Moments of Reflection at the Doctor's Office

WARNING: Contains Graphic Images

Another routine visit to the doctor's office. My impatience grows as I circle the parking garage once more, my eyes locked on the hospital entrance to see if anyone is leaving. If I'm lucky, I can stalk someone back to their car and maybe still be on time. My eyes dart to the clock on the dashboard - it's five minutes to the hour. Good, I'm not late yet.

After parking, I navigate through a maze of elevators and corridors and finally reach my destination. I sign in. I sit down. I begin filling out forms.

Name. Check.

Insurance. Check.

Emergency contact. Check.

HIPAA and patient confidentiality. Check and check.

Family history. Check.

Personal medical history.

Hmm. I pause for a moment and reflect. A decade ago, I could breeze through the endless questions while ignoring most of their contents. I'd quickly find the signature line before passing the forms right back to the receptionist without missing a beat. I know that not everyone is so lucky, but I had it easy back then.

Today, sitting here with negative ten minutes to spare, I'm frustrated that it's taking so long to remember the names and dates of doctors, hospital stays, and diagnoses. I still consider myself relatively young and healthy, so it's a shock to the system seeing it all on paper like that. "Don't get old." That's what my dad used to say, as if that were under my control.

This thought must have been percolating its way to the forefront of my mind all week, primed by conversations I'd recently had with several coworkers and friends. Just a few days ago, I was trading stories with a friend who walked me through the stages of womanhood in a humorous but enlightening fashion. The gist is that girls spend their adolescent years adjusting to the changes that come with puberty. Once they're familiar with the monthly ups and downs of heat packs and Motrin, pregnancy and breastfeeding come along to make both temporary and permanent impressions on a mother's body. Then it's back to the monthly seesaw before menopause. But wait - there's more! Menopause isn't a once-and-done event. Apparently there's pre-menopause, peri-menopause, and post-menopause that can last for years. With newfound appreciation, I marveled at the unrelenting fluctuations that women and their bodies endure - a lifetime of adjusting to both gradual and sudden physical change.

During about the same time, another friend showed me his scars from a recent surgery. He wasn't bragging about battle scars. Quite the opposite - he was bothered by the four small incision marks that would never completely disappear. I didn't see them as a big deal - but then again, it's not my body so who am I to say it doesn't matter? To him, they carried the weight of words like injured, weak, and even deformed. The recent changes to his body were unwelcome, upsetting, and unfortunately permanent.

I tried to be reassuring, but I can sympathize with my friend's mental and emotional upheaval. There's more to recovery than just the physical healing of wounds. Back in 2008 and 2010, I underwent two leg surgeries to alleviate pain in both knees. I didn't even know anything was wrong until a guy I had just started dating noticed the shape of my legs and the subtle compensation of my gait. He asked if I ever felt pain in my legs, and I shrugged it off by saying, "Not unless I'm doing something like walking up stairs." I honestly had no idea that a little pain under light strain was not normal. He quickly informed me that no, joint pain is not a normal part of walking up a flight of stairs, and that I should probably see a doctor right away.

I ignored his advice. Periodically, he'd ask me about it, and periodically, I told him to back off. I didn't see myself as needing medical attention at such a young age, but the seeds he planted gradually grew and in parallel, my physical pain gradually increased with time. His prodding eventually wore me down, and I started searching for a doctor. Bless his stubborn persistence! - years later we married and I've come to realize that it's one of his most defining traits.

As a child, I might've worn the same leg braces as Forrest Gump. As an adult, the only solution was to surgically realign the bones in my legs that were causing premature wear and tear on my joints. In 2008, a surgeon intentionally broke my right leg, and attached a titanium frame to my right tibia so that we could slowly straighten out my lower leg over a period of several months. My friends called this the Gattaca surgery. I did this again in 2010 for my left leg.

So I wore a titanium frame around each leg, and hobbled to classes on a walker until I was stable enough for a quad cane. (By the way, tennis balls on the bottom of a walker are a brilliant idea.) Going out in public became an event. I'd never had so many young children stop and stare, or sometimes even point. I'd never explained my personal affairs in detail to so many curious strangers. I'd never needed to seriously ask others for help managing daily activities as an adult. And up to that point, I'd never asked a nurse for a bedpan because, after surgery, walking ten feet to the restroom was too far.

In some ways, those memories feel like the distant past. But I know at the time it was a very big deal for me. For the first time, my identity as an able-bodied, relatively anonymous, healthy young adult was challenged. I stood out when I wanted to be left alone. I struggled with how to feel attractive and confident when physical movement was awkward and labored. I detested the thought that others might see me as crippled or incapable. The walker and cane felt downright geriatric. It takes a long time to establish a deeply rooted sense of self, to grow comfortable and confident in our own skin, and to craft a public image of how we want to appear to the world. So when our physical selves change, it's no surprise that we need time to adjust.

In total, the whole ordeal lasted nearly a year, though in fairness, I was able to get around pretty well by the end of it. The scars have faded by now, and most people don't even notice them. I've grown so accustomed to seeing them that I hardly take notice myself. When I do notice, I usually feel a sense of pride at having gone through such an intense experience and emerging on the other side the better for it. But admittedly, on occasion, I still lament the once-flawless skin that is now freckled with numerous dark, discolored circles and long vertical lines of depigmented white.

Some scars come with cool stories. Others are reminders of pain and loss. Some scars appear out of nowhere and have no explanation. Sometimes it's not the scars that bother us but the gray hair, fresh wrinkle, stretch mark, child going off to college, or hospital forms that remind us change is the only constant. And we shouldn't underestimate the mental and emotional turbulence that can accompany those changes, even when they are seemingly minor. So yeah, don't get old. But if you do, remember to appreciate who you are right now, for better or worse.

This photo was taken several days after my first surgery in 2008. My tibia and fibula were surgically sawed through, and I wore a Taylor Spatial Frame while my bones were realigned, and until they fully healed.

The frame was screwed directly into my tibia, which meant that I could stand on my leg without assistance while my bones were still broken - the weight of my body was circumvented through the frame and around the fractured bones.

Here's a photo of my amazing surgical and post-op team, taken right before the device on my leg was removed. I was ecstatic to shed my role as the incredible bionic woman and return to my "normal" self.

#aging #change #identity #selfconfidence #surgery #injury #tibialosteotomy #TaylorSpatialFrame #externalfixator