Walking towards the light

The next month was a blur at first.  It really took me about a week to just adjust to my new diagnosis.  It was strange- the gamut of emotions that I was feeling.  The most surprising to me was that I felt relief!  I felt validated- that my pain wasn't in my head.  That what I was feeling, subjectively, was due to something really wrong with me- something that could be seen, objectively!  One of the worst things about pain (for me) is that unless you are bleeding or obviously broken, or showing some signs of trauma, people don't get it.  It's almost like they are skeptical.  And I have been guilty of this.  I am a nurse! I had to listen to patients complain about pain all the time.  I had to judge whether their symptoms matched their complaints.  And often they did not!  There was a whole movement years ago about whether we, as a medical community, were addressing and treating pain appropriately.  That's why nurses and doctors ask us to rate out pain (you know that 1-10 scale...) over and over again.  It's an attempt to objectify and subjective feeling.  And with the rise of the abuse of pain medicine, sometimes this assessment/treatment thing gets very tricky.  But I digress... It felt good to know that there was a reason for my pain.  A diagnosis.  Other people have this!  And better yet, there are treatments.  There is controversy over the particular treatments I had to chose from (as I would learn in even more detail later), but there were treatments! Choices!  Some patients have none.  For this, I felt gratitude.


But that was pretty much it for the positive emotions.  I also felt anger (why me?).  Sadness (why me??).  Confusion (why me???).  Despair (why me????). I threw a pretty decent pity-party for myself.  It lasted about a week, and I threw a darn good one.  I was irritable.  I snapped at my kids and family.  I slept a lot.  I smoked a lot more (no I wasn't one of those patients who after smoking for so many years suddenly stopped when learning that my smoking was finally showing how unhealthy it was).  I isolated.  I cried.  I cursed.  I let those horrible visions of the wheelchair-living, donut-eating, cat-breeding, disability-getting lonely lady fill my head.


But then I stopped.  I threw myself deeper into my recovery and 12 Step program:  Started working with my sponsor more, going to more meetings.  I went to the pain management doctor and committed to work with his team so that I treated my pain correctly.  I wasn't going to be a martyr, but I was worried about addiction to the pain meds. I reached out to friends again and shared what was going on, talked about it.  I spent hours and hours online, researching and looking for anything I could about my diagnosis.  I practiced asking for lots of help.  I practiced accepting lots of help.  I started taking care of myself again, and being kind to myself.  I started a diet- a serious one.  I used the Medifast program and stuck to it.  It's hard to lose weight when you can't exercise- but I did it.  I made another appointment and got my hair done.  I got a few massages.  I took a trip- so see my college roommates in Phoenix.  I wasn't sure about going, but my mom actually encouraged me to go, I hadn't seen those friends for so long.  And I needed to get away from the stress.  When I got back, I helped my best friend plan her wedding.  I started reading again.  I started listening to music again.  I started enjoying my kids again.  I started doing more.  Even if it hurt.  I took my pain medicine and got outside.  I was determined to be emotionally and physically prepared for surgery.  I wanted to be normal again.  I wanted to not be in pain.  I wanted to move forward, fix my problem the best I could, and resume life...


My biggest hiccup was the smoking.  I cut way down, I really did.  I had been a half to full pack a day smoker and I was down to less than half a pack a day, usually less.  But I hadn't quit.  I couldn't even use nicotine gum or patches.  Remember- it wasn't the "smoking" part he was worried about- it was the nicotine and how it caused blood vessel constriction that was my biggest enemy.  I had to just stop.


About four weeks after seeing Dr #4, I suddenly started having much worse pain.  I could barely walk.  Sometimes my pain would "flare up" for a day or two and then back off if I slowed down and rested.  But this time it didn't, no matter what I did, it was worse.  So I called the doctor.


