I had struggled with hips that would not behave for a few years, and listened to all the good advice offered – keep mobile, do pilates, don’t sit down, ever.
This summer of 2018, life changed. At the end of June, I walked 18 holes round a golf course – paid for it the next day, but did it. By September, I was struggling to walk to the end of the street; by October, it was a struggle to get out of bed. As I had been warned, the time would come when exercise would not cut it, and here it was – replacement time.
What does that feel like? Well, I get up every morning having woken up four or five times in the night because of the discomfort. When I get up, it feels like I ran a marathon the day before, and nothing ‘loosens up’ as the day goes on – in fact, it gets worse, such that by evening, I am begging to go to bed to start the cycle over again. Walking feels like doing the Paris-Dakar rally on foot, all those tall sand dunes, weary legs, little progress.
This is when you know.
What’s next? Dr Nwaboku, my chosen surgeon, is a man of few words. ‘You need a hip replacement, good sir, and I’ll be doing it. Come back in a month or two – we’re a bit busy just now – and we’ll measure you up and get straight on to it. Any questions?’ At this point, he was out of his chair, waving an arm towards the door, so I felt the questions could probably wait.
Enter ‘Hip Replacement’ in Google and you can research your own fate – things to do, things to expect, things to buy – all useful stuff. I’ll spend the next few weeks preparing a cosy little nest in which to hole up and heal, but it’s basically your choice of boxsets. Too much chopping and knives in ‘Game of Thrones’? Probably not the Douglas Bader story, or ’24 Hours in A&E’.
We shall see.
Hip Hop 