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I'm at 2.5 weeks to New Hip Day! Officially the halfway point of pre-op. I have today and tomorrow left on The Pill, and one more week with anti-inflammatories. Knowing this, I was trying to front-load my pre-op, so I can spend as much time in bed with a heating pad as possible once the pills wear off. post-op be like... So, how am I doing with the pre-op checklist? ✅ Parking Placard procured. ✅ Surgical Optimization completed; walker, pre-op wipes, and glucose drinks procured. ✅ Stuff Procured - massively huge thank you to my mom and my friend Tracy, they half-and-half tackled my list, and I am SO ready to go because of them. You're both wonderful 💖💖 They know why this is the most appropriate thank you meme. true story. ✅ Hair products prep - I have a full quart of scalp oil, and 8oz of chebe butter ready to go! ✅ Pedicure... funny story. My left toes don't have any feeling anymore. It's not that they "feel numb," they just... don't feel anything. I learned this when I sliced 4/5 nailbeds open on my left foot with my nail file yesterday. Now I have a request in to my PCP for a podiatrist referral, because I obviously can't be trusted to do my own toenails. But, they're short and rounded right now. ⬜ Meal Prep - I'm just now settling on a menu. Which is actually fortunate, considering like any good Michigander in winter, I was planning on keeping this in a tote in my garage and letting nature be my deep freeze. But we're in a warming trend for the next week, so putting that off definitely saved me trying to find freezer space... ⬜ Cannabis purchase, which will happen within a few days, as I am running very low right now. ⬜ Covid Vaxx, which I'll do when I head out for cannabis. Me about leaving the house right now. I... feel very on top of things right now. Who is this person with unmedicated ADHD??

I just spent the last 3 hours making the personal care products I do make - namely coffee-infused scalp oil, chebe butter, and deodorant. And my phone was on the charger and not taking photos or video 😅😅 That’s okay, I’ll give you recipes instead, probably more useful! Why do I make these three products, specifically? Cost and ingredient control, mostly. Wild Growth Hair & Scalp Oil is what got me on the scalp oil train to begin with, it’s a wonderful product… but $10 for 4oz is pretty pricey when I can make about 5x that of the recipe I use now for the same price. Chebe butter was pure ingredient control, it’s really hard to find natural hair products that don’t use nut oils. And deodorant is pure cost efficiency - I can pay $10 for a stick of natural deodorant, or 50 cents to make twice as much at home. Today was pretty chaotic, because it was “use up the bottom of the bottle” for most of my ingredients, so there wasn’t a ton of exact measuring. But, here’s how I did it: Large Batch Coffee-Infused Scalp Oil 2 cups olive oil 1/2 cup papaya seed oil 1/2 cup avocado oil 1/4 cup whole bean coffee 2 tablespoons rosemary oil 1 teaspoon clove oil 1 teaspoon vitamin e oil In a double boiler (or glass mixing bowl in a saucepan like I do), combine the oils. Grind the coffee very coarsely, and add to the oil mixture. Allow the mixture to infuse over the boiling water for a half-hour. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature. Strain out the coffee grounds (cheesecloth is best for this) and bottle before adding the rosemary and clove essential oils and the vitamin e oil. Shake well and let sit overnight before using. Alternatively, instead of using essential oils, you can use the same amount of dried herbs for both, add them when you add the coffee, and strain them when you add the oil to your bottle. To use: apply directly to your freshly cleansed scalp, and get your fingers up underneath your hair to massage the oil evenly over your scalp. Chebe Butter for High Porosity Hair 1/4 cup Shea or Cocoa butter 1/4 cup coconut oil 1/4 cup avocado oil 2 tablespoons Chebe powder 1/4 teaspoon fragrance oil (optional) In a double boiler (like above), add your butter and oils and melt them down together. Add the chebe powder, stir it in well, and let the mixture infuse over the boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat, and add your fragrance oil, if using (Chebe powder smells a lot like church incense, but the smell disappears in the butters. The end result is unscented unless you scent it). Cool to room temperature before transferring to your storage jar. To use: apply over your favorite leave-in conditioner on wet hair, concentrating especially on the ends on the hair. This works best if you wear a steam bonnet for a half-hour or so after applying, to melt the butter into the hair. So, your hair is low porosity? Try using aloe butter for your butter, and grape seed oil instead of avocado oil. Homemade Natural Deodorant Paste 1/4 cup cornstarch, arrowroot, or tapioca starch 1/4 cup baking soda 1/2 cup raw coconut oil (it cannot be refined to work) 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon essential or fragrance oils of choice (optional) Add the starch, baking soda, and coconut oil to a mixing bowl, and use a hand mixer or whisk combine into a paste. Add your essential or fragrance oils if using, mix into the paste thoroughly, and jar or bottle your deodorant paste. Allow to sit overnight before using. Since it’s Christmas and stuff, I used clove, nutmeg, ginger, black spruce, and lemon. PLEASE NOTE: lemon essential oil makes you sunburn very easily. I expect this batch to be long gone before my armpits see the sun again. No citrus oils go in my summer deodorant blends.

