Getting Back On the Bike

This May, I rode a bike for the first time in 17 years.

You might say to me, “Wow, riding a bicycle. Colour me impressed. It’s not like my four-year-old niece goes off-road extreme mountain biking and punches cougars in the face when she encounters them out in the wilderness or my 80-year-old grandma is training for her 18^th triathlon and built her own bike out of the bamboo she cut down herself during her trip to Nepal or anything. Did you bust out your fanny pack for your epic trip around the Seawall?”

Okay, yes, I realize that I am living in the epicenter of the Active Westcoast Lifestyle and everyone and their dog rides a bike here. This, however, is a big deal to me because it’s literally the only thing I can do post-hip-replacement that I couldn’t do before. (Well, I have found a few extra uses besides bike riding for my newfound ability to straddle, but let’s not go into that).

I resisted posting about this for several months because the person who taught me how the ride a bike is someone I was casually dating at the time. It’s a long-standing opinion of mine that blogging about an ex (even a casual, short-term-relationship type ex) is a one-way ticket to AwkwardTown with stops along the way at AiringYourDirtyLaundryInAWayThatWillCauseYouShameVille and TheMinuteYouMentionDatingCreepersOnTheInternetAreImaginingYouFucking-opolis.

I’ve decided to blog about learning how to ride a bike, however, because so much of Young and Hip has chronicled my disappointment with my hip replacement. I often get emails asking me if I regret it, and I worry that I am talking people out of a life-altering surgery. But even though I’m over a year post-hip-replacement (and two years since the first one), my hip still swells up like the ass of a baboon in heat if I try to do such extreme sports as…deep water aerobics. Or walking down the street. Or sitting in a chair for longer than 20 minutes. I still walk with a cane. I can never play wheelchair basketball again. If I work out for more than a couple of days a week, I’m in constant pain. Over the past year, I’ve honestly struggled with the knowledge that this is as good as my hip will ever get.

But back to the bicycling. I met D. on an online dating site. I was immediately comfortable around him, which is astounding because usually on dates I talk like a crack-addicted LOLcat (“O HAI!!”) and knock things over with my elaborate hand gestures. A few weeks after we met, I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to ride a bike. I joked about getting adult training wheels so I wouldn’t fall and bring about Total Hip Replacement 3: Rise of the Prosthetic Fractures. D offered to teach me.

I assumed that he meant that we would rent a bike by the seawall and he would attempt to catch me if I looked to be veering towards certain death. But D. surprised me by researching how to safely teach an adult how to ride a bicycle. Thanks to a few websites and several Youtube videos of old Chinese ladies becoming confident cyclists, he came up with a plan. (Is it a bad sign that one of the nicer things a man has ever done for me involved Youtube videos of old Chinese ladies?)

And so, on one of those rare Spring days when it’s sunny in Vancouver and your Seasonal Affective Disorder calls in sick, D and I went to Stanley Park armed only with the wisdom of the internet. D’s method involved me coasting down a grassy hill first with my feet touching the ground to get a feel for the movement, then again with my feet up, then finally while pedaling. And it was….really easy. Though the writer in me died a little, I had to admit that the cliché is true: you really never forget.

This was a surprise because when I tried to ride a bike several years before the hip replacement, I couldn’t get my left leg on the pedals, it nearly got caught in the chain and A. (who was holding on to both me and the bike) and I ran into a tree. This time, however, I took off riding up a hill. Wobbly, yes. Slow, absolutely. Graceful, sure as hell not. I, however, felt like Lance Fucking Armstrong winning the Tour De Fuck You Hip Replacement Because That Shit Just Happened.

D. and I took a break for lunch and then he rented a bike and we rode together around the Seawall. Because of my lack of speed and the fact that I was wobbling more than Lindsey Lohan after a rough night, cyclists kept chiming at me. At first, I mistook this for a friendly salute, as if they were saying, “Greetings and salutations fellow cycling enthusiast! May your journey be safe and free of ass-chafing!”, but D. informed me that ringing your bell is actually cyclist speak for “fuck you.” (Well chime chime to you too, Vancouver bike commuters).

Soon, however, I was coasting down hills, picking up speed and wondering how long it had been since I’d gone fast. That’s the one thing I miss about sport, and it’s something that elliptical machines can’t replace: just going balls out fast. I will spare you any clichés of feeling free – nothing’s free in Vancouver, let’s be honest – but for the first time my long recovery felt over. I was ‘better.’ Sure, it wasn’t the better I expected or wanted, but even though my hip was swollen and my back was sore and my anti-ass was like “fuck off right here and now,” it seemed like a better I could live with.

I looked at D., who was flushed from pedaling and who had gone to all this effort to teach me how to do something he didn’t even enjoy, and at Stanley Park, which was being all picture-post-cardy, and I thought: Best. Date. Ever. And that feeling continued for several more weeks….until it didn’t. And then it was over. There’s a Gloria Steinem joke here somewhere.

After the breakup, I’ll admit that I spent a day or two sulkily listening to “Blood on the Tracks,” but it doesn’t take long to get over a six-week thing with someone you only saw a couple of times a week. And it’s even easier once you realize that that the only thing shittier than a breakup is being unable to date because you’re stuck in bed post-surgery injecting yourself with bloodthinners and groggily watching some reality TV show about the joys of home renovation.

Because – watch out people! Literary Device Alert! Here comes a very subtle metaphor because I am a fancy, fancy writer! – after two years of medical limbo, I am happy to be back on the dating bike, and the social life bike, and the getting the fuck on with my life bike. (That’s a lot of bikes. What’s the metaphorical equivalent of padded bike shorts?) And even though it means accepting the notion that the cane is here to stay, I’m happy that the Great Hip Replacement Debacle is receding into a small point in the rear view mirror. It’s nice to not to catch myself starting the bulk of my stories with, “So I was at physio and an old lady said…”

So even though it didn’t lead to happily ever after, I’m glad to have a story that begins with the phrase “So I was dating this guy and he taught me how to ride a bike,” even if it ends with the phrase “yes, grandma, I’m still single. No, I’m not a lesbian.” Because several weeks after D. and I broke up, I bought myself a bike. Her name is Dorothy Mantooth and right now I only ride her around the quiet streets in my neighbourhood because cars seem like huge metal dinosaurs chasing me, though I have delusions of becoming a Serious Biker Who Wears Spandex And Refuels With Those Energy Gels.

A few weeks ago, I rode around the Seawall again. I passed a gaggle of elderly ladies stopping every few seconds to take photos of birds. I passed a tourist couple who kept announcing Vancouver’s beauty every 3.8 seconds to one another. I even passed a pair of girls who looked mildly athletic. Granted, I got my ass handed to me by several middle-aged rollerbladers, but let’s go ahead and chalk this up to a solid victory.

So if you’re in the Vancouver area and you see a very tall girl on a white bike making the Seawall her bitch, that is me, and I’m passing on the left. Chime chime, motherbitches!

And if you’re not in Vancouver and you’ve had a hip replacement and are looking for a safe way to relearn how to ride a bike without falling, here is a video of me doing so on a very good day with a guy I was dating. If you want to do a drinking game to this clip, take a shot everytime I say “yay!”

Back in the Saddle Again

I have just four words to describe my first post-surgical outing to the PNE:
Deep.
Fried.
Oreos.
Yes!

Okay, I would have to step down as the Crown Princess of Verbosity if that was my entire post, but luckily there's a lot more to say on the subject. I'm not sure what lead me to think, "Gee, I have been in bed for a month straight and have had major surgery, so I should really ease myself back in to the land of the living by going to Vancouver's largest summer fair on a long weekend along with thousands of other people who would shank your mother for the last mini-donut....for 8 hours."

Actually, that particular thought process was caused by a few key factors:
1) I'm kind of a moron when it comes to gauging my tolerance for things.
2) I heard the siren song of the funnel cake in all its deep-fried, powdered-sugary-y seductiveness. Also: the siren song of the cotton candy, the poutine, the fresh-squeezed lemonade, the donairs, and (of course) the deep-fried oreos. It was a veritable siren-song doo-wop group.
3) It was a chance to spend time with several of the friends I still have in Vancouver. Plus, sometimes you've just got to give your hip a little pat and say, "Okay, hip. You've been in the driver's seat for the past month, but now it's time to scootch over to the passenger's seat and buckle up tight because I'm about to rev the engine."

