This Monday I go into the hospital for my fourth implant. I have already had a right hip, left shoulder, and left knee done. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last replacement. But, I do have two more joints left and “you never know”, as my mother would say.
When I mention the above to casual strangers they label me as “bionic”! I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, but I don’t particularly feel bionic. Yes, when the surgeries have good outcomes, you are better off, and to a degree I am. However, more often than not, I feel like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. I also wonder why it never dawned on me that the excessive aerobic exercise, cycling, racquetball and weight-lifting would eventually do me in?
Moderation has never been one of my strong suits. If I like something, I become completely invested in it. I taught exercise and aerobics until one day I thought if I saw one more person do a leg lift, I’d scream. Then I went on to weight-lifting. I wasn’t content with just doing weights to condition my body. Oh, no, I had to power lift. After all why shouldn’t a five foot woman try to outdo the guys in the gym who looked like buffed Gorillas? Oh, I forgot to mention , I started dancing lessons when I was four. Needless to say, I have been a movement machine for years and my body finally said, enough already time to chill.
I had signals along the way, lots of clicking in the knees going down stairs, my shoulder would ache for days at a time and my hip started to reduce my ability to walk properly. But did that stop Ms. Tarzan? No way! I kept going like the Energizer Rabbit because it’s my nature to never give up.
Well, I finally gave up when I could no longer go even a few steps without excruciating pain. Voila, I got a hip implant. I recovered quickly and was fine for several years, and then the shoulder and knees started sounding more and more like a creaking door in a bad horror movie because I went back to my old habits.
Thank God, for modern medicine and great Orthopedic Doctors. They have certainly made a lot of people able to function better and I am grateful to the ones I chose. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from becoming “bionic”, is that I can engage in exercise and not become obsessed. I no longer have a need to prove how much I can do or how.
PRAYERS AND POSITIVE THOUGHTS COMING YOUR WAY,
It will be fine. Just reread some of your own books. There’s great advice in there. I’ll race you down the hallway. Be well.
Good luck with your implant, Loretta. Hope you heal well.
Hope you’re doing well and all was successful. Thinking of you throughout the holidays! You’re a firecracker!