At the pre-op appointment on Tuesday, my nurse navigator tried to help me work out a plan to sleep away from the cats for two weeks. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the last time I was cut open for medical purposes, it was at 9 in the morning, and by 5pm I had become the Mumma of a micro-runt from a polyesterous litter (like internet sensation Baby Corn). And that I immediately started pottying him with the incision hand. I could have worn gloves. That occurred to me about the time he litter trained. oof, lightening this picture really showed off the bruise there… Anyway, that was in March 2024. He grew from a little 6oz kittenlet to a 12lb floofy wide boy. He loves the Christmas Tree. I don’t know how to tell him I won’t be able to bend over for Speedy Pets (that’s where he runs at me from across the house, and I have to be quick enough to pet him one time as he zooms by. Failure on my part gets an exasperated second try) for 12 full weeks! So much floof. So much. And considering this is how Penelope is chillin’ right now… Yeah, she’ll be easy to keep out of bed… 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I had it confirmed today that I have to stay off of my birth control for six weeks - two weeks pre-op, and four weeks post-op. I’m not just ready, I’m not fucking around. Wish me luck 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Left was taken 9/28/25, Right was taken today, 12/12/25. Both show my hair stretched but not straightened, and freshly cut using the Manes by Mell Pigtail Cut. I took about 4” off in September, and 1” off today. That’s just 2 1/2 months of growth 🥳🥳🥳 Introducing my hair: 3a/b, ringlet curls about the diameter of a boba straw (it took me a minute to think of a comparison that wasn’t “middle-sized vaginal dialator,” guys), highly, HIGHLY porous, medium thickness but super fine. And I have about 8” of shrink, no shit, especially at the nape of my neck. My hair has been a real rollercoaster ride over the years. First of all, this is not a “biracial with a white mom” thing, I got the hair from my mom, and she didn’t know what the hell to do with her own hair as a French/Cherokee person in a white neighborhood, so when she gave it to me she basically kept me shorn like a sheep. I “grew my hair out” at 12, but in the age of covering up sulfate damage with silicones, and with a mother who just noped out of hair altogether, I had a rat’s nest. It was severely damaged from the hair products I blindly used, the sun damage from spending the entire summer in the pool, and the hair dye I used to cover up the damage… it was bad. I found the Natural Hair Movement around 2012 or so, and while I was able to rehab my hair into a healthy curl pattern through early LOC methods, I was still coloring my hair, and therefore still damaging it, not to mention while there were Naturalistias using scalp oiling techniques at the time, I didn’t get into it. It seemed “extra.” So, my hair was growing at around 1/2” per month, and the ends weren’t surviving much longer than my collar. I assumed I simply wasn’t able to grow long hair. I stopped dyeing my hair in 2021, and I cut the last of the colored hair off at the beginning of 2024… it took me three years to grow roughly the amount of hair I just grew in the last 2 1/2 months 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ It was having to get my allergens out of my personal care products that led me to finally scalp oiling, and then properly cleaning my scalp regularly to remove the oil, not just shampooing my hair… all of a sudden, my hair grows like nothing else. But I wasn’t working on length retention, I was working against it with some habits. I went from being well on my way to having bra strap length hair by now, to yet another “big chop” and start over at the end of September. That start-over included scalp cleansing with kojic acid soap, scalp oiling with coffee-infused oils, a leave-in conditioner, and a chebe (apparently pronounced “SHEE-bay,” but please correct me if I’m saying