​Since our local ski area is closed due to lack of snow, I drove down to Mt. Shasta Ski Park last week. I just had to try out my new hip.
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Great day! They still had some good snow, plus the mountain provided a modest lenticular cloud. Because of the warm temperatures, it was like spring skiing in February. Soft, but not too soft, and you had to watch out for bare spots and rocks. Having taught there back in 1998, I felt a bit like Rip Van Winkle. So much has changed since I was a ski instructor there in the late 90s.

As for my hip, my ski stance had been somewhat compromised due to compensation for my wayward pelvic region, for a long time. Without getting too technical, my right leg needed to be gently coaxed into recalibration when initiating turns. Plus it was the first day skiing for me at all this winter. Still, it was a whole lot of fun, with no crashes!

“Okay, that looks cool,” I said, nodding.

I’d have to fill some pre-surgery prescriptions – heavier stuff than I’ve ingested in more than a decade. A few words about oxycodone, and any heavy painkillers. They’re butt-plugs, every one. I learned this during my two-week hospital stay in 2014. Percoset was the culprit back then, causing an emergency call to the nurse one day with the phrase, “Oregon clay.” I won’t go any further. It was something I swore would never happen again. I ordered a side of prunes with every meal after that, and the situation was resolved in a few days’ time. So, having to fill a prescription for oxycodone and other things a week before my hip surgery, I stocked up on prune juice. As a bonus, I’m providing you with my tried and true instructions for the use of prune juice for constipation:

Hayleyanne’s Prune Juice Remedy
5-6 swallows = maintenance
12 swallows = a healthy discharge within 24 hours
16 oz. or more = mass anal explosion. I mean it. Do not go out! Intestinal gurgles and aftershocks will be felt for the next 24 hours.

My husband, Wayne, took me to the Southern Oregon Osteopathic Outpatient Center at 9 a.m. They set me up in my own private recovery room with a gown and hat. The anesthesiologist came in and described everything he was going to do – an epidural, then anesthesia.
“I’m a lightweight as regards heavy drugs,” I told him.
“Yes, but you’ll want to sleep through all the hammering and sawing the surgeon has to do.”

A nurse gave me a handful of pills – muscle relaxers and an oxycodone, with very little water allowed to swallow them. Wayne waited until I was ready for surgery, then took off to do errands. At around 10:15, when I was making little sense to anyone, the nurse wheeled my gurney into the operating room – a massive, fluorescent-lit chamber with silvery implements of human body realignment packing the shelves around me! They loaded me onto the operation table and instructed me to sit up with the backs of my legs against the edge of the table, in readiness for the epidural.

Then I was being wheeled back to my room. At first I wondered if a mistake had been made and they’d cancelled the whole thing – but I was done! I dozed on and off for a while. Then a nurse showed up with a tiny container of applesauce and some ginger ale. Things are a little hazy, but apparently the doctor stayed in contact with Wayne, who came back in the early afternoon. The highlights were, as I remember them, a nurse making me walk along a red line in the hallway with my wheeled walker, climbing up a narrow stairway holding onto its banisters, drinking water and throwing up (they have these great new circular barf bags that fit right over your mouth now), and the excellent nurses.

By 5 p.m. there were four of them in the room, coaxing me to pee in the private little bathroom so they could release me (and go home themselves, it later dawned on me). It took a while, one nurse explained, as my lower body had been numbed by the epidural. Dr. Jancuska stopped by to tell me everything went well, that he’d added a medical zip-tie to the bottom of the new hip because they’d found a crack in my right femur. Retroactive ouch! Around 6 p.m. I was finally flowing, amid cheers from the nurses! They got me dressed and sent us home.

The scariest thing was, when I was waking up from surgery, dozing on and off, I saw monsters. The kind you might hallucinate when your eyes are closed. Bad dream monsters. Just the heads, that would morph from one horrifying design to another. I think it may have been a warning about the drugs, especially the fentanyl. It’s just sinister. I've always thought that, in the aftermath of a colonoscopy, for instance. I mean, where do you go? It's not like sleeping, where you feel yourself dozing off, and return to shake off the grogginess. It's an empty page, as in, "This page intentionally left blank." I guess I'm not a great fan of having zero control over what happens to my mind in drug-induced situations. Anyway, as the day wore on, I’d go back to sleep and see the monsters. They were always illuminated on a dark background. “I saw monsters,” I remarked to Wayne when he was driving us home. I could still see them when I closed my eyes. Hard to explain, but I think he got it. The monsters stopped occurring a day or so later.

The first few days were tough. I took two of those oxycodone pills, and anti-barfing pills, but luckily, the pharmaceuticals don't seem to hold much allure for me. Still can't figure out why several friends said to "enjoy the meds." Blech. After a day or so, I downshifted to Tylenol. 

I got myself back up to my studio on the walker within a week. 
I drove after two weeks. When I could put my sneaker on my right foot without the help of a reacher device, I went to the gym. On my cane at first, of course.

Gave up the cane after four weeks. Initial post-op check-up with the surgeon gave me a thumbs-up! Healing was chugging along. In November I was able to do both of my holiday shows easily.
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Now, nearly three months later, I can barely remember how much I used to hurt. I feel like I’m twenty years younger and can’t wait for snow so I can get back on the slopes with my new hip!