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The push is on to make 2026 the new 2016. Just in case you were wondering what yr Auntie over here was doing in 2016, I was working a “cool media job” in a midsized Midwestern US city known both for for its microbrewery, and arts culture. After work was small venue concerts, and art museum exhibition openings, and penthouse keggers with the city’s intelligentsia. I was the Queen of the Hipsters, you guys. I lived the whole scene life. 2016 was also the year I was formally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Fifteen years after my first flare, but that’s a pretty standard wait for diagnosis, especially since I was pre-ACA and went six years between aging off my dad’s insurance, and getting my own. Like I said, I have been uninsured before, I know what to expect coming up. As for what I looked Iike? This is the actual professional headshot I used at the time, for my “cool media job.” Photo by Johnny Quirin, who had to stop laughing at the sweater long enough to take the picture. I do still have the sweater. And the pearls, for that matter. I believe 2016 is also the year I started thrifting and swapping in earnest. That’s about the time my friend Mindi brought her plus-sized, new pallet purchase & thrift mix shop to my area, and we girls got CUTE on City Chic brand dresses. Plus, the natural hair movement was in its infancy still, but I had enough luck with the LCO method that for the first time in my life, I had hair. Apparently, I also have the pulse on the cultural shifts, because while I don’t have that “cool media job” anymore, “recipe & lifestyle blogger” is so 2016 coded it hurts 😅😅 Also, I seem to remember competition for the Halloween Costume of 2016: Kristen Wiig as Maddie Ziegler in Sia’s Chandelier video, and David S. Pumpkins. Yes, both Saturday Night Live sketches. I may be off by a year either way. Regardless, I expect the same energy for Halloween 2026. Update, 5/20/2026: The more I get into the year, and start asking "when was that?" the more I realize it was 2016... That Fibro diagnosis was in March 2016... and the prior authorization for my Cymbalta was approved the week after my first trip to New Orleans, Louisiana in mid-June. I spasmed the night before the trip, but was able to manage it with the meds I had been cleared for and didn't miss anything we had planned to do on the trip. 2016 was also the year of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and I was in New Orleans for Pride Week, so that was a lot of "being brave is being scared and doing it anyway," but that's the queer experience for you. And speaking of Cymbalta, it's been 10 years now that my anxiety and panic disorder has been controlled, hallelujah!! 2016 was an Election Year, Trump vs. Ms. Rodham-Clinton. Which means that 2016 was the year I dusted off my crochet skills and made a "pussy hat" to wear while leading chants at my city's Women's March. I was also at the "Not My President" rally the night after the election results were announced. 2016 was the year of the Standing Rock resistance camp. I really started showing up at my local satellite protests in late summer 2016, and that started my career as a community organizer in my city. Hence, knowing how to lead chants at a march by November. 2016 was also my first weekend music festival! Ironically, I just found the souvenir t-shirt, and the date on it left me pretty gobsmacked. As for it being my first, it was my first weekend festival, I spent my teens and 20's going to day festivals like Ozzfest (speaking of, I last did that one in 2006), and Warped Tour. 2016 is then also the year I really discovered tent camping. 2016 is when I qualified for my first Medical Marijuana card. Like Water Protecting, it's something I associate more with 2017, but I believe I did start making those long-haul dispensary runs in autumn 2016. Which means I'm nearing a whole decade of almost daily cannabis use. Oh, and my experience has been absolutely positive, ask me about it sometime. Damn. I didn't realize that year was so personally significant until I look back now in retrospect. Turns out, so was 2006 (believe it or not, that year I became a Reiki Master and attended Ozzfest. That year was my first anime convention, too. And it was definitely the year I chose my college majors...). 2026 seems to be shaping up to be just as eventful. It's those years that end in six, man...

I’m not saying I had any grand plans for the day, here. PT yesterday wore me out a bit more than expected, so I passed on the shower for an early bedtime and planned to shower today. At 11am, after I drank my giant breakfast smoothie and took my meds, my body wanted a nap. A six hour nap. Again, I’m not about to force myself out of bed for an unnecessary shower if I need the sleep. We’ll try again tomorrow. And if you’re wondering if that nap will keep me up all night… by how I feel right now, I’ll probably get a full night’s sleep on top of it. Healing takes a LOT of sleep.

It doesn't help that I still can't keep anything down on my effervescent digestive system (I just took a third dose of activated charcoal, and I'm still gassy! And yes, I am aware that activated charcoal cancels out my other meds, this is that serious). Or that I haven't slept in 32 hours because of that. Or that my day started right out with bad news. Or that the drop of sedentary mid-winter healing hit this weekend, after a holiday season packed full of pre-op planning. Or that the ambient mood in the world is way off, for obvious reasons. I've basically been crying all day. Not super fun. But for some reason, today feels more like an ending than anything. Like there's nothing else to look forward to now, which is of course ridiculous. But, it's also kinda where I am, too. Right now, I heal a leg. That'll take me through March, and then... fuck me if I know. My future is very up in the air right now, like it has been for the past 3 years. I'm not used to it. Trust me.