it wrong) butter for length retention. I also put a heat hood on over all of this as it’s fresh, to melt the oils and butters down, and lock it into the hair follicle. Otherwise, I find the chebe butter just kinda sits on top of the hair, being needlessly greasy. I also started wearing silk/satin bonnets to bed every night, with silk scrunchies if needed. Another thing that I thought was “a lot” (like, really, I have to wear them over my ears, and that legit kept me from wearing them for years. It’s a dumb neurodivergent thing), but makes a huge difference in length retention. So, how am I planning on maintaining my hair growth while I’m healing a titanium hip joint implant? I make the scalp oil and chebe butter, and I’ll make a triple batch of both within the next couple of days. I’ll keep up my usual every 2-3 days routine with my hair up until the night before surgery. There’s also an internal component to my hair growth - I take daily collagen peptides, electrolytes, iron, buffered vitamin c, and omega 3-6-9 supplements to support a lot of things, hair growth and health included. I can do that until one week before surgery, so I’ll be diligent about taking them until I can’t anymore, and get back to them as soon as I can. I’ll give my scalp and hair a good cleaning as I’m taking that pre-surgery shower, and use a light leave-in and vegetable glycerine to seal it in (my summertime humectant go-to). After it’s dry, I’ll put it up in “boxer braids,” the easiest way to get it under a surgical bonnet. Once I’m out of surgery, I’ll switch to a satin bonnet. For upkeep in the days immediately following surgery, my friend Elfie came in so clutch buying me a Tangle Teezer and spray in detangler/conditioner 🙏🏼🙏🏼 That and a water spray bottle will keep my hair from turning into the Gordian Knot in the back, and I can do it all from bed 🫶🏼 Once I can get back into the shower (which really depends on my post-op pain levels, I have a transport shower chair, so I can sit in the shower all day), I’ll start up the scalp maintenance and chebe length maintenance again… and likely make it my post-op hobby. Right now, my hair is shoulder length, which is where I’m used to it being. I realize that makes me look like the girl from Encanto: When the first trailers came out for Encanto, everyone who ever met me said “why is Katrina in a Disney movie??” I’m hoping to be cleared from post-op with armpit-length hair, have it bra-strap length by by my birthday in early June, and celebrate my big chop anniversary with waist-length hair 🤞🏼🤞🏼🧿🧿 Mind blowing, seriously.

What the title says. My first encounter with major surgery and thus with general anesthesia as an adult was with a double laminectomy (at T10-11 & L5-S1) in June of 2021. At that Surgical Optimization pre-op, I was told to stop using THC products of any kind two weeks prior to surgery. I went back in for some scar damage work on the L5-S1 site in October 2022, and the THC requirements before surgery were the same. When I had to go back in again in March of 2023, however, a new study had come out that had cut that recommendation down to about five days. Which was good, because I had three weeks from MRI findings to surgery with that one. Nearly three years later, they're telling me to "try to cut back some in the days before surgery." She was very specific that I don't have to quit, just be mindful about my intake. That sounds like a plus towards legalization to me, if it's harmless enough you can use general anesthesia with some in your system. I'm debating putting a j in my dopp kit, for the ride home... Artist rendition of me heading home from the hospital with my new hip. Disclaimer: I'm a Flower Girl. Sometimes I'll do wax dabs, but for the most part, I'm smoking small bowls from glass chillums. This has actually improved my lungs, my voice went from non-existent to a whiskey alto real fast after I started french inhaling. So, none of this applies to vapes. I have COPD in my family history, I care too much about my lung health to use them.

