The day has come at last

In less than 10 hours I will be reporting to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital for the hip replacement operation that I have needed for so long.  I can't wait as I am really looking forward to having this done.  I know that sounds strange, but it is so restricting my life at the moment that I just want it to be over.  I want to be able to walk without sticks and without thinking about how I am walking.  I want to be able to cross a road without wondering if I might become road-kill if I can't move fast enough as some drivers just think of pedestrians as being targets.  Yes I AM going as fast as I can ...

The Occupational Therapist came out today but I already have most of the things I need from having my right hip replaced 3 years and 11 months ago.  Wow, when you see it written down like that it really is a long time ago, 47 months.  That operation was rather more traumatic, being admitted straight from the chemo clinic because a tumour had caused a pathological fracture of the hip.  This time it is just osteoarthritis in a deformed hip.  In fact it will be quite strange to have a left hip that works properly.  Not that it really caused me too many problems until the last few years, but all those years using heavy cleaning equipment and the side effects of my cancer treatment have not helped thing.  So now I am nearing a new birthday, a third one to celebrate.  The day I was born, the right hip's birthday and now the left hip's birthday, it is just a shame that they are all in the winter.

So it is back to going up one step at a time, and down one step at a time, until I can just walk up and down stairs without thinking.  Strangely enough your mind adjusts to one step at a time and it is quite scary when you have to remember how you go one step at a time.  Maybe this has something to do with having grown up in a bungalow and gone to primary school in a small village school on just one level.  I find I still have to think about the technique of using stairs some times.  They used to scare me when I went to a friend's house as a child.

Onward and upward!