Dr #4 was very kind when we spoke on the phone.  He said that it was time I started using a walker- to get the weight off the left hip.  This was for my comfort, and also to prevent the femur from collapsing (some of you may be wondering why he didn't have me on a walker or crutches to begin with.  It's a good question.).  He told me to use it when I was hurting a lot.  He didn't want me to stop moving, but also didn't want me needing more narcotics.  He asked me how the smoking was going.  I told him the truth.  He said he needed me to be smoke-free when he operated.  The he asked me when I would like to have surgery- a total hip replacement (THR), i.e. what date in the next month works with me in terms of getting the help and support I would need afterward.  He reminded me that I would be able to do anything I wanted to once I had healed, that my life would be perfectly normal, no restrictions. We chose a date.  He told me to call his office back that afternoon and schedule an appointment with him for a week before surgery, and also said there would be some other things I would need to do to prepare that his assistant would go over with me.  I reminded him that I had an appointment with him in a week, and ask should I keep it?  He said he had forgotten, but keep it and we could talk more about the surgery in detail.  He even joked and said don't forget to bring your dad!


In the next week, I had gotten a walker and a cane.  I was down to about 5-6 cigarettes a day.  I was down 10 pounds already too!  My family and friends had the surgery date on the calendar and we were starting to makes plans for it.  I let my boss at work know the latest and was finally able to give them a tentative idea of when I may be back.  I wasn't happy about getting a fake hip, but for the first time in months, I could actually see light at the end of the tunnel.  Even if I was limping toward it, I was making progress!

Grateful me...

If you are going to follow me along this journey, it's only fair you know a little about me... I could go on and on about so many parts of my life.  But I'm going to try to keep it to just enough to give you a feel for who I am and what makes me tick...

My real name is Susan.  I am 44 years old.  I am of Italian descent and was born on the East Coast, Washington DC to be specific.  We moved to Southern California in 1976.  My parents are alive and wonderful people- smart, kind, active, generous and fun.  I have one sister, and she is great person.  She is two years younger than me and we are polar opposites- physically and personality-wise.  She is tall and lean, curly hair.... I am short and curvy with hair straight as a board.  I am pretty easy-going and laid back, but I have an Italian temper.  I am extremely expressive.  I am a risk-taker (and have the scars to prove it).  I am on the messy side, and not the most organized person.  I love naps and sleeping and I cherish having free time- time to do absolutely nothing.  My sister is neat and organized.  Her entire life is planned out down to the minute.  The only time I see her sit still is to eat a meal- and even then she is the first one up and on to cleaning up before most of us are finished.  She is pretty conservative and plays it safe.  Despite our differences, we are very close.  But we both understand that we are very different people.  My whole family lives nearby- parents are five minutes away and my sister, her husband and her two kids live about 20 minutes away.  My sister and parents are all extremely successful and well-educated.  My father is a surgeon, my mom is a marriage/family counselor (2 masters degrees) and my sister is a urologist with a busy practice.  I am blessed to have have them all in my life.  I truly enjoy being with them and now that I am a parent, I appreciate them even more.

