Call me Cleopatra...

Denial may not be the name of that river in Egypt but for the last two years I have been drowning in it just the same. In January 2009 I had an EMG & and a MRI done on my hip. My bones were healing pretty well from the surgery the I had the summer before but I was having muscle weakness & my range of motion was bad. I got an email from my surgeon February 20th. He said while I didn't show any nerve damage I did have muscle atrophy & some scarring in the muscle. He also wanted to talk to me about trying to get the rest of the bones to heal that hadn't from my first surgery by a different doctor that he wasn't able to get to and fix with the surgery he did.

When I got that email I just was so fed up with the whole thing. I was angry. I felt like everything I did to get ready for the surgery, my 70 pound weight loss & all the strength training I did, followed by the surgery and the long recovery was for nothing. Just the idea of having another surgery made me want to run (limp?) for the hills. And mentally that's just what I did. I ignored that email because I didn't want to deal with it.

 I spent the next two years playing ostrich. My head was firmly planted in the sand. I ignored the increasing muscle weakness and the limping and the pain. I ignored the fact that my pants kept getting tighter and tighter until I stopped wearing anything but sweat pants since weight was creeping back on because I was feeling to sorry for myself to work out. I really ignored the scale because the numbers don't lie and I wasn't ready for the truth. I ignored that email & kept telling myself I would deal with it later. Only later never came. Days turned into weeks that turned into months and now years.

A few weeks ago I had my big ol' Opra-esque A-Ha moment (you can read about it in the blog post previous to this one) and I decided I needed to get back on the stick & get some of this weight off. It followed on the heals of our big holiday rush season at work. I had been dreading the month of December. I knew I was not in good shape to handle the long hours on my feet & increased volume. I made it thru, but boy was I miserable. Both of my hips were hurting. My back went out for about 3 days - at the end thank goodness. I was having knee problems & pain shooting from heel to hip. I was feeling about 89 years old instead of 39.

So for the last two weeks I have been watching what I eat and I have been off pop again since I had been pretty much mainlining Diet Mt Dew to get myself through the holidays. The first week I actually went down 11 pounds - I must have had enough water bloat to float a boat! This past week I pretty much stayed the same weight wise but I feel better. I started working out again too. This morning I met a friend at the gym so she could teach me how to use some of the equipment I was not real familiar with. This friend has also has had hip problems so I knew that along with her gym savvy she also knew what problems I have been dealing with.

At one point we were siting on a mat & I was telling her about the muscle atrophy thing & how I never got back to my doctor. I was telling her how I could hardly lift my leg to do a leg lift in the pool the day before. Then I laid on my side & went to demonstrate there on the mat. Only lying there on the mat I realized I couldn't lift my leg at all - not even an inch! No matter how hard I tried the leg would not move.  I'm not sure who was more shocked by this, her or me. So like the awesome friend she is she told me that was very bad and I needed to email my doctor and she was going to hound me until I did.

So when I got home I did email him and explained to him what has been going on and hoped he wasn't so disgusted with me for my immature behavior that he wouldn't answer back. I have now realized I need to quit being so ignorant and take care of this. I have been on a 2 year path to self destruction. I was angry at the world because things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to with my surgery & I punished myself for it every step of the way.

After I sent the email off I went over to my parent's house for a few hours. When I got home I was pretty surprised to see I had already gotten a reply from my doctor. He said he would have his nurse call me and set up a time to get me into the office. So now I have to start over & hope to God that it is not too late and there is something that can be done. My time in this river has ended, I'm finally swimming toward the shore. Hopefully I'll make it there but I might need a few lifesavers thrown my way from time to time. I'll keep you posted...