Signed, sealed & delivered

total hip replacement surgery beautywalk Sandra Butel healing Sacred Engagement Saint Marys self-compassion Kristin Neff Neuroscience slowing down healing recovery — *Reflections on recovery or PS I love you* Photo by Sandra Butel

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.

beautywalk is my attempt to slow down enough to really see the beauty that is all around and within us all.

Reflections on recovery

The first 3 weeks of my hip replacement surgery journey

Here I am sitting on my couch, legs propped up on the matching footstool, fingers doing a passable job of hunting and pecking, heart and mind hoping that some flow will come to bring forth the story of what I have been living over the last 3 weeks of my hip replacement journey. I am toying around with what details to share, taking notes from surgery day onwards, through the first walk up the 16 stairs to our 2nd floor apartment and I even pause briefly in my daily practices to consider the idea of writing a whole book about my experience. But then the fatigue of mid afternoon kicks in and it is all I can do to keep my eyes open, the idea of even writing a regular length blog seems a far away impossibility.

For anyone keeping track I have skipped a week or two in my blog writing journey, choosing instead to focus my more limited energy on only those things that have survived the trimming of my todo list. This is for me part of accepting that my energy is just not what it used to be and finding a way to be okay with the reality of things being just exactly as they are.

How is the recovery coming?
What have I learned so far?
Did things that I worried about come to pass?
Did my preparations make a difference?

The Surgery

Let’s start at the beginning and the very surprising and not altogether unpleasant experience that is the surgery itself. After scrubbing myself with the disinfectant sponge in what will be my last shower for the next 10 days, I jump in an Uber at 6 am to make my way to Saint Mary’s hospital for the day. What starts with a blood test ends with me lying on my back in what will be the recovery room post surgery where nurses and other patients reassure me, even without me asking, that everything will turn out okay. I am not sure what my face is saying that my brain isn’t aware of but there does seem to be the sense that I need a pep talk with which to send me on my way. A handful of pills do the trick and whatever sense of foreboding my tensed up forehead has been showing is soon replaced by a laissez faire, whatever happens, happens - kind of feeling in its wake.

There is a nurse named Peach and an anesthesiologist named Pina (Pineapple in Spanish) and my surgeon’s first initial also happens to be P. How funny it is to see it noted there in the PS that he draws in black sharpie on my right foot as a caution along with what I guess jokingly (and correctly) is a smiley face emoji. There are smiles from kind eyes who check in on me often to see how I am doing. I get the clear sense that I am in very good hands and that the hearts that surround me are there for my safekeeping. There is a flow in the many different rooms I am in at Saint Mary’s hospital, and I am pleasantly surprised by the good humoured chatting that accompanies the dance performance to my audience of one for yet another surgery filled Thursday.

The day passes quickly. I make a friend in recovery when the physical therapist decides to prop us up side by side in chairs after my second bout of vasovagal (fainting) has me almost ending up on the floor. A deep connective conversation follows about travel and discovery and loves we have lost and all the life that we each have to look forward to in the future. What a blessing it is to be shown such care, to be in the presence of people who see their jobs as more than just a way to make a living.

Imagine that

As my friend says a few days later, a hint of a smile on his face, “Imagine that. The surgeon and the medical team were actually good at their jobs and able to take on the responsibility of taking care of business in that way. They didn’t need your help at all.” As one of the leaders of the Sacred Engagement course I am taking, he has become pretty masterful at the practice of what he and his co-creator of the course call “perception checking”; taking the mishmash of the words that are spoken and repeating them back to the speaker, complete with kindness and insight. I was speaking to him about my surgery experience and how much I had worked on imagining all that could go wrong and how little I had considered all that could go right.

Wrestling a giant

The next few days are a bit of a blur with the mix of all the medicines that they have me on. Getting up after peeing is harder than I thought it would be and it isn’t until I put aside my false pride and allow Francis to purchase the raised toilet seat that my dizziness subsides.

What a trip it is to be human.

