Another afternoon has passed working in a hospital waiting room. A place where time stands still, appointments are simply rough guesstimates based on no rhyme or reason; and the cost of coffee and parking remains astronomical.
I never equated having babies with having to spend such a significant part of my life and salary at the Hotel NHS.
This trip?
Current financial cost:
Boots meal deal (as the bread at home had turned a funny green shade)
2 x Hot Chocolates
One parking
£27.80
Current emotional cost:
Still processing….
I am not sure what I did to my poor kiddos pelvis in the womb 14 years ago, but I definitely inadvertently gifted her with a dodgy left socket.
Many years ago she was a cute kid giftwrapped in a spica cast, as a toddler she was wrapped in plaster – but she knew no different.
As we now sit talking about her fourth surgery in fourteen years – she knows what it entails.
And I’m sad for her.
We hoped many moons ago that her Hip Dyplasia was corrected at 18 months with surgery and a 3 month stint in a spica cast. The two years of physio that followed should have really put the condition to bed but instead it meant we achieved a top attendance award at the local hospital and the car park sent us Christmas cards as a valued customer.
From age four to nine – we had externally, healthy hips.
Internally the left socket was steadily giving up the ghost, and crumbling away like a soggy digestive.
2019 – saw the return of the limp.
2020 – saw a referral back to orthopaedics and a global pandemic which delayed any face to face contact for two more years in which the limp moved to a drag and the pain increased.
Fast forward to today.
Another surgery that failed in the middle and a hip that refuses to hold its own in an otherwise perfect body.
My beautiful teen describes her pain as sitting around a 4/10 on a normal day…
I stubbed my toe on the weekend and the pain hit a 5/10 and I was ready to have the joint removed.
What must life be like to have constant pain?
I know there are worse things, and trust me, I can choke on gratitude when I sit in the waiting room and see families who have it far worse than us.
But as a mum, I also break a wee bit internally when I think I’ve let one of my brood be in pain for five years.
(I’m always the mum who doesn’t have plasters or painkillers in – but five years of aching is a depressing achievement.)
I think I’ve let her down, like most, I know the NHS for all its incredible work also mirror symbolises my daughters hip. It’s collapsing slowly, and eroding away.
I’ve always been the mum to fight, we have moved trusts for access for better diabetic care for my older daughter, campaigned on government for better diabetic knowledge in schools. Navigating referrals for top hearing surgeons for my son. Fought to get into the system for anorexia support.
Honestly, I think I’ve dropped a bollock on the hips to let normal be a 4/10 for my youngest.
Today was hopefully the beginning of the end of that normal – although we have a journey still to take.
More scans have confirmed that there are really two choices, one, to continue living in pain, or two, to become one of the rare teenagers to have an early hip replacement.
My kid is going bionic.
I simply can’t watch a childhood be consumed with aches and pains.
So far, my rather incredible little teen has learnt to walk four times. We are going for a fifth and final.
Am not a religious lady, but praying this is the end to a long journey with Hip Dysplasia…