Now that I think back, the operating room conversation I overheard was a preview of things to come: “Sterile, schmerile…the floor’s clean, right?” They probably followed the 10-second rule, rather than the five-second rule. It was a germ orgy and I was tagged. (If I had been a Golden Retriever, they would have taken more precautions.) A few days after my release, I began another eight-day stay for a hospital-born infection. I might as well have rested my open mouth on a public handrail or turned a doorknob with my teeth.
Some people say that hip replacement surgery is a piece of cake. I remember when I made a cake from scratch and accidentally left out the sweetener. If that’s the case, it WAS a piece of cake.
My hip is 11 weeks old now. When does the surgical site stop being an incision and start being a scar? It’s curved and could make a cartoon clickety-clack track for the Orange Blossom Special. Viewing it from my vantage point above, it looks like someone took a bite out of Loop 12.
There isn’t a design of undies that accommodates the 7-inch half circle that crosses the elastic line. One friend suggested I wear a thong during the sensitive healing process. When I figured out that she wasn’t talking about a flip-flop or thinging a thong, I replied, “If a thong could hook over my shoulders, I’d be good to go. But . . . it might not be that easy TO go.”
My granddaughters (age four, seven, and eight) had never seen an incision, so I decided to show them mine. It couldn’t be any more shocking than when my five-year-old grandson walked in on me in the bathroom. He ran down the hall and told his brother, “Mimi wears BIG ol’ panties!” I can sympathize with his trauma---I walked in on my grandmother in the bathroom. She looked like a bloodhound in a shower cap.
When I showed my incision/scar to my granddaughters, one buried her face in a throw pillow while another grabbed her throat and stuck out her tongue.
We’re still looking for the third one.