Yesterday morning was my Pre-Op appointment with Surgical Optimization, and I don't remember one of these being so difficult to personally process. If you've never done this before, you go in to meet with a bunch of RN and NP's to go over general health and fitness, get fitted for your mobility aid, get your pre-op instructions for carb drinks and itchy body wipes, and get told when to stop taking what medications before you go under. I told you this would veer pretty quickly into TMI territory - my birth control pill is a clot risk. I have to stop taking it two weeks before surgery, and I have a question in on MyChart as to how long I have to stay off of it, considering I'll be on baby aspirin for a month after surgery to make sure my blood stays nice and thin. Now, I'm a 43 year old asexual person with hypermobile joints, I am not worried about any babies happening in this time off the pill. But I am on the pill because the fibromyalgia and the hypermobile joints made even the lightest menstrual cramps a disabling agony. And since the Possibility of Baby does not concern me in the least as an asexual person, with my gynecologist's blessing I have been skipping the placebo pills and taking the hormones constantly to stop my periods altogether. I have basically tucked my uterus away and let it gather dust while I went about my life effectively uterus-less. I did have one notable bleed experience after my last spine surgery, as I had a cerebrospinal fluid leak at the surgery site as well, and that was the last time I had to worry about a period. But now, I get a period for Christmas. In an ironically full-circle way, I got my first period on 12/21/93, at 11 years old. How do I remember this so precisely? One, that was also the day we got pet bunnies for the first time, and two, it was the winter solstice, which I'm pretty sure my mom made a point to mention as a science thing to her homeschooled brood as we were heading home in the dark before dinnertime with our new rabbits, that that was the darkest night of the year. Also, definitely still bleeding on Christmas morning, poor little me. How am I doing one of the most stereotypically "old person" things ever, and yet I feel like such a young teenager about this part? I just desperately hope Santa hurries up with the delivery if it's going to happen, because I have to go off all anti-inflammatories on 12/27, a week later. Meloxicam is the only thing keeping my pain reasonable right now. Before I doubled my dose, tho? A constant 8.5. This is not the kind of pain that comes and goes, or gives you any kind of reprieve, otherwise. If my uterus decides it wants to join the pain party then , I'm fucked. I also have to give up the Naltrexone three days before, which my friend just texted me to let me know counteracts opioids, which she found out through some awful personal experience. Knowing that, I might just drop it with the NSAIDS... They give you a big ol printout that they highlight with you about everything you take and when you need to stop taking it before surgery, as well as all of your post-op appointments. My advice: choose a color in your calendar app for everything about surgery, and enter it in with alerts. When last dose day comes (mark THAT, not the day after), put the now-verboten med out of reach, out of its usual spot after you take your last dose. I'm sure everyone has some version of "place where I put my daily meds" and "place where I store overstock until I get to it," I usually move said med from the former place to the latter. Also, put your post-op appointments in. It's nice to look at your calendar and be able to see at a glance, by color, when you have an action day. It also means you can eyeball appointments you should cancel and move, like I had to do with my next spine injection. tbh, I'm hoping this implant will re-align my lower back to where I won't need the injections anymore, but we'll see. My urinary checkup may need to be moved, too, again, I'm hoping a new hip joint fixes that, too... we'll see.... Also, name suggestions needed for the new walker, which I got yesterday. It's older brother, a rollator, is named Kevin. I'll be using it for six weeks post-op. So, basically, don't expect me to be going too far too fast for six weeks.