My digestive system has always been pretty fragile, comes with the neurodivergency and all. The short leg and pelvic tilt that the hip replacement fixed didn't help that any, nor does my spinal cord injury or the abdominal fascia trigger points from my huge tits that choke off my intestines... This is what I'm pretty sure happened yesterday: I'm eating bigger portions than I usually do right now, to get my body the calories it needs to heal. But, I'm following the hospital's constipation prevention methods... and I usually take three times as much Senokot as they had me taking up until yesterday. So, my large intestine was full to capacity. Not blocked or impacted, just not moving. That meant that stuff was hanging around in my small intestine waiting for it's turn to digest. And I added something to that chemical mix that filled my intestines up with gas like an overworked clown making balloon animals. I think it's the chili, but who knows, could be any of the medications I'm on. That meant I had to deal with the distended, too painful to touch belly by first clearing out my large intestine (which took all day yesterday), and then by neutralizing the gas and moving it out of the small and into the large to pass. That took literally all night. I didn't sleep a wink. I also haven't consumed more than water and Miralax in the past 32 hours, so everyone's convinced I'm going to pass out and screw up my hip. The kicker? I waited nine months to get in to see a Gastroenterologist, after dealing with severe constipation all last year. But once I got in the office, they sent me to a Nurse Practitioner who didn't listen to me, never got me a follow-up appointment, prescribed a medication that made me very ill, and then proceeded to drop me when I requested another medication that needed a prior authorization. The prior authorization was submitted in October, they never even followed up the request. And she knew full well I'd be getting my hip replaced and would need special post-op constipation precautions, I wrote her the minute I got my surgery date. So, I fully didn't have to suffer like this if some Nurse Practitioner had decided I was worth some actual care and passed me on to a doctor a few months back. Ain't American healthcare great?

My "Wegovy Bowels" aren't exactly helping here, either, but my mom was so hungry for chili last night, and saved out a bowl for me before any tomatoes or dairy went in... I haven't had gas blockages in my intestines this bad in a WHILE. This has honestly been the worst pain of post-op so far, and this has definitely been a very painful post-op. In other news, how the heck am I supposed to wear a sleep bonnet to bed if it's soaked through with sweat within an hour of bedtime?? Update, 4PM: I'm four teaspoons of baking soda down, and just starting to neutralize all this acid in my guts. I don't think I can eat beef anymore...

You know how I said my body is like "give me all the calories, and I want it 100% in sugar carbs!" which is to be expected, because it takes a lot of energy to heal big bone and muscle, and also I have to be off the sugar craving meds right now. This drink is helping to take the edge off the cravings. Mostly because it's packed with what my body is actually craving, so it doesn't want to spiral into comfort eating. Incoming: a new Menu on my recipe blog on how to meal plan for recovering big body trauma stuff, in the next few weeks, at least. I have recommendations now! In other post-op news, I've just taken the last of the most temporary post-op prescriptions, so now I'm looking out at more long term recovery goals from here. I still have a couple of weeks on the Oxy and Robaxin to help with healing the sutures, and after that it's back to my normal pain med routine. Meanwhile, a blizzard just kicked in that's supposed to hang around all weekend, and this mix of gloom and meds and weed and communal tension has me up in grief-nostalgia feels about everything, so I'm gonna mope in bed a lot today.

The number one anterior hip surgery restriction is no bridging your hips. Puts WAY too much pressure on the sutured muscles. Yeah, I did it on accident getting back into bed last night. Trust me, you will not do it for long, or extend it at all. But I didn't make my post-op bruising any better, Oof. All my thigh muscles are more sore than needed right now. Today'll be spent with ice packs. In other news, I'm starting to wonder if these purging sweats are actually emerging night sweats. It has been three weeks off the Pill... Yeah, my sleep wasn't great last night.

I insist on it. You need to learn how to move in your body after a major change. I have anxiety, I need a professional to tell me what my new safe movements are. My new PT thinks he'll have me off my walker within two weeks, which is fine by me! Obviously, I have a ton of bruising and a foot-long incision that'll take time to heal, and there's definitely pain there. But the implant itself? Made my leg significantly longer, and corrected a pretty nasty pelvic tilt. I have balance issues from my spinal cord injury to begin with, and it's going to take a hot minute for my body to get used to this. Not to mention, I'm working on the least butt padding I've worked with since elementary school, a new hip "bone" in an unusual place on nerves used to a lot more fat padding? My exercises right now are all about learning my body again. It doesn't hurt, it's just very disorienting. But, I did the whole long hall (not a pun, believe it or not, I have a main-level ranch that's arranged on one hall that stretches the full length of the house) with baby step walk-throughs just now, so big progress in just two days!