My ego is there like an unruly giant insisting that I don’t need the equipment that others have needed. During the weeks leading up to the surgery, I resist accepting the reality of how much assistance I might be needing post surgery. I feel a flush of shame at the thought of needing a walker, a raised toilet seat, and a cane and I put off their purchase for as long as I am able.

Holy shit

This brings us to the shitty part of my story. Literally.

Let’s just say that I want to make very sure that anyone reading this knows that opioids are known to cause severe constipation and that laxatives are a must and not something to be ‘taken if needed’. I could go into much more detail here having been made comfortable with human bodily functions at an early age with nicknames from my brothers of Butz (cause I went butz in my diaper) and Fart (for obvious reasons) but I will spare you the most graphic of details. The positive ending to this very painful part of my story is that I have the biggest shit of my life and as I am standing there with a wow on my face of epic proportions I cannot help but insist that my partner come to be a witness to what I have created. The holiest of Holy Shits it ends up being and I am not even kidding about that even a little bit.

Give peas a chance

Anyways, the rest of the first week passes quite quickly. My days are filled with counting out 5 second holds of 10 reps of 15 exercises that have been prescribed for 2 to 3 times per day. I am happy to report that I finally found a use for frozen peas, which to me have never been acceptable as food, but certainly work well as a way to bring down swelling in a wound. The physiotherapist makes sure to let me know that I am not to eat them after and I assure her that there is absolutely no danger of that. I drop the opioids as soon as I am able, moving on to Tylenol and an anti-inflammatory as I really don’t like how the stronger drugs make me feel in my head, never mind what they do to my digestive system.

The slowdown

It’s only when I enter into my second week post surgery that something strange and delightful starts to happen. I am not sure exactly how to describe it but it happens all the same. After a particularly hard day of frustration at all the things I can’t do for myself anymore and a tearful conversation with a friend something shifts in me.

Perhaps it is her words of care and wisdom and her declaration in some kind of words that I don’t exactly remember but that go something like, “You are on a spiritual journey Sandra. Your body has things to tell you, things that are escaping now that a scalpel has cut through the thickness of your skin.” I remember how many times I have read that the body holds our emotions; that memories get stuck there inside and that there are times in our life when they feel safe to let themselves be known. I wipe my tears and wonder if she is right.

Could this post surgery recovery be about more than the healing of muscles and sinew and skin?

A spoonful

Or perhaps it is a conversation with one of my sisters in law and the concept of having only a certain amount of spoonfuls of energy while in recovery, that brings me from a place of fighting against reality to letting it sink fully in? The spoon theory, coined in 2003 by Christine Miserandino, is a metaphor for how people manage limited energy when suffering from chronic illness with the energy being measured in spoonfuls. I have started to notice how tired I am feeling and the spoon analogy helps me to admit to myself that I have less energy to expend. I make a commitment to being more intentional about deciding just exactly how I am going to spend it. I can hear my Mother’s voice singing softly in my ear, her best attempt at Mary Poppins cheerfulness making my cheeks dimple, “Just a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down,” and vow to be sweet with myself as I figure my new equilibrium out.

Sacredly engaged

Maybe it is the work I am doing in my Sacred Engagement Course that includes daily meditations and exercises and weekly conversations with two other women that offer space for truly being heard? A video by Kristin Neff, an associate professor and well recognized expert on self compassion brings me some new insight into how the brain works that further shifts my understanding. When upsetting things happen to us our brains respond with a different system (sympathetic - fight, flight, freeze response) than when the same types of things happen to someone else (parasympathetic - tend and befriend or rest and digest response kicks in). It is not that we are poor at caring for ourselves, it is that the brain's response when stuff happens to us that we don’t much like is to automatically shift into judgment and criticism. This reaction is designed by our unskillful but well meaning brain that really wants to keep us safe but just doesn’t know how to do it all that well.

Knowing this allows me to leave more room for my brain’s insistence on seeing the glass as ½ empty. I can pause, put a hand on my heart, take a few deep breaths, and say things like, “There, there honey. It’s okay. In spite of what the brain is telling you, everything is actually a-okay in this particular moment.” I can offer myself the self-compassion that is so essential to accepting what is in the moment, whether it is coming from the external world or from the rich and often frightening world inside my head.