The problem with going places post-hip-replacement is not the walking, though granted that sucks quite a bit. No, the real issue is sitting. There are many different shows at the PNE (the horse jumping....the Chinese acrobats...the SuperDogs...the random guy in a booth who spray-paints a Hummer about 8 million times a day then cleans it with some special cleaning product and progressively gets more loopy as the spray paint fumes get to him) and all of these shows require sitting on hip-precaution-breaking seats. I therefore had to travel with a chaperone: my huge-ass hip replacement cushion.

I thought I was being crafty by shoving the hip-replacement cushion into a backpack. The problem: getting it in and out of the backpack was harder than squeezing my ass into skinny jeans. It was literally a two-person job. Maybe my hip-replacement cushion had also been snacking on some deep-fried oreos, because as the day progressed, it got harder and harder to wrestle it into the bag. Worse: the person who ended up helping me was Shira and Jeff's friend C., who I barely know, and whose system has not built up a tolerance to my usual level of ridiculousness. (He was, thankfully, very nice about the whole thing). Nothing like the phrase "Hi, nice to meet you. Want to spend part of your relaxing weekend help me shove an ass cushion roughly the width of your grandma's Laz-E-Boy into this backpack 8 or 10 times a day?" to really make an impression. Really good way to meet people in Vancouver.

Still, it's good to know that I'm easing my way back into the saddle (the metaphorical saddle...the literal saddle would break hip precautions). Giddyup!

Arley 3.0: Sweating With the Not-So-Oldies

Yesterday was my second day in physio and I am well on my way to becoming teacher's pet, as opposed to last time when I was basically in the hip equivalent of special ed. Someone give me a gold star! The first day, we did a few slow, gentle exercises. This time, however, it was time to get on a bullet train known as the Recovery Express. In the words of the ridiculous Home Depot ad that has been playing on my TV roughly 8 million times a day, it was time to "kick my doing dial up a notch."

I came to physio expecting to work out for 45 minutes to an hour. Ninety minutes later, I was still sweating away on this "step-fit" machine that's like a cross between an elliptical machine, a stationary bike and a stair master...if you can imagine it. I was like one of those show ponies...or a dog in an agility course (well, maybe 'agility' is the wrong word...). I'm swinging my legs in swings! I'm pulling my leg with a lever! I'm squeezing and tightening! I'm lifting and lowering! I'm doing 5 minutes on the step-fit machine! I'm doing some sort of bizarre squatting thing on the balance bars like an arthritic, polio-stricken ballerina! I'm bending over forward on the physio bed waggling my ass in the air while trying to raise my legs in a manner not befitting of a lady!

I, of course, was loving it. I was like some sort of slobbery St. Bernard let loose for a romp in the forest. I was picking up a scent and it smelled like recovery. Despite the fact that it's only been two weeks, it feels like a lifetime since I've flailed away on an elliptical machine with Jesus and Mary Chain cranked up to the point where my ears start to hum. Even five minutes on the "stair fit" felt like the "running up the stairs" scene in Rocky. (To be fair, "Eye of the Tiger" does loop almost constantly in my head, so even brushing my teeth feels like the "running up the stairs" scene in Rocky).

You might be saying to yourself, "But Arley. Aren't you pacing yourself against people who remember the Hoover Administration?" No. Incorrect. Last year, I went to physio at 8:30 a.m. and the clinic was packed full of the "6 a.m. breakfast at the Jiffy Wiffy Waffle House" set. You know, the type of elderly person for whom restaurants keep liver and onions on the menu from between 4 pm and 5:30. For whatever reason, old people like mornings, and old people who need a hip or knee replacement like morning physio appointments.

My new time is in the afternoon and the crowd is a lot younger. I mean, not "going to a Justin Bieber concert" young....or even "going to a Michael Buble concert" young...or, come to think of it, not even a "going to a Paul Anka concert and then gushing about how no one makes real music these days" young. But they're definitely younger and more spry. There were even a few people that seemed to be roughly my age. I have a lot of competition in the optimization department.

And to those of you who are pointing out that physio is actually not a competition and that there is no prize for the fastest recovery....also incorrect. If I've learned one thing from years of wheelchair basketball, it's that literally anything can be made into a competition. So the next time you're in the grocery store and you feel as if someone is staring you down, radiating the intense focus of a champion....that's me. And I will get the freshest watermelon.

Arley 3.0: Bring on the Optimization

There are few things in life more soul-blisteringly frustrating than being out-performed by an old man in slippers....especially if that man has pieces of food in his goatee...especially if his hip replacement was months after yours. After my first hip replacement, I spent six months at the out-patient physical therapy clinic at Burnaby Hospital, where I was treated to a revolving door of wizened gnome-men and shrunken old ladies in sweatpants, all of whom were literally walking circles around me. Let's just say that it's not so easy to concentrate on your "clamshell" exercises when some broad in a Bedazzled cat sweatshirt in the bed next to you is sizing you up as if to say, "You think that's a leg lift? That's really the best you've got? Compared to you, I look like I'm working the pole at Girls, Girls, Girls."

Every time I tried unsuccessfully to navigate the stairs or swing my leg in the physio sling, every other patient in the room would get a twinkle of superiority in their eye. I should have applied for federal grant money because I was doing a freaking public service by boosting the self-esteem of the elderly. You can therefore see why I was nervous about my first day at physio following the second hip replacement. It's been a rough few months: the leaving Illinois, the surgery, the hours of Home and Garden television. Could I handle the smugness of people who got their hip replacements after re-enacting that "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial?

Actually, I was excited about physio, if only because it was a chance to get out of my bed. I am not very good at the whole "taking it easy" thing. "Take it too hard to the point that you injure yourself:" that's me. "Sulking for months in bed because you go a little nuts when you're not constantly on the go:" also me. Bottom line: I don't like being still and I was ready to get this recovery show on the road.

When I arrived at Burnaby Hospital, I discovered that the out-patient physical therapy clinic had been changed into a new "Optimization Clinic." See, I'm all about the euphemisms. I don't need months of physiotherapy, I just need a little....optimization. Just tweaking! Minor alterations to allow me to be the best cyborg I could be! Just tighten those bolts and lube up those joints and I'm good to go! Physiotherapy clinic says "Spend hours out of your day watching the graying flesh on an old woman's thigh swaying in the traction slings." Optimization clinic, however, says, "Girl, you are already fabulous. Hold on to your crutches, ladies, because we're about to crank the awesomeness amps up to 11!"

And you know what? After six months of hearing "your progress is slower than the plot of an Ann Michaels novel," I was surprised to hear the phrase "you are actually...doing pretty well." I guess this is what they mean when they say that a hip replacement is a routine surgery. I mean, at 9 days post-surgery last time, I was still in the hospital. Hell, I was going downstairs backwards until about 8 weeks post-surgery.

This time, however, I was able to do nearly every exercise the physio asked me to do, and I spent most of the appointment weighing my progress against an old lady who kept exclaiming, "Bless his holy socks!" Bless his holy socks, indeed, because I was kicking ass and taking names. Move over, people, because Arley 3.0 has arrived to show you how this optimization business is done. Cyborg power!

Arley 3.0: This Won't Make The Highlight Reel

It's been over a week since the surgery and the really gross stuff is probably over. The incision is healing even though the staples aren't out; it's been nearly a week since my stomach behaved like it belonged to a sorority girl a few hours after a barn dance; and even though it still takes me 30 minutes to heroin-shuffle around the block in my workout clothes, my pain is decreasing and my nap-to-walking ratio is probably down to 2:1.

The problem is, however, that I'm settling into what is arguably the hardest part of having surgery, at least for me: the boring part. The "trying to decide between a re-run of a show that explores the complex world of Minneapolis 20-somethings trying to buy a house they can't afford and a re-run of a show that explores that complex world of a 30-something couple from Dallas trying to re-landscape their garden" part. The "being in the same position on the same bed with the same view wearing the same workout clothes for weeks at a time" part. The "having to rely on people to bring you every glass of water, spoon, or carrot stick and, when you're home alone, having to weigh whether it's better to stay hungry or drag your ass downstairs to find food that you can consume in the kitchen since you can't carry anything upstairs" part. The "having to take shuffle steps to close the door behind you in the bathroom because hip restrictions prevent you from twisting" part. The "not being able to sleep because I spend all day in bed and my so-called 'sleep hygiene' is poor" part.