I'm getting asked this a lot lately, so here's the deal. And TW on pretty much every physical and mental health topic out there. tl;Dr, my genetics are such a bitch (comment where that's from if you know it!) My first flare happened in 2001, when I was 19 years old. It took me out of dancing and into reiki. And it involved my old hip... my left hip subluxed, and caused a severe muscle spasm in my piriformis muscle to hold it out of place (and shoot sciatic pain down into my toes). This kept happening, both hips, over and over... at first I'd have a few years before flares, then a year, then a few months... until in 2018, the flare was so bad it locked up my entire left leg for nine months. I'm pretty sure this is what ultimately killed the cartilage in my hip. This was after a formal diagnosis of fibromyalgia, central sensitization disorder, and joint hypermobility by a doctor who specializes in fibro. It's not Ehlers Danlos or Marfan, I've been tested for both. I have not been tested for the newly discovered MTFR gene, that links hypermobility to neurodivergences, as well as a whole lot of other physical issues, many of which I and my family members on my dad's side have. Our last name means "The People of Wisdom & the Element of Air" in the Romani language, and considering the suit of Swords in the tarot, which represent wisdom/intelligence and the element of air, has been considered the most representative of neurodivergences for awhile now... I think that MTFR gene runs DEEP. Anyway, between the structural imbalance, the regular severe muscle spasms, and the hour daily (I did recovery days once a week, chill) strength training program I had myself on after the Fibromyalgia Program where I got my formal diagnoses... Once I got to the spine surgeon, I had two fully ruptured discs in two separate spinal areas, one of which had calcified around my sciatica nerve root and caused irreversible damage... hence needing a podiatrist to manage my pedicure, lest I slice into my own nailbeds without knowing or caring. I've needed two surgeries each on both sites, one to try to correct some of the nerve root damage (it didn't really work), and one to remove a tendon that had atrophied around my spinal cord, compressing it hard enough to soften and bruise about half the cord at the pressure point. The injury was bad enough that when it was released, it caused a severe cerebrospinal fluid leak - I mean days on my back with a full-flow IV to keep my brain from resting directly on my skull, and leaving me with chronic migraines. Spinal cord injuries don't heal. Or aren't supposed to heal, I'm still working on full energy flow, why not? I do my own energy work, for free. Physically, though, it's left me with a mild drop foot, a leg tremor, and balance issues that make me walk like a drunken sailor if I don't have a mobility aid to keep me straight, and keeps me a basically permanent fall risk. I'll be glad to be back to that being my "bad leg," it's had to cover for my left hip for a few years now. So far, cartilage & health wise, it's fine. but I hope I don't have to do this again in 5-10 years with that one. This is why we keep records! And then, on top of that, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands at the age of 12. I finally had it repaired in my right (yes, dominant) hand at the beginning of March 2024... and exactly 3 weeks later I fell hard on it, damaging the nerve right in the sweet spot where you're just going to have a damaged nerve there. I have a cyst growing on the joint that'll need to be removed at some point, too. I still have a lot of lingering CSS-triggered pain in my right hand, but I've managed to keep it strong and functional, at least. I highly recommend kneading bread dough by hand on the regular for that. But it still limits the use of my right thumb. Not great for a professional card shuffler. Hence being a mostly retired professional card shuffler. As for my mental health, I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD (the "u" came later) until I was 40, but I sure have had it all my life. And I was so abused for my differences by the people in my life that my fibro specialist diagnosed the abuse as the root cause of my fibromyalgia and CSS. Being raised in an end times cult, and being told the apocalypse would be starting up any day now, Praise Jesus, didn't help. So, I was one of those deeply depressed, anxious kids with OCD behaviors in the early 90's when absolutely no one wanted to subject their children to the horrors of the psychiatry of the 30's-80's that they grew up with. I didn't realize I had been living in a chronic state of panic until I started Cymbalta for my fibro symptoms in 2016. At 34 years old. Nowadays, understanding why things happened the way they did, and doing the grieving I needed for that realization to happen, and using the drugs I need, my mental health is in probably the best place it's ever been right now. Not perfect... but centered. Yes, even through all of this. Do your drugs, kids. i took the drugs, & the drugs are working Oh, by the way, none of this is enough to qualify for US SSI Disability. March marks six years since my first disability application, and yes I have a lawyer, a good lawyer. He's baffled. But I still need to work off my student loans, after all, I'm too young for this. Kids can get cancer and everyone's fine with that concept, but heaven forbid a 43 year old has genetic, progressive hypermobility. It might cost the government something. Which is why I have exactly a year left on Medicaid, as there's no way someone with All That can manage their health and putting in 40 hours a week for a paycheck, or even 20 hours a week of unpaid volunteer work with an official reporting 501c3 to qualify for the Medicaid I've been on for six years and just paid for my new hip. So... 2026 will be a year of preparation for how I'm going to manage my medical bills without any coverage at all or any income. Just like the pre-ACA days, except I have a lot more health issues now. Oh, and I'm privately un-insurable under the new regulations, because I'm chronically ill. That's what Medicare is for. That you need to access SSI Disability to access. A cheat to the question I opened with, for sticking with me here!

