Not too long ago I had a hip replacement. Now, that’s a pretty common surgery these days – common enough that in some circumstances it’s considered to be an outpatient procedure. Imagine that, you wake up one morning, go to a surgical center, they put your ass under (and hopefully the rest of you), then cut you open and essentially detach your fucking leg from your body, hollow the bone out, use a medical sledgehammer to pound a steel shillelagh into it, then sew you back up. None of that is too much of an exaggeration, by the way. That’s more or less the entirety of the fucking procedure.
Understandably, I was a little nervous about this.
Being nervous about a medical procedure means there are a few things you can do to address those fears. One, and one that I have found actually helps the most, is to seek out more information and understanding about the procedure. Typically I have found that what we fear the most is the unexplained and unknown, and once you dispel the shroud of ignorance about something you don’t fear it – or at least fear it less than you did before. The best way to do this would be, of course, to consult the medical professional that is going to be performing the operation. I, however, had a better source of information than any dumb old doctor!
I had the r/hipreplacement subreddit.
Continue reading “Where There’s A Will – Why You Should Think Ahead, Part 1”