At Least They're Committed

The best lies have some modicum of truth to them. When you slip a falsity into a legitimate story the reader is most likely to gloss over your deception or, if you’re very good, dismiss what you’re glossing over yourself. It is because of this that I must think long and hard on what my official story shall be for my “severe” hip condition.

It doesn’t run in my family and that wouldn’t be very compelling even if it did. I suppose you could argue that of all the women in my history, I am the only one who consistently worked out other than my Aunt Patti. Yet, that could give someone the idea that it’s more sensible to avoid working out and that would be a mistake.

I’ve already used up the skydiving accident tale when I broke my right ankle and sprained the left while — in truth — I was walking sideways down the steps, talking to Ellen, texting home and misjudging the last step. I’ll have to come up with something else.

Maybe it was one of the times I fell off Bonnie, the neighbors’ palomino, when I was 12 or 13. She would break into a mad run, a full-out gallop and, being as tiny as I was, I couldn’t pull back on the reins hard enough to slow her down. I would watch the sage brush and the dry earth blurring past as I’d hunker down low, my head pressed to her withers, the sting of her blond mane slapping against my cheek like a cat-o-nine-tails. I just can’t remember falling off, is all. No, I don’t think I ever did.

Later as a teen, there was the time I was swimming in a murky pool in the gulch near my home with my then-friend Debbie. The pond was surrounded by steep sandstone flatirons, about 10 or so feet high on all sides but one. Debbie was out of the water when I dunked all the way under, testing the depth. My foot hit the muddy floor — not too deep. As I kicked back to the surface I felt something dislodge below and moments after my head broke the surface, a dead, rotting frog of 18 inches popped up in front of my face, its slimy body stretched and stiff, its mouth and eyeless sockets agape, staring at me and squirming with crawdads and other warm-water dwellers. I started to scream and tried to thrust away, but that only caught the corpse in the current and drew it closer to me. I backed into a sandstone rock and twirled around, clawing at the rock, pulling myself up with every ounce of strength my terror would allow on any crevice, rock or root I could grasp. I swung out on a loosened root at one point then crashed my left hip into the rock. I pushed myself up, scraping flesh off my hip and feeling the bone crunch, taking no heed of the pain until I was safely out of the water and the frog corpse had bobbed aimlessly away, slowly sinking back to the depths.

But, yeah, my stomach bore the brunt of all that — scraped all to hell — not my hip. It did suck, though. I’ve had nightmares about rotting fish swimming in ponds, pools and tanks ever since.

Oh, here’s a recent one! When I came into the office, I noticed a fleck of paper, a torn piece of a streamer taped to the upper right-hand corner of my door. I thought, “Odd.” I’d like to believe I’m observant and that had it been here the past 2+ years I would have noticed. Yet, it was when Jon came in and noticed it right away the very same day that I realized I wasn’t imagining things. I grabbed a chair from in front of my desk and pushed it against the door, but as I stepped up and reached to pull it off I stumbled, my left hip crashing against the silver door handle and my body bouncing off the back of the chair on my way down.

Upon regaining my composure — as if one could after such a fall — and studying the scrap of a streamer, it had at one time said ‘birthday.’ You could easily see the top of the RTHDA letters. This was even more strange because my birthday had been a few days before, but I again this year didn’t even get a birthday lunch (I would a month later), so it would be hard to believe that anyone thought enough of me to actually decorate my door, let alone to have then ripped it down prematurely.

Oh! That’s a good one! Except, of course, Jon simply reached up and snagged the scrap off the door observing that there was tape on all four corners. No chair, no climbing or falling on my part. Besides, of course, I’d already been diagnosed with this “severe” condition, so that wouldn’t fly in the least.

When my X-rays came back, my doc was shocked to the point of being shaken. The specialist shook his head and said he could not think of any explanation, “something just went wrong,” I ‘had the surgeon at the X-ray,’ or so it seemed. He squinted and said the word “severe” and did a couple of mobility tests then told me I’m completely messed up (well, yes, but what about my hip? Oh, right!).

I guess when it comes to answers, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might get what you need. And for me that means feeling whole and healthy again by next summer, despite what happened and regardless of what it takes.