When you wake up from surgery, you never know what you are going to get. Each experience was a little different for me, but one took the cake. Most of my encounters with anesthesia were pretty under control except for my second hip surgery.
Whatever they gave me on October 20, 2017 made me hysterical. I was worried about how my icing machine wasn’t turned on, I was in pain, and I was bawling for no reason. We could probably turn it into a reality television show: Drugs, Pain, and Tears.
When you have a hip labral repair, you can’t externally rotate your leg for four weeks, aka you can’t turn your knee sideways. I noticed when I woke up from surgery that my toe was pointed slightly sideways. In my delirious state, it freaked me out because I had zero control of any leg muscles. I told the same nurse repeatedly, without realizing it, that my leg was externally rotated and that it needed to be moved. The entire nursing team was gracious and kept assuring me my leg was fine and that it was where it needed to be.
I didn’t realize it until hours later that my leg was in the right position and only my toe was pointed out a little bit. My hip was strapped tight in the icing machine, so my knee and hip weren’t moving at all. 99% of this encounter was from the anesthesia, but I was so worried about my toe that I forgot about my hip right in front of me. I was so focused on what was far away that I lost track of what was right in front of me.
I think we can fall into that same trap in our lives. We are so worried about what may happen in the future that we don’t think about what is in front of us today. We get so worried about where we will be in five years that we don’t realize it hasn’t happened yet. Whatever fear and anxiety you may have about the future hasn’t happened yet. You can freak out and cry about what may go wrong tomorrow or in five years, like me in the hospital bed, or you can look down and realize that you are right where you need to be. You may not be where you want to be today, but you are where you need to be to become the person God is molding.
We can get so caught up in the next thing that we forget about the people who have always been there for us. If you always have your mind set on the future, you will miss out on the current great things in your life.
Ignore the feet in your life and focus on the hips. Feet are the doubts about the future, the presentation that is a month away, or the worry about if someone will break up with you in a month. The hips are how you behave, control, and act today. When you have strong hips, the rest of your legs are stronger and feel better. When you focus on your behaviors and actions today, the future will take care of itself. You will look up one day in the future and realize you didn’t need to be worried five years ago. I wasn’t thinking about today five years ago, so why would I need to worry about anything 5 years from now.
Look at what is in front of you.
I appreciate you.
-JP