ID: The words New Blog Post in the upper right hand corner. Beside an image of a to do list with the word not interjected before do.
Snowboarding. Hiking. Playing soccer. Walking barefoot. Dancing.
It sounds like a Tinder bio of someone pretty cool. And maybe a little annoying. But really it’s just a list of things I like to do. Or more accurately liked to do.
Often with a chronic illness like mine, you amass a list of things your doctors would like you to avoid. These are some of the things I’ve been told I should no longer do. To be completely honest I probably wouldn’t be playing soccer even if I wasn’t sick. But I really miss dancing and walking barefoot.
Working 40, 30, 20, even just 10 hours a week. Eating something without knowing all the ingredients. Being able to leave the house without planning medications and food for however long I’ll be out.
These are the things I truly wish I could do. I would be happy to forsake snowboarding and all fun athletics if I could just eat regular food. But that’s not how this works. Bargaining is just one of the stages of grief. After accepting the first and second rounds of physical limitations I started to realize that the challenge is to accept that my condition is impermanent and always changing. The best thing I can do is learn to be flexible.
And so for now, I keep a go bag of medications with me at all times. I have a bag of safe snacks in my car. And I work to make peace with however much I am able to do. But I’m human. And sometimes my emotions get the better of me.
Crossing one knee over the other.
When I first began experiencing hip pain I was pretty much written off. As an average weight, 23 year old woman, most doctors could not reconcile the symptoms I was explaining with the way I looked and their judgements based on that. I remember how my doctor’s demeanor changed when my test results came back showing I had a labral tear. They explained that I could no longer cross my legs, with one knee over the other. They explained that given my genetic condition and the architecture of my hips, I should never cross my knees, over one another, again.
For some reason that information hit me harder than most. I thanked my provider and scheduled a follow up appointment. I took the elevator down to the main lobby and walked out the front doors. I went straight to my favorite bench in front of the hospital where I sometimes sat and ate lunch before biking home. And I cried. I just could not fathom never crossing my legs again.
Almost 10 years, 1 hip surgery, and many other treatments later and I’m mostly over it. I certainly haven’t cried over it again. And I don’t often think about it. But I also never cross my legs.
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