Yeah, I better develop a fondness for wry British murder mysteries on PBS because I suspect that this is how it feels to be old. I know. Whiny, right? Anyhow, the point is that nothing that happens for the next 3 months will likely make it in the highlight reel when they make an action-packed movie of my life and that's a weird state to be in. I guess the good part is that at least I've gone through this once. The ass indentation in my bed in pre-indented. I am so adept at working the grabber it's like a Go-Go-Gadget arm. More importantly, however, I know that it will eventually pass. Eventually. In theory.

Ok, time to pack up the pity party. Tomorrow's my first day of physio and I need to be firing on all systems to deal with being out-run by 90-year-olds

This Cane Was Made for Walkin'

For the past week, I've been trying to come up with something to blog about that isn't whiny. It's a week until I leave Champaign (for good this time...I promise!) and my inner monologue sounds like it came from the "Emily the Strange" diary of a 16-year-old girl. In theory, I should embrace the fact that I'm moving back to Vancouver and become excited for my new life. After all, Vancouver is one of the world's most livable cities. (A. keeps reminding me of this fact, and I keep reminding him that Vancouver is only the world's most livable city if you are cultivating an ironic mustache or you have a high tolerance to sunshine-deprivation-induced depression).

The bottom line is that Vancouver is a difficult city to make friends in at the best of times, and I am worried that loneliness will turn me into one of those people who goes to the library in order to rope the librarian into a detailed conversation about their psoriasis and then spends hours reading the newspaper and remarking, "Oh my god! That's so funny! That's so interesting!" aloud in the hopes that someone (anyone!) will ask them what's so funny/interesting. After all, it's easy to make friends when you're in school. It's less easy to make friends when you're by yourself and you worry that people are judging you on your post-hip-replacement elastic shoelaces.

See what I mean? Whiny.

Today, however, I finally came up with something positive to blog about: my newfound leg strength. Because I don't have a car in Champaign, I've been walking between two and four miles a day. While this is annoying since it's hot as balls in Champaign-Urbana, it is forcing me to develop the kind of leg strength needed for post-surgical recovery. My legs have gotten seriously muscular and even my anti-ass is becoming less concave. If this keeps up, I'll have to change its name to "actual ass."

The only problem is, however, that I am notorious for over-estimating my physical abilities. When you add this to the hot, humid weather we've been having lately, my over-reaching can occasionally get me in trouble. A few days ago, for example, the tip of my cane split. No problem, I decided. I'll just walk the 1.5 miles to the medical supply place. Well, it turns out that walking 1.5 miles when it's 97 degrees and so humid you feel as if you're stuck inside someone's mouth is no easy feat. By the time I got to the medical supply place, I was drenched with sweat, completely exhausted, and so sore that I was walking like a stroke victim. I could not fathom walking back.

I swallowed my pride and called A. and asked if he had any desire to rescue a (slightly sweaty) damsel in distress. Like any good friend, A. laughed for several minutes and then agreed to bring his noble steed (a Dodge Aries) to rescue me. I was so relieved that I bought him lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant where we drank cold drinks, ate the world's worst burritos (seriously...a flour tortilla and a gray paste of ground beef do not a burrito make!) and watched World Cup soccer. It was cheaper and more fun than a taxi. Poor A. Not only does he have to watch my cat, calm my moving-related fears and occasionally do my dishes, now he has to play chauffer.

You might be saying to yourself, "Arley, there is this new-fangled invention known as 'the bus,' which will take you to places outside of your walking range on days when it is hot as balls." To you, I say: I am too impatient for the bus. (You can see why I'm such a joy to be around post-surgery). Every time I try to take the bus, I find myself waiting there thinking, "Why am I sitting here for 15 minutes waiting for the bus to show up when I can be out there walking and getting shit accomplished?" I therefore decide to start walking along the bus route in the hopes of catching the bus when it passes. Of course, I'm between bus stops when the bus passes, which means that I end up walking all the way to my destination. Also: I have a weirdo magnet and buses are recipes for "Arley getting to hear the life story of someone with a meth addiction."

Oh well. I have only a few more weeks of walking before I have surgery and will spend months taking 20 minutes to go once around the block. Sigh. I will not be emo....I will not be emo.....I will not be emo.....I will not.....

Well, At Least the Verdict Wasn't "You Need to Exercise More."

I wrote yesterday about my Rocky-esque preparations for my appointment with Dr. SecondOpinion. Well, it's a good thing I went all "Eye of the Tiger" making lists of questions and symptoms, debating what demeanor to adopt, and generally rallying my mental troops, because I have just finished running (limping) a medical marathon. Somebody put a medal over my neck and get my ass some gatorade because I am spent. After 4.5 hours inside the Diamond Pavilion at VGH, (which is new and fancy, by the way!), I can officially say that I have received enough attention from the medical community to counteract the months of silence from Dr. ___.

Going to see a well-respected, cream-of-the-crop surgeon often resembles being stuck in some role-playing video game where you have to conquer a series of obstacles/riddles/tests of physical and mental prowess in order to pass the level and be granted audience with the king. I don't mind this one bit. If Dr. SecondOpinion decided that walking over burning coals would provide an adequate assessment of my gait pattern, you can bet your burn salve that I would do it blindfolded.

I therefore happily put up with another hip X-ray, even though I have had 8.3 million hip X-rays (next stop: glowing babies!) and even though it was the X-ray tech's first time and there was a boss X-ray tech standing over her and saying, "Are you sure you want to put your label there? Are you sure you want her foot like that?" I was such a shining beacon of patience and good-humour that the boss X-ray tech even remarked that I was the ideal patient to teach someone on both because of my attitude and the fact that I'm "so skinny you can feel every single bony structure on [my] body." Flattery will get you nowhere, Boss X-ray tech! I only let people feel my bony structures after dinner and a movie.

Next stop: Dr. SecondOpinion's office, where I filled out an elaborate three-page form that I suspect no one looked at. (Which is fine, because understanding my medical history is kind of like reading "Ulysses" in that most of it is bizarre, it takes far too long to get through, and you come out more confused than when you went in, though unlike "Ulysses" my medical history does not rely heavily on scatalogical references). The problem is that there are 5 million question marks in my medical history: "so...I'm a carrier for pseudochlorinestinaese deficiency and had a really freaky locked-in thing after my second surgery, but I didn't require breathing assistance so it could have been a bad reaction to the muscle relaxant they gave me..." "Yeah, I had this excruciatingly painful back problem but was too stupid/ suspicious of doctors to go to the hospital even though my mom and a personal trainer had to load me lying down into the back of my mom's PT Cruiser as if I was a piece of plywood and when I finally got an X-ray weeks later it showed I had multiple bilateral fractures on L4 L5 but that's not typical for a 20-something and an MRI didn't show much..." It's best to not even go there.

After 40 minutes in the first waiting room, I chilled out in a fancy hospital gown for another 40 minutes when in walked Dr. SecondOpinion Lite: Dr. SecondOpinion's intern, who was responsible for doing the grunt work of listening to my complaints and preparing a primilinary diagnosis. It's a tough gig being an intern and many of them are testy and sleep-deprived and trying so hard to project an aura of doctorly arrogance that they sometimes go a little overboard. Dr. SecondOpinion Lite's expert verdict: I was fine, shit would work itself out, and the problem was clearly that I had not tried hard enough and should (and I quote) "do more exercise." Wrong answer, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite! You just got a big, old F on a pop quiz named Arley.

Just when I was thinking I was going to have to start unleashing five months of pent-up rage and frustration on poor Dr. SecondOpinion Lite, he disappeared and Dr. SecondOpinion showed up to save the day. Dr. SecondOpinion sort of has this shimmery aura of brilliance with a general's air of efficiency. The man has hip replacements down. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and say, "Quick! Name me the muscles around the hip from back to front!" and he'd be like, "You want them in alphabetical order and do you want me to throw in the nerve pathways while I'm at it?" Homeboy is good. Doesn't have much time for questions, but he's good.