Here's a big ol protip for you: use a good travel mug for your hot drinks while you're recovering. I just dumped hot coffee all over myself, my bed, and my med bottles. I just fucking washed all this bedding. Had to wash it again already because I got "the sweats" last night anyway - my body finally pushed out the last of the anesthesia and extra white blood cells, just like sweating out a fever. But after that, I took my pain meds (which I have put on a schedule so they all get dosed all at once every eight hours, another lil protip for you), and slept for eight hours straight. I never do that, my AuDHD has made me a few hours here, few hours there sleeper all my life. And no, I'm absolutely not washing my bedding myself. This is why you need a caregiver at home, or you get sent to a nursing home for rehab. PT starts today, and it was not scheduled well around my (unknown at the time of scheduling) pain med schedule... so my new PT is getting Weed Auntie today. Here's a secret, tho. I started Canna Fitness back in 2018. Every time I'd take a walk, or do a strength training set, I smoked a small bowl of Sour Diesel right before starting. My body is used to incorporating cannabinoids into fitness and recovery routines. ALL my PT's know me as Weed Auntie, but I don't think they know it. Also, this is why all those snacks and all that meal planning was so important - my body needs all the calories for healing right now. I'm a pretty sparse eater nowadays with my lack of calorie burning and GI issues, but healing the biggest bone in your body? Apparently you need to eat like a pro football player. I'm glad the spare croquettes happened! And finally, my bladder issues are already starting to resolve. Thank GOD. I figured they would, I did a Urodynamic test a few months back, and my bladder is pretty much perfection, as bladders go. Same with my pelvic floor strength.

My nurse told me from first bandage inspection that I had some pretty significant bruising at the incision site, which is to be expected. I still saw a bunch of red blotchy stains coming out from under the clear plastic parts of the surgical dressing, but it didn't look like blood exactly to me, more like the post-op drain fluid, but my dressing itself was dry.. It wasn't until they went past the dressing that I realized it's THAT kind of a bruise. All of my cats are mad they can't be on my lap. It's a freaking long incision, from where my hip meets my FUPA to about halfway to my knee, dang. Fresh protip: unless you have a commode next to your bed, don't let your bladder get too full. It takes three times as long to get to the toilet, and I almost peed myself. This makes dyspraxia dangerous, for sure. Other fresh protip - set your med alarms. I know I said I was going to do it yesterday, but the AuDHD took over and I didn't. That meant a VERY painful 3am potty run. Speaking of the toilet... get a riser. I was told I'd likely need one because I'm so tall. Sure enough, first pee home, I got stuck on the regular toilet seat.

And we're in the home stretch.... I'm waiting for a dryer load to get to the freshly clean and sanitized new panties and silk sleep bonnet in there, and once they're in my bag I am fully packed and ready to go. So, the checklist is as follows: ✅ MyChart e-check in & Pre-registration. ✅ Everything I'm wearing to and immediately after the hospital needs to be laundered and sanitized. ✅ Hospital bag is packed and ready to go. ✅ Walker is tricked out with the cup and phone holder from Kevin the Rollator, as well as a side caddy I bought for my transport/manual wheelchair but also fits this walker. The padded "biker gloves" I also got for said wheelchair use will likely come in handy as well, as the walker handles are hard plastic. ⬜ All bedding slept in the night before the hospital needs to be laundered and sanitized the day before surgery. You thought you were doing something else that day? ⬜ This is where someone needs to break it to Penelope that my bed is off-limits for the night. Still not sure how to do that 😅😅 ⬜ The Shower must be taken just before bed, with a freshly laundered net sponge and brand new bar of Safeguard soap. Hair prep for going down to the most minimal routine possible and not incurring damage and length loss happens here, too. And no, you don't get to use body washes and salt scrubs and lotions and butters and fragrances over it all. ⬜ Oh no, you use Hibiclens wipes on everything but your genitalia and face once you're scrubbed down and out of the shower. And nothing else. ⬜ No food or drink after midnight. ⬜ But I do need to drink three Ensure carb/glucose drinks on a schedule, with the last one something like three hours before my arrival time. I'll obviously read the instructions closer tomorrow 😅😅 And then, I head to the hospital, and my responsibilities as a patient are pretty much over. All the nurses and doctors take over from there. After a day before like that (and I'm not expecting to get much sleep between now and post-op), I'm grateful I just have to be physically present and compliant with simple instructions for awhile.