I’m watching the Joint Replacement Class video… no Meloxicam for 7 days before surgery. That was bad enough before spine surgery, without Meloxicam right now, I’m at a constant 8.5 pain level with my hip. Deep breaths, deep breaths… Also, no pets in bed with you the night before surgery. Again, someone needs to inform Penelope of this, she’s not going to take it very well…

If only. I need to start meal prepping. Yes, this early, I want to make sure I pace myself so I don’t wear myself out - my battery drains real fast right now. I’m aiming to put up 4 portions of 3 meals, for a total of 12 meals… I don’t need to put up for the entire recovery, my family does know how to cook to my diet, but I want to have some convenience comfort meals ready anyway. If you follow my other blog , you know that I can’t eat dairy, egg, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, or tomatoes. You may think this limits my diet, but if you follow my other blog, you know that I eat Very Well. I’m also thinking about the nutrient content of the meals, and making sure they have lots of ingredients high in things to help me recover, like iron and calcium. Not too hard, the way I eat. So, let’s play a game. Pick 3: Smoky pinto beans & cornbread Cajun-style red beans & rice Lentil “meat” loaf with a baked potato Mujaddara with lentils, rice, & caramelized onions and a side salad “Buddha Bowl” with rice, grains, beans, and roasted veggies. Coconut curry chicken & spinach over rice Marinated chicken in the cast iron skillet w/ cornbread stuffing Kofta kebabs with a rice pilaf Sardine & white bean croquettes with a side salad You see my dilemma. Seriously, comment your 3 below, I need advice here.

Violet, Michael Myers, and my new panties TW: weight loss, weight gain, weight loss medication. The problem with learning you need surgery in five weeks on literal Black Friday is that shipping isn’t any “two days” like it usually is. This is why we order early! As long as it’s here by January 4th, we’re good. I’m getting an anterior hip replacement, so my surgeon will be going in from the front… and I need Hi-Cut panties that won’t sit the leg seam right on the incision. But I need new panties in general right now. Buckle in, this one’s a story… The only thing I can think of that would ruin one hip, the left one in particular, is that days, literally an amount of days you can count on one hand, after graduating from my local rehab hospital’s outpatient Fibromyalgia Pain Program at the very end of 2017, my left piriformis muscle spasmed so hard, it triggered about 30 more muscle spasms down my left leg, that all had to be released in sequence before the piriformis muscle would relax. That took nine months, and one more go-around through the rehab hospital’s program. The program is a lot of strength training, and I started taking it really seriously as I started healing my muscles after that flare. The result was a 50lbs and 29” total loss, and me being in the best physical health of my life. Of course, that was until the ruptured discs in 2021, at spine levels T10-11 and L5-S1. Between not being able to exercise two hours per day like I had in my strength training days, and comfort eating, I gained that 50lbs back pretty easily after all those surgeries and nerve/spinal cord injuries. Until the food allergies were diagnosed in early 2024, after I went on the AIP diet in late 2023. I’m allergic to both dairy, and all nuts, two of the fattiest foods in the American diet. Cutting those out of my diet, along with basically every pre-packaged convenience food out there meant I dropped 30lbs with very little effort. Here’s where the panties start to come in. At the time, in the pre-tariff days, I had a bit of a dopamine issue with the Shein app. And since I fully expected to drop the other 20lb, I bought a bunch of panty sets in what is my current size. Thing is, I was a lingerie model at the time, so there’s a lot of flesh colored thongs… But then, the migraines and the comfort eating set in, just as the cortisol and perimenopause started to work together to pack a bunch of fat around my organs, and my weight went right back up again. My doctor decided that the solution was Wegovy in late 2024, I was one of the early users. The solution was not Wegovy. I have been in a gastrointestinal nightmare that shows no sign of ending since taking Wegovy. So, I tried Contrave in early 2025, which is a combo of Naltrexone and Bupropion, which, when powers combined, work on addiction in the brain. It’s like the dopamine handed the “I’m hungry” button back to my body, and I’m actually eating for the calories and nutrients now. I’m naturally eating small portion sizes, not snacking, and intermittent fasting. But now, down that 50lbs again, we are in the days of tariffs, and I cannot believe the price of women’s panties! I remember being able to get a 12 pack of cotton panties on sale for $8, that 6 pack was $9 on sale marked down from $20! WHAT THEE ACTUAL FUCK?? So, I now have two panty drawers (heh, two drawers for my drawers), one for “highly polyester but cute enough to wear to the doctor’s appointment where multiple people will see them” and “two sizes too big and getting holes but I have a moral objection to buying more at the prices right now.” Getting a new hip and new panties, what a day! I’ll keep them boxed (as they may be) until I do the surgery laundry, and after that I guess I can finally dump the old ones… Funnily enough, a big reason I wanted to lose the weight this go-around is because you won’t be considered a candidate for a breast reduction unless you’re at a 29 BMI or under. I just got the referral to plastic surgery for a reduction mastectomy about a month before I got the referral to orthopedics… but unlike orthopedics, it takes a full year to get in for a consult, and another year after that to get in for the surgery. That puts me firmly into Medicaid work requirements I’m not physically capable of meeting, so we’ll see if I ever get to ditch my literal Barbie doll proportions. Meanwhile, my Total Joint Replacement Handbook recommends aiming for a BMI 30 or lower by surgery date. Already there, baby! And so, so grateful for being so, this is already pure agony, I can’t even comprehend what carrying another 50lbs around on this hip would be like. And I’m very glad I don’t have to.