And the verdict: the torn gluteus medius is indeed wreaking havoc. When he pressed on my greater trochanter, (where the medius is attached), I indeed experienced what all of the medical reports I had been reading described as "exquisite tenderness." (Translation: stop-touching-me-there-right-now-I-will-kill-you-dead-I'm-dead-serious). After examining me, Dr. SecondOpinion noted that I walk "like I have polio," which is literally exactly what I have been saying. We're simile twins!

Unfortunately, he also suspects that my hip replacement has come loose because he could see some line around the prothesis and when he cranked my leg to the side I felt pain deep in the socket. (Not "exquisite tenderness," since when Dr. SecondOpinion Lite did the same motion on my leg, the pain was not so bad and since he didn't ask if it hurt, I didn't mention it). If the prothesis is loosened, that would explain the clunking and clicking I've been feeling.

Anyhow, Dr. SecondOpinion was really thorough and really patient with the fact that I really have to concentrate when someone asks me to move a particular muscle. The theory is that I spent so many years trying to disconnect myself from my lower body because I was in pain, I now have a hard time naturally making connections. In essence, I'm body stupid. But, Dr. Second Opinion was very patient and was good at isolating particular muscles and showing me how to make the connections.

So, what is Dr. SecondOpinion going to do? Alas, he says I need to be patient while they run some tests: a blood test to rule out infection, a spinal X-ray to see if my hip flexor problem is caused by my back, some freaky-ass test where they're going to jab a needle filled with anesthetic into my hip and see what goes on (spoiler alert: I will yelp), and possibly a bone scan. Problem: all this will take time. The end result is that I will probably need surgery, but it's unlikely that I'll get it before 2010. Sigh!

At the end of the day, the good news is that someone is finally giving a flying fuck about the fact that I walk like a heroin-addled zombie. Tests will be performed! Results will be achieved! The bad news is that I have gotten served another buffet-sized helping of BePatientAndWait pie. I thanked Dr. Second Opinion and got ready to go get some blood tests and some spine X-rays. After Dr. SecondOpinion left, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite (who had been chastized when he expressed his view that I should just do more exercise, much to my smirky delight) popped his head in the door. "You didn't tell me you had pain!" he said. I noted that a) actually, I had told about the pain around my ass and scar and b) he didn't ask if it hurt me when he twisted my leg and it wasn't wince-worthy.

So, yes, I wandered off to get some blood tests and pay another friendly visit to my good buddies at the X-ray department to get my spine examined and Dr. SecondOpinion Lite sulked off, pissed that I had gotten him in trouble with his boss. Maybe if he just tried harder and did some exercise....

A Moment of Silence for my Anti-Ass

A few days ago, I wrote about how my poor anti-ass was being put through the ringer with this whole recovery business. It's been bruised, massaged, jabbed with electrified needles and today, it again got man-handled within an inch of its life. Right now, my anti-ass is probably lodging a human rights complaint with the U.N. and trying to claim refugee status in Brazil (why Brazil I don't know, but when I was there I was impressed by the sheer number of women wearing spandex shiny pants, so I suspect they are a pro-ass culture).

Today at physio, I complained to my physiotherapist that I feel as if my ass bones (the fancy name for them is "ishial tuberosity") are out of alignment and that my hip's been really sore because of it. She decided to investigate. This investigation soon found me lying on my stomach with my underwear around my ankles (for the second time in three days!) as she "palpated" the area to see what the problem was, (which, again, was not nearly as sexy as it sounds). I was just glad that there were no electrified needles involved. As I squirmed and winced, she informed me that my ass was black and blue, probably because of the vigorous ass massage I received. Also, everything in the area was severely swollen and inflamed, which was inhibiting my ability to walk. You know how I thought that all my hard work had finally allowed me to grow an ass? Yeah, not so much. It was just swelling.

I therefore spent the next 30 minutes lying on my side with my pants down around my ankles with four suction-cups suctioned on to my ass, which were hooked up to a machine that sent an electrical current into the area to calm everything down. Unfortunately, the area was so sensitive that I felt as if I was being electrocuted in a very minute way. Now, I have four red circular welts in the shape of the suction cups all over my ass, which goes nicely with the bullseye-shaped rashes there. (Yeah, disregard that last post about wanting to get back on the dating market. I think this may take awhile). What's next for my poor ass? Waterboarding?

But the disappointment did not stop there. I've been ordered to stay away from the elliptical machine, which sucks the big suck because getting back on the elliptical machine was one of the high points of my recovery. Also, my physiotherapists do not want me to go back to Illinois. If I go now, they say, I will simply learn to compensate for my lack of hip flexors and I will never walk properly. (Also, they want me to stick around to get more tests on the whole "nerve damage" business). It's a tough call. 

At least, however, I will soon have a distraction from all this soul-crushing disappointment. Today is S's rehearsal dinner, tomorrow is our spa day (no more anti-ass massages!) and then Saturday is the wedding. My hip is going to have to suck it up because we're walking down the aisle whether it likes it or not...and we're catching that bouquet even if we have to do a nose dive on the floor and cut a bitch. Because that's how we roll.

Bringing the Cake Magic

Today, another hip milestone: I am attempting my first post-surgical wedding cake. The fact that it's taken me three months to make a cake is sign of how truly laid up I've been, seeing as how I rarely go a month without a cake project. In fact, I had promised a friend of my mom's that I would make her a cake one week after my surgery. (One week post-surgery I was still hobbling around on my walker, getting dizzy if I remained upright for longer than 15 minutes and being barricaded from my bathroom in the hospital by an elderly Chinese woman, so that turned out to be just slightly optimistic). But today, I will finally reclaim my hobby if it kills me (or, more likely, if my mom kills me due to the mess I made in her kitchen).

You know those Food Network Challenges where bakers make three-foot replicas of Disney Princesses or whatever and their kitchens are always pristine because they get points for neatness? I'm not really one of those bakers. I'm one of those bakers who spills an entire box of cocoa powder then accidentally steps in it, creating brown footprints on a white carpet and severely testing the patience of her roommates. I'm one of those bakers who makes a wedding cake in a hotel room in Michigan (true story) and three hours after check-out time is frantically (along with the wedding photographer) trying to scrape frosting off the wallpaper and get cake out of the carpet. (Sorry, L!) If I don't get molten marshmallow and icing in my hair, I have obviously not been trying hard enough.

The problem is, of course, that baking requires a lot of standing. Standing is not one of my strong suits. It also requires a lot of carrying, bending, twisting, walking around with heavy objects and getting down on your hands and knees to mop shortening off the floor. None of these are my strong suites and most of them fall under the "danger" section of hip precautions. Still, I was not about to let S. and J. down by failing to produce a cake of epic proportions. I therefore rolled up my sleeves, tied back my hair, said a little prayer to the Gods of Hip Replacement, and set about bringing the cake magic. At least, I thought, I wouldn't be baking in a Michigan hotel room.

Fast forward to me, the next day, vibrating a little from the sugar buzz of sampling so much buttercream frosting, unable to get a glob of said frosting off of my foot because of hip restrictions, realizing that while I can bake, stack, level and ice cakes if I rest in between steps, I cannot clean up after myself. I just do not have the hip flexion. Responsibility fail! For that reason, my poor mom had to play Cinderella and pick up the slack, cleaning up after my sorry ass as I walked upstairs (with my feet filthy dirty) and laid down to recover. There are now little bits of cake and frosting in my bed and I'm not even done yet. I will add this to the 189,593 reasons why my mom is awesome.

So, while I finish the cake, here's a picture of one of my previous cake efforts: an entry into the Edible Book Competition last May. And, yes, I did spend the night before my thesis defense making lace out of white Airhead candies. Because that's how I roll.

Just a Friendly, Medically Sanctioned Ass Massage!

The day before S.'s wedding, everyone in the bridal party is going for fancy massages and I've signed up for some freaky lymphatic massage that is supposed to get all the toxins out of your system, since I figured I might as well start fresh before I put all the toxins back into my system with my upcoming diet of Lean Cuisine, ramen noodles and bathtub-brewed grain alcohol. Plus, who knows: it might do wonders for my skin rashes, which (in case you were losing sleep waiting for an update on my never-ending post-surgical rash war) have evolved into hives that look exactly like little bullseyes. I know. Fancy.

