Following my first surgery I thought life was great. I was partial weight bearing on crutches for less than a week and then I was able to progress back to my usual activities. My surgeon had taken out my labrum so now I had no sharp pain, and it was the first time in years that I could run and jump with minimal consequence. I still experienced a deep ache which was usually worse at night especially after a night on the town dancing with my girls while wearing high heels. But to tell you the truth the ache became "my normal" and there was no way that I was going to miss out on having fun with friends and enjoying life as a young lady who had her life ahead of her! I had been told now by 2 different specialists that I should be very careful with my hip and that it would be best to avoid high impact activity, but despite this I still managed to go snow skiing and participate in recreational sporting activities as I wished.
Although it was not well known to many I really struggled with the diagnosis of my hip abnormality. It was like I had to "grieve" the loss of having a normal hip. I remember crying to my mum saying "who will want to come see me when I'm a physiotherapist?? .. I can't even look after myself!!" As hard as my brain tried to convince itself that I was fine by saying things such as " it could be much worse.. I could have cancer" or "what am I upset about? I am surrounded by good friends and family and I have almost finished my dream degree to become a physiotherapist, I'm not going to let a hip get me down!!". Reading this may appear silly to you especially if you have never dealt with an injury or pain but I believe that I needed to go through this "grieving process" for my hip so that I could come to terms with my perceived loss. It took a while but slowly I learnt to accept that my previous view of being a fit and active young adult who could do what ever she wanted had shifted to identifying myself as a healthy young adult who would need to preserve my hip.
As a physiotherapist now working with people who are often in pain I believe that my experience with an injury has really helped me understand the connection between the emotional and physical being. I'm not going to sit here and get all spiritual with you but I do believe that we cannot separate our physical and emotional selves... For example I could list all the anatomical differences with my hip (shallow hip socket, abnormal femoral head, tight superficial muscles such as iliopsoas, weak deep gluteals ... the list goes on) and try to seek treatment to "fix" these things. But even if they are fixed the treatment would be floored as it would have not addressed the other domain of my injury - how I identified myself, how I felt about having an abnormal hip. I am very fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life who have assisted me to look after my "emotional health" while dealing with my physical problems. It was my mum who helped me realise that the experience of having a problematic hip has shaped who I am and I believe it has lead me to bacome someone who can not only help people physically with their injuries but hopefully also help them through their associated journeys and struggles.
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