had so much grief in the previous few years, I couldn't bear to lose anything else, so I chickened out of breaking up, even when it was obvious that I should do so. In hindsight, that was very much the wrong choice, and I sure paid for it. Another person in that household whom I had counted as a friend has not contacted me since, despite repeated contacts from me, so I conclude at this point that that friendship is gone as well. And a third member did something unpleasant that I'll tell you in person if you want to know about, but I won't write here.
None of that stuff made recuperation any easier, to put it mildly. And I'm done putting a smiley face on it. It was crappy, and they acted like jerks.
It took a long time to improve enough to move from wheelchair to walker, and a long time to improve enough to move from walker to quad-cane. I still use the quad-cane now and then, a bit more than three years later. It took several years for the pain levels to abate enough so that I was only hurting as much as I had before the surgery.
Then I started having trouble with heterotopic ossification, which is random bone spurs forming. In my case, they formed at the surgery locations. They hurt. Even so, I don't hurt quite as much as before the surgery.
Would I have the surgery again, if I knew how it would result? I'm not sure. For the first three years afterwards, I would have answered "No!" in a heartbeat, though, which will tell you how the aftermath went.
One other loose end: that email someone sent me, about how I only posted to have people pity me? That was sent to me by my girlfriend at the time. I broke up with her shortly thereafter. It wasn't the only reason, but it's a good example.
If I had had any sense, I would have broken up with her before the surgery, but I was chicken. Having had so much grief in the previous few years, I couldn't bear to lose anything else, so I chickened out of breaking up, even when it was obvious that I should do so. In hindsight, that was very much the wrong choice, and I sure paid for it. Another person in that household whom I had counted as a friend has not contacted me since, despite repeated contacts from me, so I conclude at this point that that friendship is gone as well. And a third member did something unpleasant that I'll tell you in person if you want to know about, but I won't write here.
None of that stuff made recuperation any easier, to put it mildly. And I'm done putting a smiley face on it. It was crappy, and they acted like jerks.
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Date: 2013-03-02 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 07:07 pm (UTC)And that was SUCH a GOOD DAY, wasn't it?
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Date: 2013-03-02 08:34 pm (UTC)I'm sorry your healing has been so difficult and that your body is not cooperating. As you sometimes say, "Silly body."
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Date: 2013-03-02 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-02 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-03 07:16 am (UTC)She said I shouldn't have people helping me, that I should have been doing for myself as soon as I was out of the hospital, and that I was just looking for people to tell me I was either a martyr or a heroine.
She's got her own serious medical problems now. I hope she's eased up on the idea of people not getting help. Or sympathy.
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Date: 2013-03-05 05:24 am (UTC)I wish you could come out here all the time so we could go find some other neat places to eat and look at art and eat and sit talking. I can't even remember what you used to assist your walking, you were just so much more at ease getting around. It was excellent to see.
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Date: 2013-03-05 06:26 am (UTC)And I think I was using the quad-cane. I take it with me now only if I'm a bit wobbly, so more than half the time I don't use it at all. Progress!