Today, however, I can go ahead and switch my lymphatic massage to a mani-pedi because I am already getting a free massage at physio. One of my regular physios is off on holidays. Luckily, the physio who is replacing her is very nice and is full of good ideas. It's good to have a fresh set of eyes to evaluate me. After all, I have less than two weeks to get my gait pattern looking a little less "night of the living dead"-ish before I walk down the aisle, so I will take all the help I can get.

During physio, I was complaining (as I am wont to do) about how I am nearly three months post-surgery and still cannot do a move known as "the clamshell" (I'll spare you the details), which I could do before my surgery, even though I am busting my ass (well, bruising my ass anyhow) doing three hours of rehab a day. The new physio's suspicion was that my muscles are too tight to physically perform the exercise and that they needed to be stretched and/or massaged.

First, she hung my leg off the side of the bed. Before the surgery, this move would be cause for a Grade A Ultimate Hip Freakout Spasm Dance Party and I had flashbacks of becoming stuck while getting out of my car, wedging myself in a half-prone position over the seat while trying to free myself and having to phone J.B. to come and save me. (Thanks, J.B.!) While my leg dangled over the bed, the physio reefed on my good hip to provide a better stretch, which caused me to squirm with discomfort since, according to the physio, "I have absolutely not a single ounce of padding there." The stretched worked. I got looser, but still could not do the clamshell.

Luckily(?), the physio had one more trick up her sleeve. Cut to me, a few minutes later, writhing around on the table so much that one of my socks came off, as the physio kneaded her palm, first into my thigh, but then right into the muscle on my anti-ass. Passersby slowed down to watch me squacking and flapping around as the physio gave me a vigorous ass massage, as if she was auditioning for a role on "Physios Gone Wild." (Why is it that so much of physiotherapy involves me performing moves that I usually won't do without being bought dinner and a movie first?)

Now, I have a high pain tolerance. I once allowed a doctor to inject hundreds of needles full of sugar water into the ligaments around my spine (you know, for kicks) without complaint and I put up with my hip's diva antics. In fact, the pain post-surgery has been easy to deal with (my surgeon keeps reminding me that he hammered a long metal spike into my femur, so I probably should be in more pain), most likely because my theory is that if I'm not shaking and puking, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Still, I will admit that when the physio was going to town on my anti-ass like it was a lump of bread dough and red-hot agony was radiating throughout my entire leg, I had to go to my happy place for a little bit. But, man, when she finally (finally) stopped and the pain went away, my hip felt fan-freaking-tastic. It was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood indeed.

I had to hand it to her: the medically sanctioned ass massage worked. At the end of her treatment, I could almost kind of do a quasi clamshell! Victory! Not only did I show a bit of progress in the hip-strength department, but I also can check "first post-surgical ass grab" off the list of post-hip-replacement firsts. Done and done!

The physio assures me that I can repeat the massage on myself by using a tennis ball. I know that I will be able to massage my thigh just fine, but I'm still not entirely sure how I'm going to perform a solo ass massage. So, if you come to visit and you find me up against a wall pressing a tennis ball into my ass and making groaning noises, don't judge! It's doctor's orders! Just be happy I'm not asking for volunteers.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, the ticket has been booked. On Sept. 26th, I will be returning to Illinois. That means that my hip has 18 days to get itself into the kind of shape that will tolerate my jet-setting lifestyle (and by 'jetsetting' I mean 'escaping to a place where I do not have to pay $1000 a month for the privilege of having junkies defecate on my doorstep'). My hip and I are leaving on a jet plane and we don't know when we'll be back again. Oh, babe, we hate to go.

My hip is in for a rude awakening if it thinks that life in Illinois will even vaguely resemble the high life we've been living here in British Columbia. In fact, the closest we're going to get to the high life in Urbana is Miller High Life...and that will be our fancy beer for special occasions, since we will only be able to afford PBR. (Is it a little disconcerting that I am still making a distinction between myself and my freaky cyborg hip? Does this suggest a lack of post-surgical adjustment?) 

Yes, hip, all the little luxuries will be gone. Instead of a Temperpedic king-sized mattress, we'll be sleeping on a twin Ikea mattress that cannot be put on a bedframe because it is too short and my feet hang off the end. Instead of showering our lazy ass while sitting down on a shower chair, we'll be performing tall-girl gymnastics trying to rinse off my hair in a shower that's over a foot shorter than I am, (though hopefully this will be fixed by the time I get back because my landlord rocks). Instead of sampling muscle-building protein from mom's delicious pot-roast, you'll be battling an onslaught of preservatives and sulphides as you try to glean some nutrition out of Lean Cuisine pressed chicken. And your daily chai latte: forget about it. We'll be making our own by boiling leaves and roots and stealing milk from those weird-eyed goats at the local petting zoo (okay, not really, but we will be buying chai concentrate at the store and mixing in the milk our own damn selves). Get ready, hip. Since I'm not teaching Rhet 105 anymore, I've been forced to write a syllabus for Slumming It 101....and I have only one pupil. 

And for those of you who live in Champaign-Urbana, if the tornado siren starts up in 18 days, don't worry. It's just the local authorities alerting you to the fact that Hurricane Arley is on the horizon and you should probably secure your house keys, car keys and any other hard-to-replace valuables before I lose them. And while your at it, maybe start locking your window, because I might be breaking in to watch the NBA on TV, since I won't have cable. Believe me, the last thing you want is to come home to find me hanging part-way in your window, since my freaky cyborg hip didn't have enough strength to boost me all the way through. Champaign-Urbana, brace yourself. You've been warned.

A Day of Firsts

I don't have kids, (I have enough trouble owning a cat), but I imagine that if I was a mother I would feel the need to meticulously record every milestone in my child's life: baby's first facial expression that was not gas-related; baby's first gurgle that bears a passing resemblance to human speech; baby's first time not waking up at 3 a.m. allowing mommy to get just enough sleep to prevent her from having a fatigue-induced meltdown in the produce aisle of the grocery store because they are out of organic bananas. (I can tell that I am going to be an excellent mother). Anyhow, I have a similar reaction to record every milestone with my new hip. Even the most mundane expedition becomes exciting when you are doing it for the first time post-hip-replacement. First time walking on wet linoleum! First time getting out of a boat on to a dock without assistance! First time craving something sweet since narcotics and surgery screwed up my sense of taste! It's too bad my freaky cyborg hip is not as cute as a human baby because I would have filled about 18 photo albums with pictures by now of all its many firsts.

Happily, my mini vacation to Point Roberts provided more such firsts. First time being accosted by two large dogs while going up slippery steps! First time walking along the sand and seeing what strange footprints I leave behind because I am still putting too much weight on the balls of my feet! First time sitting in low wicker chairs, on low, hard chairs, on chairs around a campfire, on pretty much every manner of chair that does not comply to my hip restrictions! First time straddling a muddy ditch to pick blackberries and using my cane to bring down the high branches! It was all very exciting.

Unhappily, my hip is not a fan of trying new things. It is a fan of me sitting on my ass in bed, eating frozen grapes and blogging about my growing unhappiness with reality TV. It therefore wasn't exactly in a party frame of mind and decided to get a little sulky. I wasn't, however, about to let my freaky cyborg hip win. Sometimes you have to say to your hip, "Ok, look. I understand that the Old Crow bourbon I am drinking tastes like paint thinner. I also understand that it makes me stumble even more than normal because my alcohol tolerance is roughly equivalent to that of a 13-year-old's since I have laid off the sauce for so long. And, yes, this chair is ridiculously low and too hard for my bony anti-ass. Still, you need to put on your big girl pants and suck it up. We are celebrating S. and A's upcoming marriage and if you think I am going to stop sitting around this campfire trying to make s'mores without a marshmallow roasting stick, then you are sorely mistaken."

