Saturday, June 06, 2009

Something Worth Celebrating

(tap, tap, tap) Ahem, is this thing on?

As many of you may know, this winter I finally broke down and decided it was time for a new hip. I had surgery on April 7th and I have now passed the "magical" 8 weeks of restrictions. My new hip works better than I could have imagined and I will now freely admit I wish I had done it sooner. Yes, this is the part where all of you say "told ya so!"

In honor of my new titanium hip and how good I am feeling, I would like to celebrate. Sunday afternoon June 14th at 2pm, we will gather at Ivanhoe's in Upland, IN. For the uninitiated, follow the link for more info and a .pdf version of their menu. Two words. Ice Cream. 100 Shakes and 100 Sundae's to choose from. You can grab lunch too if you want. But you better start reading the menu now. (Did I say that out loud? 'cause it was really directed at me)

Why Ivanhoe's? Why not? I was introduced to this place in college (early 90's). We used to make trips up there from Ball State, officially as a final's study break but mostly just because we wanted too. When Dad first discovered my old truck, see this post for more about that, I started remembering all the fun we used to have in that huge '69 Dodge, like driving the back roads to Upland to get ice cream and occasionally stopping to "moo" at the cows along the way. (Hi Rhonda!)

Now I realize many of you will not be able to come. This place is good, but I don't blame you for not driving in from California (Hi Becky, Brian and Ana!) or Kansas (Hey Tiff, Aunt Kristy and Uncle Matt!). I know gas prices are up so if you can get to Anderson, I am sure we can carpool the rest of the way. Call me, leave a comment, email me. Even if you can’t go but you just want to catch up :) It doesn’t matter if forty-eleven of you show up, or five. In the immortal and wise words of the Newsboys, “wherever we go, that’s where the party’s at!”

Now a little background for those who still don't get why this is a big deal. When I was born, my hips were not in the socket. This was not discovered until I was in 4th grade in 1982. In '82 and '83, I had surgery on both hips to correct this. It was not fun. Right after the first surgery, I had horrible muscle spasms in both legs. Their solution was a shot right into those muscles. And so began my fear of needles. Of any kind. I am really surprised I made it through the second surgery. Fast forward ten years to my sophomore year of college. That's how long it took to drag me back to a doctor. This doctor proceeded to tell me I had a hairline fracture on the surface of the joint and that I would need a hip replacement. He said they didn't know how long it would last in someone my age and that I would likely need to have it done a couple more times. I was 20. He was ready to schedule surgery. I walked out and never went back.

Those experiences combined with my stubborn nature kept me going well past what I should have. The pain increased over the years, but in the meantime I still managed to climb the Statue of Liberty, hoof it all over NYC and Washington DC. Over the years, the distance I could walk before sitting down got shorter and shorter. A year ago, I got sick, could hardly swallow anything, and lost my voice and 15 pounds in just two weeks. It took a long time to recover and what strength I had left in my leg was gone. By the time winter rolled around I had decided the 2009 was the year I was going to pull up my big girl britches and do it. The decision to do it was easy, the timing was harder. I have been searching for a professional library position and I knew I needed to have this done before I got a new job. Since I work at a college, I wanted to be kind to my co-workers and not leave them at a bad time. I felt comfortable leaving while we still had student workers to help out, so I went ahead and scheduled the surgery.

I think I was in denial that it was actually happening all the way until the day before. I did my best not to think about getting the IV started or the actual procedure. There were a couple times in the waiting room before they called me back that I wanted to get up and leave. When I went back to the prep room, I was strangely calm. Poor Haystack nearly got squeezed flat, but I was good. Yes, I am 37 years old and have a stuffed horse named Haystack. He went through all my other surgeries with me, I wasn’t about to let him miss this one.

Much has happened in the last 8 weeks. Checkout my blog posts from April and May for more on that. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for their prayers, visits, cards and well wishes. I know the only way I have come this far is God. You might have noticed the title of my blog or my email/twitter username. Hope. There is always hope. I believe that. The 515 comes from the book of Romans, Chapter 5:1-5.

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

“Hope does not disappoint.” And it hasn’t. Not yet. Not ever. The last two months have not been all fun and games. I still have a complication on my back to deal with. But I can walk again. I can move my leg in ways I haven’t since 1982! I got to spend some quality time with my grandparents. If all of this is not reason to celebrate, then I don’t know what is.

I promise I won’t wait so long for hip number two. And you can feel free to remind me that I have just put that in writing. If you are still reading this incredibly long post, thanks for sticking it out.

4 comments:

Keli said...

First of all "I told you so!"

Now on to the rest! I love this post! Ivanhoes sounds great but its so far away! What great memories for you! And that truck, hahahahaha! It was awesome and got you where you needed to go. And thank God for getting you to the operating room. Oh and thank you Haystack for comforting you during this difficult time! I'm not sure about a stuffed animal at 37 but I'll go with it if works for you. : ) I also love that verse! Love ya!

Hope515 said...

Hey, at least I don't sleep with the stuffed animal. I just dug him out of storage for this "special occasion." He's kinda coming apart at the seams literally. We wrapped him up and stuck a couple band-aids on and bingo, good as new :)

Rhonda said...

I am sorry that I missed Ivanhoe's! My computer died during that time and I am still trying to respond to all my emails. I am very glad that you are doing well.
Charles and I still laugh about your old truck. The other day I was telling the story about how you were driving down the road on a rainy day trying to splash the girls in the white dresses. Ha!
We need to find some time to get together this summer. I would love to see you!

Hope515 said...

Hey now, it wasn't just the sorority chicks, it was everyone who was dumb enough to stand in the splash zone in front of bracken, LOL. Man that old truck made some nice waves of water. It was funny, but it was kind of mean. We are doing an Ivanhoes trip 2.0 so I will keep you posted. We definitely have to get to together sometime soon :)