The girl with scars.

Putting all the weight into my good leg I pushed myself up to stand. I winced; everything felt stiff. I was standing in the shower and the mirror ran parallel to it, so all I had to do was turn my head to sneak a peak. I was scared to look, but I forced myself to turn and glance at my reflection. The image in the mirror made me want to cry. Once clear steri strips, now bloodied from the healing incision, ran vertically up the side of my hip and marked the spot where my surgeon had cut into me. I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. Her body was different from what mine had been several days ago, and she looked tougher. The girl looking back at me knew what it meant to be scared and in pain.

Rewinding to a few days earlier, I sat on the hospital bed waiting. I had already been triaged and was now waiting for my surgeon to come see me. My stomach growled in protest to the no-eating-six-hours-before-surgery policy. My mom tried to distract me with random conversation. I was anxious. A knock interrupted whatever my mom had been saying as my doctor poked his head into the room. “Hey Flannery, how are we doing this morning?” My fears eased as I listened to his calming voice explain what he was going to do while in surgery and how long the procedure would be. I was terrified, but I knew he had it under control. Before leaving, he took a sharpie and wrote his initials across my left hip…just to be 110% sure there would be no mixup. Shortly after he left, a couple doctors from his O.R. team came in to give me some anesthesia. After a conversation of me insisting on having 3 sisters (I have one) and two brothers (again, I only have one), I was ready to be rolled into the O.R. As loopy as I was, I swallowed out of nervousness. It was time.

My mom says it took me a while to fully wake up after the surgery. My eyes would open and I’d scream “where am I?!” before dozing off again. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the terror of not being able to feel my legs.

The four days I spent in the hospital recovering were rough. After six hours in surgery, my body was tired. I tried to eat but nothing would stay down; I tried to sit up but nearly fainted every time I did. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom or change my clothes. Every four to six hours a nurse would come in to administer more meds, each time asking me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten. Not wanting to give up my ten too easily, I said seven almost every time. Almost.

The night I ranked my pain a nine was probably the worst night of my life. I had never been in such agony before, and even though I was on such strong meds and pretty out of it, I still remember bits and pieces. I had been feeling a bit better that afternoon, so the nurses had decided to cut back on the medicine a little. This was fine, until it wasn’t. I remember screaming my head off as the muscle spasms took over my body. I couldn’t move, all I could do was bite my lip and cry as they tried to figure out how to help me. My siblings were in the hospital visiting, but my mom had to tell them to leave so that they wouldn’t see me in so much pain. I felt so bad. Eventually, after a strong dose of Valium, the spasms calmed down and the pain subsided enough for me to go back to sleep.

The surgery was on Wednesday, and I finally felt good enough to sit up and talk to visitors on Saturday. There had been talk about me staying past Sunday (the original day planned for me to leave) because I hadn’t done enough physical therapy yet, but I was not having it. After getting a nausea patch placed behind my ear Friday afternoon, I was ready to roll on Saturday. I sat up for the first time, walked around to say hi to the nurses on my floor, hugged my grandma who’d come to visit, sat in a chair and played Mario Cart for half an hour, and did the stairs. I was ready to go home.

The next few months of recovery were tough. I hated being dependent on other people and never used my wheelchair. I hated when people stared at me, and even if they weren’t staring at me I hated it. I refused to act like I was sick. I went to church and sat through the hour and a half long service the week after the procedure. I only missed one week of school. I stopped taking pain meds after two weeks. I went on a retreat in the middle of upstate New York a month later. I hated being a patient and tried to do everything I could to be normal. But I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t allowed to put any weight on my legs for at least eight weeks, and because of that I didn’t walk until January, a whole four months after the surgery. Needless to say, I was angry a lot of the time. Angry that I couldn’t walk and frustrated that I was a burden. Physical therapy was difficult and it made me really sad that I couldn’t do things that were so simple. As someone who loves softball, being outside, and just being active in general, I didn’t feel like myself, and I hated it.

I tell you this story not because I want you to feel bad for me, but because I think people normally talk about their hardships in a very sugar-coated way, and I wanted to be honest about mine. Yes, I think it made me stronger, taught me determination, propelled my dream of eventually being a doctor forward, and provided a reference point of God’s faithfulness during times of doubt, but it was also really hard and I didn’t always handle that with grace. I was angry, and that made me angry. I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to be a bundle of joy and a source of inspiration, and I think I was for a lot of people because I hid my anger from those outside of my family, but it felt like a lie. I wanted to actually be joyful and okay in my circumstances, but that’s not always how things are. So, as I reflect on that time while I write this, I realize that that’s how we get through life sometimes: by being aware of our own struggles, understanding how we’ve failed to handle them well, and trying our best to be grateful and accept the small sources of happiness even in the darkness. It’s okay to be angry and wish you didn’t have certain struggles, but realize that you can determine how you channel your anger and sadness.

I’ve had two more surgeries since that one in September 2012, for a grand total of five throughout my lifetime. They didn’t think that the baby born with Hip Dysplasia who’d undergone one botched surgery (an accidental cut of the femoral nerve) as an infant would walk, but I have not only been able to walk, but also play softball for ten years, climb mountains, and do an open water three mile swim. I still have pain and will need a hip replacement someday, but honestly, it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to do the things I have. It gets difficult to be grateful on the days when it’s rainy and the cold makes my hips ache, or when I feel like an old person for needing to sit down after walking for a while. Those days are hard, but I want to make it clear that I wouldn’t give up the scars on my hip for anything. Each one represents the friends and family who took care of me after each surgery, and the people who prayed that I would walk one day.

That girl who was scared to look at her reflection in the mirror didn’t know who she was. But I know who I am now. I’m the girl with scars who can climb mountains.

Remember,

be strong & courageous.

xo.

Flannery Grace