The brain and me: BFFs

Maybe it is the new book I am reading that has inspired me to take long notes even when my energy is waning. “How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend,” is an appropriate title for neuroscientist Rachel Barr’s creation and I am finding the suggested practices both inspiring and supportive. This is a reminder for me of getting back to basics. To take the time to prioritize things like sleep, delight, creativity, connecting with others, moving my body, limiting unhelpful distractions, and being intentional about what kind of things I feed my brain and how often.

The savouring of slowness

Whatever the reason(s) I soon find myself embracing the quiet rich sense of delight and self-compassion that I discover when I let go and slow down. I start with the aforementioned clean up of my todo list, doing a brutal slash and burn that leaves me with just the basics: meditation, morning pages, exercises, reading, connecting with others, Sacred Engagement course and pill taking that I track daily in a notebook that I take the time (and delight) to decorate with tiny coloured sticky notes and 5 different colours of highlighter pens. I commit myself to spending as much time outside each day as I can, reasoning that the sunshine will serve me well when I lay my head down to sleep. I move my office out into the living room, reserving my sleeping space for the healing power of zzzs. I say no to whatever I can say no to, admitting to myself and others that I can handle far less than usual. This makes me open to savouring the few experiences I have each day even more. I spend the last moments of everyday reminding myself of all the things I have accomplished; things that truly matter like the list of brain supportive actions listed above.

One day as I sit on the front balcony, my latest book beside me, I decide to take a break from reading for a session of “What’s in Motion,” a careful and slow noticing of the signs of nature’s movement visible to me from the confines of my newly restrained field of vision. How delighted I am to notice when a fly lands on my arm, taking in the intricacy of the v at the end of each one of its feet and the detailed complexity of its ‘larger than seems normal’ eyes. A stillness comes over me in that moment, one that I will have the pleasure of reliving many times more; remembering who I really am, and taking the time to really notice the beauty of the world around me. Less is more they sometimes say and in this case I believe it.

I am taking great delight in my smaller than usual life, the surprise result of the pausing of the busy pace I have been leading. As my mobility has been reduced, I have come to find a beauty and a richness waiting quietly within, its patience finally rewarded as I take its offering in.

All the science tells us that our brains are much better trained to spot the dangers than they are to imagine what joy and peace and calm may come when we make a decision that will forever change us. I planned for all the possible struggles I might face, never once considering what a gift this time post surgery would end up offering to me instead. How wonderful it is to be so pleasantly surprised by the deep presence my recovery from hip replacement surgery has brought. How lucky I feel to have been blessed with the time and space and presence of mind to fully immerse myself in its enjoyment.

This is Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?

What can you strike off your todo list to give yourself more time for rest and recovery?

What beauty can you see in your immediate surroundings?

What words of support and self-compassion do you most need to say to yourself as you hold your heart in your own steady hand?

Resources for Further Study and Personal Growth

There are links throughout the article of the various resources that I have found helpful in my recovery journey. These include: Sacred Engagement, Kristin Neff’s video, How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend, Spoon Theory. I am listing them here again for your convenience.
I took a break for a few weeks to recover but am back now for a limited number of coaching sessions per week. Hit me up if you want to delve into your own need for rest and recovery and we will figure out how you might tend and befriend yourself more each day. For a free consultation with me all you have to do is book yourself into my calendar.‍ ‍

If you have a surgery coming up I am more than willing to coach you through the pre work (and worry) and the recovery process. You can book into my calendar or reach out to me over email. The first session is free to see if we would work well together.

In addition to my almost 58 years of life experience (my birthday is coming up on Sunday, May 24!), I have my Professional Coach Certification (PCC) from the International Coaching Federation and over 500 hours of experience working with clients who all tell me that their time with me has been an invaluable part of making the changes that they most needed to make..
If you are interested in trying out petsitting yourself you can use this link to get 25% of your membership.

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