A REKINDLING OF FAITH
Diana Hoguet
The surgeon who has given me a new knee is running late and I wait……. so many minutes to think the same thoughts I always think when I am alone in an examining room waiting for a doctor.
Will he listen? Will he be rushed and brusque? Will he believe me when I tell him about the pain that is shooting down my shin with violent shock and not think that I am seeking pain meds? Will he even remember me? He performs 5 knee replacements a day. Mostly though, I worry that he knows I have a diagnosed mental illness. It’s on my medical chart because 30 years ago it seemed the wise thing to do to be transparent and not bound by stigma.
He finally enters the sterile cubicle, confident and solicitous. “What can I do for you?”
I go into great detail about the shooting nerve pain that runs down the outside of my leg and how it inhibits me from doing the post-op rehab I must do. “Why is this happening? Why?” I keep asking. It’s thwarting my recovery and I just want to understand what happened.
“I don’t know,” he says. His frank answer is maddening. “It will resolve eventually”, he continues “You are actually healing very well,” and then after a moment’s pause he adds, “But what are you doing to deal with the emotional pain?”
Oh, God, I think, he’s dismissing my physical pain as being emotional pain. Or worse, he sees that I have a history of mental illness and thinks I am being overly reactive, or maybe he is actually trying to show some compassion but is clueless how to do that. My racing thoughts drive a wedge between us and I feel despair.
I had such high hopes. With a new knee I could return to my beloved hikes, the single most regulating form of self-care that I practiced for mood maintenance. With a new knee I could share those hikes with my dog again, my most constant companion and friend who loves to go with me on the trails. With a new knee I could still dream about possibilities that had all but shut down for me because of decreasing mobility and, with that decreased mobility, increasing depression.
I left his office with a prescription for a nerve numbing medication and a head full of self-doubt.
Only three weeks ago he had sat at my bedside in his surgical scrubs just moments before surgery and I had said, without a moment’s reservation and a beaming smile, “Doctor, I have faith in you.”
Now I am in a crisis of faith. Pain can do that.
The first two months after surgery were some of the most challenging of my life. It was not just the bewildering nerve pain which was awful, but the feeling of being alone and in the dark during that pain, and the fear of depression. There was no one in the surgical practice I could talk to about my risk for depression. All they could offer my pain was medication. The medication they gave me made me so sleepy that I had no energy to do the physical therapy exercises which were key to a good recovery. I felt completely stuck.
Angry and fighting back tears, I leashed up my dog for the short limp around the block that I barely managed to offer him twice a day. I descended the front steps of the house, which I normally took one leg at a time on just my good leg, and noticed that I had just spontaneously taken the steps using both legs. Was this possible? I went back up the steps and came down them again, and then again and again. The original joint pain that was the reason for the surgery was completely gone. Yes, the nerve pain still flared but it was nothing compared to the joy that accompanied this new freedom of movement that all of a sudden revealed itself to me. How could I not have been noticing these tiny increments of healing? In that moment of joy, I felt hope. Instead of focusing on the nerve pain, that had consumed all of my energy and robbed me of faith, I had been guided to focus on the healing that was happening despite the pain.
Immediately I felt the seed of faith was there for me to work with. I could see the eager excitement in my dog’s eyes as he waited for his walk. He didn’t care if it was just a slow limp rather than a walk. I could see the tender beginnings of springtime in the tiny lime green leaves on the trees that felt so full of promise. The outdoor air touched my skin with both the coolness of a fading winter and the tentative warmth of spring. I felt alive, living in transition alongside of nature and I felt held in safe hands.
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A year and a half after my surgery, I sit in the same examining room, bare thighs on stiff paper, legs dangling. I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually ready for a second knee replacement.
“You are aware that you might have the same nerve pain that you had with the first surgery,” the surgeon warns me.
“I hope it won’t, but if it happens again, I know now, I’ll get through it. “ I say with a slightly sheepish smile.
In just two weeks I will have the second knee replaced. I will look my doctor in the eye when he comes to my bedside before surgery and assure him, and myself, “Doctor, I have faith .”
Diana Hoguet is a mental health advocate, public speaker and performance artist. She is a member of the INMI Board of Directors and editor of INMI’s “Connections for Wellbeing” newsletter.