Marking time: Six months since surgery

It’s been six months since doctors rearranged my skeleton. They cracked the bones along my deteriorating right hip in three places to stop the chronic pain that had robbed me of so much life over the previous seven years. Then they sewed a foot-long scar into my skin and told me to wait.

So I waited. Impatiently, but I waited. Did everything the doctors and therapists said. Advocated for myself. Pushed myself. Rejected narcotic addiction. Cried. Healed.

Six months ago, I couldn’t walk.

Five mont...