This, alas, made my hip throw a full-blown tantrum. I quickly realized that I was not going to add "getting through an entire weekend without my hip pulling a diva move and spoiling the party" to my list of firsts. I ended up going home on the second night, missing out of an evening of general debauchery and a morning of bacon-and-eggs hangover breakfast. Oh well. I have two weddings to attend in the next two weeks, so I'm sure there will be ample opportunity for hijinx and mayhem. My freaky cyborg hip better take a shot of bourbon because it's going to be a wild ride.

An Open Letter to The Learning Channel (TLC)

Dear TLC,

A few months ago, I had a hip replacement. There's a special boredom that occurs after you've had major surgery. You're too woozy with narcotics to do much serious reading, but you're feeling well enough to be bored, and you therefore spend innumerable hours either counting the glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling or turning to the kind of TV that does not require you to follow any sort of plot or even know the characters' names. "The Wire" with its complex characterization and thick Baltimore accents that require subtitles will not do. Neither will "Wheel of Fortune," since that involves spelling. No, you need the kind of TV where you can doze off for 15 minutes, wake up, and say, "Yup, ok, the Duggars still have a lot of kids. Oh, look! They're bowling!" In short, TLC, I turned to you.

But now, I'm sad to say that you have let me down. Some people have criticized you for stretching the whole concept of a "learning channel." Some people say, "How is showing six-year-olds strutting around in semi-pornographic attire learning? What am I supposed to be learning: how to use spray tanning to help my infant achieve that sun-kissed glow?" But I have always stood up for you. I have even contemplated writing academic papers on your clever use of old-school carnival freakshow tactics ("The Man Whose Arms Exploded!" "The World's Heaviest Toddler!" "The Man Who Turned Into a Tree!"). "Okay, so maybe it's not learning," I've said, "but look. That couple is very tiny and they have an equally tiny dog."

Besides, I've learned a lot from you, TLC. I used to watch "A Baby Story" during my spare block in high school in the cafeteria and you taught me what an episiotomy is, which terrified me into a very chaste adolescence. You also taught me that even the most mundane daily routines can be made interesting with the right voice-over. Sometimes, while going about my business, I've learned to jazz things up a little by muttering, "But Arley McNeney's bad luck didn't stop there. One Thursday morning, she made a terrifying discovery that would change the course of her entire day and throw her into a tailspin of self-doubt and regret: someone had put water in her non-fat, no-water, extra-hot chai latte. And that someone was going to pay."

But no more, TLC! I'm done! I stuck with you through endless freak shows, the explosion of Jon and Kate's marriage, and one entire series devoted to women who didn't know they were pregnant. Over the past few months, however, I have witnessed a rapid decline, one not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire, the kind of television that makes you think, "Wow, better stock up on canned food and bottled water, because this is obviously the End of Days."

Yes, TLC, you have gone too far even for my low-brow tastes. (And I watch "My Big Redneck Wedding," so this is saying something). You have a new series entitled "Truth Be Told" and here are some of your titles: "Truth Be Told I'm Obsessed With My Pet," "Truth Be Told I'm Addicted to Plastic Surgery" and, today, the final straw "Truth Be Told I Have an Embarrassing Medical Condition." I'm sorry. An embarrassing medical condition? You're devoting an entire hour to profiling the touching struggles of someone with chronic flatulence? Or incontinence?

It used to be that you had to do something remarkable to get on TV, like carry six babies to term inside your horrifically distended uterus or make six-foot-tall replicas of important landmarks out of cake. But now, it seems like everyone and their dog can have a TLC show. Can I be on your network starring in the hit series "Truth Be Told I'm a Cyborg?" Can the elderly lady who I see at physio have a show called "Truth Be Told My Sons Don't Call As Often As I Would Like and I Can't See Pictures of My Granddaughter Because I Don't Have That Facebook Thing And Last Night We Had Potroast For Dinner?"

Seriously, this has to stop! I remember when you used to have documentaries about neandertals narrated by that sexy beast Henry Rollins! If you're not going to be educational, can you at least bother to be mildly interesting? I will not sit idly by and watch Bravo kick your ass in the entertaining-but-mindless-reality-TV business. TLC: I'm putting you on notice. Stop being the low-budget sideshow of the entertainment world. Stop stealing other network's shows and making them suck more (I'm looking at you "Cake Boss"). I have a lot more recovering to do and I'm going to need to be entertained and I demand to hear stories I couldn't hear by riding the bus.

Sincerely yours,
- Arley

Short on Long-term Goals

One great thing about having a hip replacement is that it tends to concentrate your life down into a singular focus: how to learn how to walk again. For three months, you don't think, "Gee, I wonder if I should be worried that I'm 26 years old and relentlessly unemployed and that the entire sum of my life's work so far is 'used to put a ball through a hoop. Wrote about said experience in novel form. Got a highly lucrative master's degree in creative writing. Own a cat with whom I am apparently not currently on speaking terms.'" All you think is, "Heel toe. Heel toe. Heel toe." It's a little bit zen-like.

Better yet, elderly relatives are too busy asking you about your recovery to politely inquire about what happened to that nice boy you used to "go around with," the one who was so handsome even if he did look a little bit "ethnic," and whether you plan to get serious about anyone since when they were your age, they had three children and ladies in that day and age didn't even talk to a man if they didn't consider him a worthy prospect and it's such a shame that these so-called modern women don't mind giving away the milk for free. For three months post-surgery, no one is trying to set you up with their cousin's friend's brother. No one asks you what you plan on "doing" with that degree of yours. No one wonders aloud if they're ever going to be a grandparent. All anyone's concerned about is whether you'll be able to walk again.

Having a hip replacement is also a lovely excuse for procrastination. After all, they tell you in the little hip-replacement handbook that you shouldn't work for at least six weeks. And no employer is going to want someone who has to go to physio for hours on end. And it's probably best not to go on a date when you have to bring along a four-inch foam cushion, a grabber, and handout of acceptable post-surgical sex positions. Everything is very simple. Rehab. More rehab. Reality TV. Have your mom bring you a sandwich and some frozen grapes and maybe some fizzy water with a splash of orange juice but not too much because citrus fruits make your hives worse.

Well, I'm walking a great deal better than I was before, the pity party is over and it's time to start spinning the wheel in the Game of Life. Since March, I've managed to retire from competitive sport, graduate from grad school, and get a hip replacement. I am post-retirement, post-grad and post-surgical. The problem is that now that most of the things that were keeping me occupied have now disappeared, I need fewer "posts" and more "pre"s and "peri"s. In short, I need to take a page out of Stalin or Mao's handbook and get myself a Five Year Plan (without, you know, murdering any bourgeois parasites or erecting a home-made steel mill in my backyard).

The problem is, however, that my long-term goals are listed below:

• Drink whiskey with Dan Bejar of Destroyer/Swan Lake/New Pornographers fame and somehow be super-cool and suave while doing so as opposed to, say, fainting or blubbering that I like totally think he's awesome and love his music.
• Write pretty words and have people pay me for doing so.
• Live in a place where I can ride my bike to go grocery shopping. (Granted, I cannot yet ride a bike and do not own one, but this is why it's a long-term goal).
• Meet Michael Ondaatje and somehow be super-cool and suave while doing so as opposed to, say, fainting or blubbering that I totally think he's awesome and love his writing and want to have his babies and have considered getting some of his poetry tattooed on my hip and that he is my imaginary literary boyfriend.
• Do a triathalon, except I had to strike this from the list because if i run I'll end up finding my ass back in an operating room.
• Keep on rocking in the free world.
• Keep on keeping on.
• Don't stop believing.
• Hold on to that fee-eeeling.
• Streetlight! People! It goes on and on and on and on
• Get a job that will prevent me from starving/freezing to death but which will also allow me time to write. Right now, that job seems to be "have Oprah feature my novel on her show, which will allow me to get a million dollars in royalties and retire to Berkeley where I can ride my bicycle to cute organic markets and raise babies."

So, apparently half of those goals are not actually goals but Journey lyrics, so this could be a problem. Anyone know Oprah's phone number?

Walk Like You Inject Heroin into the Webbing Between Your Toes

For whatever reason, my body has still not figured out what to do with this new hip. Before the surgery, I had a limp that was usually pretty minor: the limp of a war hero with some shrapnel in his leg, or a firefighter whose knees got arthritis after years of carrying people out of burning buildings. I looked as if I earned my limp by sacrificing myself for some noble cause. Perhaps this is why, when people on the street used to ask me what was "wrong with me," I used to look away and murmur, "I don't want to talk about it. All that matters is that the orphans survived." (I also used to tell the "put a hand on your shoulder and say, fighting back tears, that I'm so brave to be out in public trying to live a normal life" types that I have leprosy, but that is another story).

