I am 8 days post-op and to my surprise, the severe pain that lasted weeks after my last surgery is already gone. I stopped all narcotic and prescription pain medications today and am only taking Tylenol for the more manageable pains and aches. I don’t have any idea why the pain is so much less severe this time around.

Pain is really kinda great for someone like me because it’s my protection. My natural instinct is to push until I break — either do everything or do nothing. I feel guilty if I don’t throw myself into things 110%. Throughout my hip drama, pain has been a fluctuating roadblock – a limit to my activity and energy that can literally stop me in my tracks and knock me flat on my ass. It’s not always in the same place and can change from day to minute. Pain has stopped me from doing more than I could or should have done; unlike every other barrier I try to artificially manufacture for myself, I have no control over pain. I listen to it and I abide.

This recovery, without the pain I feel rudderless. I know that my body needs to heal A LOT more before I start trying to get back to a normal routine, that I need to rest all the time because I just went through really major surgery. I should be sleeping constantly, taking large doses of meds and yes, I should hurt. But this time my body just doesn’t hurt so much. I’m missing the limit that tells me to stop, so I don’t. I can’t seem to justify a need to sit on the couch and get better, as much as I genuinely wish I could. I sleep a normal amount each night and I wheel myself most of the way to the Target (which was exhausting but didn’t hurt) and I try to tidy up around the house. In other words, I fail to take care of myself because pain isn’t there to remind me.

And so I feel agitated and sad and exhausted and crappy almost all of the things you normally feel like when you’re 8 days post major surgery. But I also feel guilty because I can’t blame the pain for preventing me from getting back to my life. I’m really struggling with this and it’s upsetting me a great deal. I expected to feel terrible – after all, someone sliced me open, broke and shaved bone, took my leg out of the socket, and on and on. I didn’t expect to feel ok (or the feelings that are going along with it).

I don’t know. It’s late and I’m tired. I have no insight or solution. And I don’t have to because this is a blog and I say so. Hey, I’m allowed to be difficult and irrational darn it – I am recovering from surgery, after all.