I went to Santa Clara University after high school.  My goal at that time was to go to medical school but school wasn't easy for me, and...well... I liked to party. No, I loved to party! I ended up choosing the path of least resistance, and an easier major.  Doing this gave more of that free time I love so dearly, and it allowed me to spend a semester in Rome. That was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.  During college, I had a part time/summer job back at home in the Emergency Room of a local hospital.  It was my work there that I fell in love with Nursing.  After graduating with my BS in Psychology, I decided to go to Nursing School.  I worked and went to school full time and paid my own way.  The majority of my nursing career has been spent in an Emergency Medicine.  I also was a nursing educator and did a lot of Quality Assurance projects.  I was very involved in EMS and training for paramedics and EMTs.  I worked my way up to manager of the same ER that I worked in during college.  It had been my career goal for as long as I could remember- my dream job.  But it turned out that my expressive, risk-taking, authority-challenging personality wasn't a great fit for middle management.  Admittedly, my pride also got in the way.  Maybe with some maturity and more time I may have figured it out.  But during that time I was going through my divorce and had a whole mess of personal issues.  Leaving that job was a painful blow.  It had been my identity for so long- who I thought I was was so deeply entrenched in my job, that when the job was gone- I suddenly didn't remember who I was- who Susan was- not the nurse, but the woman.  Since then, I have worked at a few other ERs (staff position- which stung) and for the EMS Agency doing Quality Improvement.  I have worked in the recovery room at an outpatient surgery center.  My latest job was a gift and I got it because of the wealth of experience I have accrued, which felt good and sort of made up for my failure at hospital management.  I was recruited and offered a position to help develop a nursing program with the local ambulance company.  It is a critical care transport team.  I manage about eight nurses and also do patient care and marketing.  I oversee the team administratively and clinically. The clinical work is a little slow (not a busy operation) but the patients can be extremely challenging.  I also like being outside and working with paramedics and EMTs.  We have a lot of autonomy.

I married one of my childhood crushes that I reconnected with when I was in nursing school.  We dated for 6 years and then were married in 1997 when I was 31. I loved him so much and really thought we would be together forever.  I still love him and he is wonderful man, a fantastic father.  We had two boys, Nicholas and Matthew.  They are 12 and 10 years old now.  I left Bryan in 2004.  He was an alcoholic.  And despite vowing to stay with him "in sickness and in health," I still left him.  It's not that I didn't try to help him- I did.  But I was a highly skilled co-dependent, and eventually I lost myself in his problems...and then mine began.  I didn't understand the disease of addiction- which would turn out to be one of the greatest ironies of my life.  But that messy story will be another blog....

After my divorce, I was a lost soul.  I got into an emotionally abusive relationship with a physician that I worked with- it was full of lies and control and manipulation.  At that time my self-esteem was at an all time low, and I was horribly afraid to be alone.  I stayed in this relationship for years, and it tore away at my very being.  Looking back, I can hardly believe the things I put up with, just so I wouldn't be alone.  We started using drugs and alcohol together in an abusive way- mostly drinking heavily and smoking pot.  But I had partied "hard" most of my life and that wasn't anything new, although it became more frequent and I started doing really stupid things.  My drama-filled relationship was very public at work.  And then we got into cocaine.  Within three years, I went from weekend dabbling to everyday use to not being able to function without cocaine.  Everything important to me began to suffer: relationships with family and friends, my ability to parent, my job, my health, my finances- everything.  I eventually lost all of those things as I became completely addicted to cocaine and the abusive relationship I was still in.  I came close to death. The details of this part of my life are materials for yet another blog (or maybe a raunchy made-for-TV movie).  Suffice to say that when everything came crashing in on me, I finally got some help.  I went to the Betty Ford Center and then spent a long time in a recovery home in Santa Barbara.  I needed to quit cocaine... and the boyfriend.  The geography change helped a bit.  Rehab is not a resort vacation.  It is gut-wrenching work.  It was the hardest thing I ever did.  I am proud to say that I am single, and that I gave been clean and sober for 3 and a half years.  In that time I have rebuilt my life and re-discovered who I am.  Although the true search for who I am will never be over.  I had lost my home in foreclosure, had spent all of my retirement savings, and I am still paying off debt.  So finances are tight, but I can support myself and my kids.  More importantly, I have solid, caring relationships with my family again, and I have built quality friendships with so many people.  I have genuine relationships with healthy women.  I am active in recovery and a 12 Step Program.  I have healthy, happy, smart, kind and beautiful children.  I am respected in the work force.  My ex-husband and I are very close- he is one of my best friends now.  Oh, and he, too, is sober now.  Ironically we have the same sober/clean date.  Our kids will someday come to realize how lucky they are to have sober parents, parents that are physically and emotionally present in their lives.  Life isn't easy, but it's good.  I wake up and go to sleep grateful every day.