Since the surgery, however, I walk like a crackhead. Those of you who have never driven down Hastings Street after dark may not be aware of the crackhead walk, which is found in people who inject drugs into their feet. It's a sort of half-stumbling, tip-toed, keep-the-head-down-in-case-you-see-a-crack-rock-on-the-sidewalk, swaying gait and it's exactly what I look like when I'm setting off for my daily stroll. (The rashes do not help matters).

Yesterday, however, my physiotherapist tried to change that. She tried to get me to remember how normal people walk so that I would not spend the rest of my days having passersby think I'm about to break into their car and steal their stereo (though, given that I'm unemployed....) There's something inherently strange about re-learning a skill that young children figure out on their own. When I walk past children in strollers, I can almost see them thinking, "Dude. It's not hard. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Shove an animal cracker in your mouth, pick up your sippy cup of apple juice and get with the program, lady." Well, screw you, toddlers of America and Canada! I don't have the advantage of weighing, like, 15 pounds, being low to the ground, and being rewarded with Cheerios every time I take a step.

It was therefore a strange process to spend 30 minutes trying to figure out when to lift my heel and when to press down with my toe. Worse, no matter how often my physio said, "Heel TOE. No, heel THEN toe. Heel toe," I could not manage it. I felt like I was in the first 20 minutes of one of those movies about an impoverished but plucky dancer who gets accepted into a prestigious dance academy but almost cracks under the strain of the strict dance teacher and the overwhelming pressure to succeed until a handsome male dancer with a tragic past who rides a motorcycle in his spare time teaches her the meaning of love and renews her passion for dance. Except, instead of auditioning for a solo in the world's best ballet company, I was trying to learn how not to scare young children when I walk down the street. And there was no handsome, tragic, motorcycle-riding male dancer.

After a great deal of work, however, I am happy to debut a walk that, while incredibly unnatural-looking and slow, is closer to a normal gait pattern. I walk perfectly straightbacked, eyes ahead, my legs making an incredible exaggeration of the whole "heel-toe" business. Instead of looking like Amy Winehouse after a bad night, I look like someone's impeccably well-dressed but alcoholic Great Uncle Maxwell trying to convince everyone at Christmas Eve dinner that he's only had a few and he's fine to drive.

Hopefully, however, my walk will become more natural as the weeks go by and I'll be able to again walk in a way that makes people say, "Look at that girl with the cane. I wonder if she pulled kittens from a house fire with no thought to her own personal safety." Or, better yet, hopefully I will one day walk so smoothly that I will get rid of the cane and I will blend in with a crowd and pass by completely unnoticed. Stealth mode!

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Low-Grade Muscle Relaxants

Ladies of Vancouver, we need to talk. I have just come from watching the Vancouver Canadians play the Tri-City Dusters (I can't keep track of whether they're single A or double A, but they played like a Rhet 105 A- [read: C+]) and quite a few of you ladies need a lesson in Single A Baseball Date Etiquette.

I realize the irony of this, seeing as how I was hanging with my parents on a Saturday night and they were on a date. Also, the whole "going on dates" thing: not my forte. Given that one of the last true dates I was on (as opposed to "let's hang out and I'll spend the next 4 hours rehashing every innuendo and eyebrow wiggle trying to determine whether it was, in fact, a date") involved a guy who forgot his wallet but remembered to bring some porn, then got mad at me when I called it porn since it was apparently "erotic art" (true story).....let's just say that I'm in no position to be giving advice.

But I do know this: when you go to a baseball game, you need to check your sequins at the door. Also, your stilettos, short-short overalls, leopard-print tights, and those decorative scarves. At the club: fine. When you're at a venue where your sole job is to shove beer and fried dough rolled in sugar in your face: no. Incorrect. And this brings me to food. Nat Bailey Stadium not only features the usual hot dog, hamburger, cotton candy deliciousness, but also brown rice vegetable sushi. Wrong. Fail. What is the purpose of going to a Single A baseball game (because it sure as hell isn't the baseball) if you're not going to sweat onions and nitrates out of your pores for weeks to come? If you don't plan to pump yourself full of salt, beer, sugar and fat, then you need to stay home doing Wii Yoga. (You can expect a "why don't my skinny jeans fit?" rant in 5...4...3...2...)

Rant aside, the game was pretty fun. I like doing the wave, dancing the Chicken Dance during the middle of the sixth (Note to S: you better have the Chicken Dance at your wedding), and watching men dressed up as pieces of sushi race around the diamond (it's a Vancouver thing). What I don't like, however, are the seats. One of the reasons I chose to go to the baseball game was to practice sitting, since I'm going to be on an airplane soon. The math, however, just doesn't add up: hard, low metal seats + no leg room + long legs + knobby spine that gets bruised if you don't sit on something double or triple padded = leaving at the bottom of the sixth. (Although my mom was right when she pointed out that a baseball is the only place you can lug around a heavy cushion without drawing stares). It wasn't long before I was sitting sideways to avoid a bruised back, which caused muscle spasms all up my back, which caused me to O.D. on mini donuts, though, ok, I would have done that anyways.

I, however, will do pretty much anything for mini donuts, so it was worth it. I have learned a valuable lesson for the airplane: bring a dazzling array of painkillers. And maybe some of those little Sour Patch Kids things.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do (At a Farmer's Market) Again

Sometimes, when you're spending your days shuffling around your neighbourhood and trying to navigate your gimpy leg around the used condoms, needles and dog-shit obstacle course that is downtown Vancouver, it's hard to feel like you're making any progress. You begin to think, "Will I always have to shut the car door by kicking my good leg at it until I finally hook my heel on the handle and pull it in? Will I ever be able to wipe that satisfied smirk off the face of Grandpa McGramperson with his speedy new knee?" But today, I can provide you with photographic evidence that I am, in fact, making progress.

When you first have a hip replacement, the recovery exercises are something along the lines of "squeeze your knees. No, your KNEES. No, contract the muscle...The muscle on your KNEES." Then, you graduate to various pelvic thrusts and leg lifts and all the old guys in physio become your best friend. Finally, however, they pull out the toys. I know that I am cooking with gas now because I have graduated to doing mildly embarrassing things with oversized exercise balls.

I call this pose the Reverse-Sisyphus (I'm pulling out the allusions to Greek myths today to compensate for the 8.3 million times I've talked about my ass since this blog has started). I really do feel like Sisyphus, except instead of a hill, it's a wall and instead of a rock, it's a shockingly orange exercise ball, and instead of rolling it up a hill, I'm pushing it with my ass, and instead of eternity, it's just one set of 15 three times a day. (This metaphor is not perfect). And, look. You can see my little calf muscle trying to hold up the weight of my anti-ass...look at the poor little guy working so hard, giving it the old college try. You can almost hear it humming "Eye of the Tiger." Verdict: progress.

Since having the hip replacement, I've been complaining about not feeling sexy. Want to know one thing you should not do when you're feeling a little deficient in the "put my rocking body on the cover of Cosmo magazine because I am the official poster-child for sex appeal" department? Weigh yourself at a Farmer's Market. Remember this. Farmer's Markets are for buying carrots, mercilessly judging the handiwork of the local craftspeople and trying to determine whether the clown making balloon animals is a tranny. Not for weighing. But scales are kind of like meth to me (not even once!), to the point that I can't keep them in the house, so I couldn't resist. Worse, it was one of the fancy scales that supposedly tells you your body fat composition, though not so fancy that it measures this by any objective standard (it asks you to input your activity level, then makes a ballpark estimate). The good news: I'm the lowest weight I've been since I was, like, 15. The bad news: I am apparently 35% body fat, which puts me into the "significantly overweight" department. No wonder I float so well. This caused me to make a big fuss loudly protesting to anyone within earshot that I'm a size 6, dammit, and I'm six foot two and more than one person has referred to me as "gaunt" in the past few weeks and one of those was a medical professional, so that scale better stop taking lessons from "Make Me a Supermodel" and eat a cupcake.

