2012
I couldn’t ignore the catching sensation any more, even when I pottered round the kitchen. Suddenly I’m unable to walk more than quarter of a mile, have waved goodbye to my rambling group and am informed I’m walking with a slight limp. I find myself occasionally waking in the early hours to a dull pain and yes, worse still, have had to purchase a fold up walking stick for when I’m seriously flagging.
The odds aren’t in my favour, Gran succumbed to one of the original Charnley hip replacements in the 70s, my father once, an aunt twice, including a post-op dislocation – an experience I hope to avoid. The difference is that I’m probably at least 20 years their junior. However, although still a major operation, it is not these days in the league of serious operations in the way it once was.
I do my homework on the Internet, cross-question other ‘hippies’, interrogate my consultant and join the queue, (a mere 3 months maximum,) and before I know it I’m in the bare and startlingly white, Admissions Lounge at a large local NHS hospital. Our starved party of half a dozen females hide our anxiety by exchanging medical histories and prospective operations as we lounge about in our ludicrous straight-jacket style operation gowns, garments which succeed in neither covering our modesty or being very comfortable. Here we are able to assess our prospective ward room-mates, so I rather hope to meet up with Paula again, a character as colourful as her tattoos and fluorescent pink hair.
I’m not one for bucking trends, so join the other 95% of total hip replacement creakies and plump for spinal block anaesthesia. I select The Three Tenors’ and Lionel Richie’s dulcet tones on my iPod to aid my composure, but ‘go out like a light’. Retrospectively, I realise this was a complete waste of time and wonder if my anaesthetist was swaying to my selection while I was ‘elsewhere’. Just over an hour later I wake up on the ward all ‘done and dusted’.
Thankfully my operation went according to plan but there were still several unforeseen experiences awaiting me.
As the anaesthetic gradually wore off, I anticipated feeling the standard groin to ankle thick DVT support tights, only to discover that such hosiery has been mercifully replaced with firm knee socks. Unlike their predecessors, these do not require escapology skills to manipulate, and even better are in a forgiving dark blue versus the old almost luminous white variety which were capable of stopping traffic for all the wrong reasons!
My condition improves so that on day two I’m considered well enough to stagger to the loo on my own with crutches. I suppose I should be pleased about this mark of progress other than, for some reason, I’m having to share crutches with the lady in the bed opposite, a situation we think is an NHS cutback too far! Fortunately she is of a similar height so they don’t need to be readjusted, but more pressingly we are both praying we don’t need the loo urgently at the same time – circumstances that can’t be guaranteed due to the fluid we’re being urged to gulp down in an effort to raise our blood pressure. More crutches (hopefully a whole pair), are evidently on their way but in the meantime, my companion and I begin to resemble a couple training for the Olympic Torch Relay as we do a skilful ‘handover’!
Staggeringly, a mere three and a half days after the operation, I am discharged. This is a merciful relief enabling me to escape the constant noise, light (eye mask to the rescue) and interruptions, not to mention the food, which in contrast to the excellent medical care is appalling. I am starving and have started to hallucinate about artery clogging Mars bars and fish & chip butties. My ward buddy and I consider frisking visitors for food, but sadly we are too incapacitated to pull this one off and instead, eke out my remaining ginger biscuits as if we were on rations!
Home means getting to grips with the gadgets and knocking back the odd pain killer, though surprisingly few, all things considered. The embarrassment of the delivery of the raised loo seats by a certain member of the family has finally been overcome, and the inventor of the invaluable ‘Helping Hand’ grabber tool will be in the New Year’s Honours, if I can arrange it. The homemade shoelaces and bulldog clips device for putting on pants, trousers etc. turns out to be a spiffingly simplistic aid and I’m furious at not patenting this myself. I’m finally able to do some paperwork and sit at the computer reasonably comfortably, but can’t file anything away alphabetically after the letter ‘M’ as the drawer is below the 1’6” reach limit. Sleep is rather spasmodic due to having to lie flat as a pancake on my back, something I’d rarely choose to do and I’m forced to click clack round the house in the early hours, in order to relieve stiffness. An additional oddity, is that initially I decide to sleep ‘sardine style’ in our double bed (head at foot end), thus enabling me to get in and out of bed more easily on the bad leg side, yet still be near to the en suite. This unusual state of affairs causes my other half to commence a tug-of-war ‘diagonal duvet drag’ competition and enables only one of us to have warm feet at once.
I undertake regular walkies round the ‘island’ block of houses where I live in order to retain what little sanity I have left. This also eases my mushy muscles into action and gradually reduces the kaleidoscopic surgery bruising. An added bonus of these expeditions is that I’m getting to know all the neighbours, many of whom, on spotting the crutches, greet me initially with a “Hip or Knee?” question as if it was an everyday event – which, judging by the speedy ‘conveyor belt’ I’ve been travelling on, it almost is. So, if you are in the queue, you’ve nothing to worry about.
Hip Hip Hooray for modern medicine (but don’t forget the ginger biscuits)!