Just girly things. So, how do you pre-surgery panic? I am well medicated against panic attacks, they have to be really, really bad to break through the med barrier and manifest as a full-on attack. I was expecting this recent major medical malady, so I haven't gone into full panic mode yet... but the nausea and vomiting has started. Especially at night. Now, the first thing I was taught at Fibromyalgia Clinic is that the first rule of Fibro Club is that we do not talk about Fibro Club. Discussing your symptoms in any detail with anyone but your care team in a clinical setting puts your focus on your symptoms, and focusing on your symptoms regularly makes your brain solidify them in as normal more and more. Actively keeping a blog about a pain condition goes completely against everything I've ever been taught about pain management. So, I figured that if I was going to have any psychosomatic reactions to the stress - like the spontaneous pukes - I'd have them as I'm writing blog posts and actively focusing on my pain and my surgery plans. Nope. I'm waking up to it at 2am. Great. My mom is going to make me ride in her car with a puke bowl in my lap until after surgery now 😅😅

One thing about being a middle eastern dancer in the 90's is that the Algerian pop music scene was happening, and I was there for it way more than a teen girl from Michigan should have been. I discovered I was hypermobile when I started an Arabic dance class at 16 years old. I could bend in ways no one else could… and also just could never develop the muscles in certain places to do certain things. While this led to frequent muscle spasms in my lower back starting at 19 years old, in between spasms I was quite the brilliant dancer. But nowadays, I have literally had my twerk joint removed, thanks to the hypermobility. I had some hopes of finding just the right therapist who could teach me to compensate and dance safely around the missing joint without causing damage to the remaining spine, but the pursuit of that is what let me know my hip had gone past the point of no return. People don’t talk much about the grief that disabled people go through, with every new chronic diagnosis to incorporate into your sense of self, every new boundary you encounter with your body, every time you have to miss a social event you’d never have missed before your condition worsened… disability makes you a new person in a lot of ways, and not with your consent. And working through that hits absolutely every stage of grief, and definitely not in anything resembling any linear progression. This usually comes with the loss of friends and sense of community, too - you’re not a coworker anymore. People ask you what you do for a living, you have to tell them you’re too disabled to work, not about the awesome job you have. Or even about the mediocre job you have that at least makes you seem productive in the conversation. Can’t go out with the girls? They’ll keep going out without you, and you won’t talk as much. Etc, etc. And when you were raised to be a “girl boss” who just needs to “hustle harder,” there’s now a lot of work you need to do around the idea of personal productivity and value/worth, along with wondering who the hell you are now that you aren’t an employee or or a volunteer or in a book club or a long-distance hiker. I’m not writing this because I have any answers, I’m personally three years into the really big disability questions, and I feel like a pinball in action, emotionally. I’m writing about it mostly just to get it out, talk out the feels, and hopefully my talked out feels make someone else’s unspoken feels feel less alone. And here’s to who I am becoming! 🥂 I have absolutely no idea what that is, but I know it’s something and I know I’ll get there eventually once I properly mourn the old me and put her to rest, and get to a place of acceptance of the new me. Whenever that is.