But worry not. Today I am again rocking the sexy. Today, I finally grabber-ed my way into my skinny jeans. And not just my normal skinny jeans. I fit into ultra-skinny ones, the ones I used to have to do a special "skinny jeans dance"to put on, wiggling my hips and flinging myself around like a dying salmon on my bed, cursing myself for having such puffy knees. Thank you post-surgical atrophy! I guess a couple months of partial paralysis has some positive side-effects. Is the fact that I view the fact that I can now pass as a hipster as the ultimate sign of medical progress mind-blowingly vain? Yes. Does it give me the motivation to keep thrusting my ass into an exercise ball for what seems like forever? Abso-f*cking-lutely. Now if only the rashes would go away.

I Believe I Can Fly! And Drive. And Get Deported.

Watch your rearview mirror Vancouverites, because the Arleymobile is coming for you at 120 km/hour with the Bob Dylan a'blasting and the disabled parking permit a'swinging merrily in the breeze. Yup, after 7.5 weeks of feeling like a teenager (and an old lady, simultaneously), I'm back in the driving saddle. You might also want to come an extra 30 minutes early at Vancouver International Airport, because I've also been cleared to fly and you can bet your $15 airport sandwich that I will be holding up the entire security line having the old "Even though I'm only 26, I had a hip replacement; no I'm not smuggling weapons under my skin and that comment about having a cyborg hip that shoots lasers was just a joke and please don't take me behind the curtain for a friendly game of Spot the Surgery Scar" conversation.

Today, I visited my surgeon and the results were good. While the muscles around my hip are still inexplicably weak, I've been cleared to do pretty much everything. Driving! Flying! Elliptical Machine-ing! Sitting on Low Toilets! Lurking Around the Greater Vancouver Area Groveling for Employment! Stalking the Cast of "Supernatural," Which is Filming At My House Next Week! That's right, I can pretty much do anything that doesn't involve jumping up and down, (which will sadly cut down on my jumping-jack, heel-knee-toe-kick-kick, grapevine combo mastery at my mom's aerobic classes). Still, it's a good feeling to be free of the slings and arrows of outrageous hip restrictions. Now if only I had enough muscle to go down the stairs without hitting my heel on every step. (Baby steps, people).

But all the news was not good. I didn't get an adjuncting job at the University of Illinois and it looks like America is, indeed, hell-bent on breaking up with me. And, truth be told, the prospect of losing the support network of all the friends who have helped me through an incredibly rough three years (Super-mono! Hip subluxations! The end of my wheelchair-basketball career! Throwing away 250 pages of a novel!) does feel like the worst breakup ever. Plus, I have grown attached to midwestern living, where the rents are cheap, the beer is cheap and there are bars where you can eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor; (this, to me, is a classy night out). Since I did my undergrad degree in Victoria, I have only lived in Vancouver for one year in the past nine years. And how did I spend that year? Going to concerts by myself and getting hit on by men whose claim to fame was being the go-to S&M practioner every time the show "Kink" filmed in Vancouver (true story). Living in Vancouver is a little like dating Paris Hilton: it's pretty, sure, but you'll pay heavily to support the lifestyle and you find yourself longing for a half-decent conversation. (Granted, I do know a few wonderful people in Vancouver, but this is small compared to the many people I know in Urbana and Vancouver is a notoriously hard city to meet new people in).

But America has underestimated my ability to cling. I have about a year's income saved up (thanks Athlete's Assistance Plan and an isolated midwestern college town where I can't spend money on clothes!). In theory, I could spend a year in Champaign writing and applying for fellowships/ grad school, maybe working at an unpaid internship to maintain my visa status. So what will it be? A year of busting my ass to start a new life in Vancouver? A year of avoiding the fact that I have no recognisable job skills and blowing through my house fund? I'll let you know when/ if I ever figure it out.

Just another moment in my glamorous life

I have spent the past 15 minutes trying to figure out whether the creatures swinging from branch to branch in the tree outside my window are baby squirrels or some crazy brand of tree rat. On the positive side, they have tails that could be described as "fuzzy" and are going to town on the unripe walnuts in the trees in a distinctly squirrel-like fashion. On the "rat" side, they are missing large patches of fur and have weird beady little eyes and we have suffered tree rat infestations in the past, since our cats are ridiculously useless in the "doing their job" department, catching only one single rat, which had already been caught in a trap, and then putting great effort into bringing said rat upstairs still in the trap (crowing with pride all the while and strutting around) and dismantling it in our hall.

The amount of mental energy I am expending on this important issue suggests that it might be time to dust off the old resume and look for employment. My plan was to spend another year in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where I went to grad school, and teach various forms of writing. Since school starts in about two weeks and I haven't heard, however, I'm guessing that I'm going to get my little Canadian ass put on the first bus back to Vancouver.

And, so, I am taking stock of my employment options. Alas, "MFA in Creative Writing" does not necessarily translate into "give me a corner office and stock options." I'm beginning to see the flaws in my previous life plan, which was to have Oprah feature my first novel on her show and get me a million dollars in royalties, which I would use to purchase a house in Berkeley and spend the rest of my life selecting the perfect organic carrots from the farmer's market and raising babies. (Come on, Oprah! What do you have against quadriplegic sex scenes? Let's go!). Alas, the royalities from "Post" have so far topped out at around $800, which is hardly keeping me in the lifestyle I've grown accustomed to and would barely support my chai-latte habit.

Here is the problem. I am still having trouble with the whole "sitting down and standing up" business. This means that traditional jobs open to MFA grads (read: Starbucks) are off-limits to me. I am therefore on the hunt for a job that doesn't require me to sit for long periods of time, stand for long periods of time, or come home smelling of grease and ketchup. Ideas? Suggestions? Offers of marriage to a wealthy (but handsome and intelligent) man? What sort of jobs are hip-replacement friendly?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation Pt 2.

Thank God I didn't get my hip replacement done in winter. Putting aside the whole "how do you put on long underwear without having your grabber pack its bag and quit you?" issue, having a hip replacement in the winter would mean that you'd have to do your rehab walking indoors to avoid falling on slippery sidewalks/ snow. That would mean that you'd be logging major miles in your local mall. Since it was rainy today, I got a little taste of what most people who have hip replacements must experience: I went mall walking.

New Westminster is a mall graveyard. Various malls have tried to conquer the Royal City and every one has failed. Metrotown is but a Skytrain-ride away and Vancouver is not that much further, meaning that few people choose to shop in the city. Visiting Royal City Centre is therefore a unique shopping experience. It is filled with clothing stores that seem to simultaneously cater to old people and day-shift hookers. You will therefore see gold sequinned halter tops sharing rack space with floor-length floral mu-mus. There's something for everyone, from the "retiree heading down to Miami for the winter to hook herself a rich hottie" crowd to the "You know I am filled with rage because I wear sarcastic slogans on my T-shirt" set. Velour tracksuits with jeweled pockets abound, as do sweatshirts that proclaim that it's "Party time!" in sequinned letters. If you have spent sleepless night fretting that the Bedazzler does not get the respect it deserves in the fashion industry, then Royal City Center is the place for you.

As it turns out, many other people had the same goal as me. My mom and I did laps around the mall using various elderly people as pace cars. I am finally proud to report that I passed one or two of them and I hope to soon best some of the sportier old people at physio (dignity win!). My God, though. There's nothing worse than being in a decaying mall on a Monday afternoon. There's the lady selling adult bibs and tea-cozies patterned with roosters and kittens, the owner of "Sweater Collection" (a store that apparently sells the same style of sweater in various colours and somehow has managed to stay in business without being a front for a drug operation...I think) pacing around her store pretending to be a customer, the ancient couples sitting on benches not looking at one another for hours. It's enough to make you reach for the Prozac bottle.

So even though I've complained about watching summer go by through my window, you will not catch me complaining about the heat. And so, (since I'm still keeping up the pretense of trying to be useful), this is my suggestion of the day: schedule your surgery for a time when the weather will not force you to spend hours browsing through stores that apparently sell only fairy merchandise, trying to avoid the over-eager owner intent on selling you something --anything-- so she won't go bankrupt.