@Me2 As you probably know, I'm not on "this side" yet, but will be in surgery two weeks from tomorrow. I'm not surprised you are struggling with the loss of the "old" hip and acceptance of the new one. A few thoughts I've had: first, for me - kinda wish they could make a prosthetic joint look more "normal". I was looking at some pictures and picked out one I thought I'd like because it was rounded above the femoral stem - natural and "womanly". But I won't get a choice of what he uses, so I will just imagine mine that way. The other thing I was talking with my hubby about just last night is that this pain, pre-op, is "the devil I know". Don't like him at all, but I know what to expect. Post-op is the devil I don't know, and it could be easy to "blame" the new hip joint for all the changes we have to adjust to - encouraging ones, like being able to make love again, and discouraging ones like that horrible, defeatist PT person you dealt with and all the uncertainty of recovery and pain management, etc. the unknown. I wish this part of me hadn't betrayed my health and comfort - but imperfect bodies are part of life. I am glad I can't see the part of me that has to go (other than I'd kinda like to see just how bad it was to hurt so much) and I'm glad I won't see it's replacement either.
The reality is that, going forward in my life, nobody meeting me will even know about it unless I tell them. It's not going to change who other ppl see when they look at me (other than I won't look tired and old and in pain anymore). I was watching the coverage on CNN of the Boston Marathon bombing victims a couple weeks ago. That brave young dancer who cried to her husband about being sick of having to put her leg on to go pee in the night really challenged my perspective. Her totally unexpected trauma at hearing fireworks for the first time after shook me to the core. We have a choice to do this for our future well-being. She had no choice - someone literally took away her choice to feel safe, to look the same, to be blissfully untouched by evil. Yet she took a choice she did have - she chose to DANCE again, and in choosing, endured the work and enjoyed the triumph that came with it.
I have an unreasonable fear of dying - even though I believe with all I am that my soul doesn't die. But leaving my body behind is fearful and hard for me to imagine - deciding what should be done with it, impossible. God promises I won't need it - that He will give me a new body, but my only reality is that now, imperfect as it is, this body sustains my life. I can't imagine it not doing what it's always done, but I've no right to expect that. As we get older, I guess we have to come to terms with "Whatever gets me through this life I've been given in a way that makes me able to enjoy its blessings fully is going to have to be enough." (Feel free to quote this and send it to me when I'm having my 4 a.m. meltdown in a few weeks.)
Nighttime, alone in the dark half awake, always makes those thoughts way worse. I never wake Hubby, but he always tells me he wants me to. Don't suffer the nighttime sadness alone, any more than you dealt with nightmares alone as a little one. Call out and find some comfort. I will remember to as well.
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