I thought I had pulled a muscle, the same muscle footballers strain when they take a side-swipe at a ball and miss.
It made dancing argentine tango uncomfortable, but not impossible. I
just couldn't sleep after a milonga due to the deep, dull ache that
started as soon as I put my feet up.
After spending a lot of money on physio-therapy, suffered a cortisone
injected into the hip joint, and got fed up with hearing my GP say
"have you tried Ibuprofen?" I decided that I put off any further treatment until
we went to Buenos Aires. Surely I would find a 'fix' for a dance injury
in the city of dance....
So, on a very hot December day I took a taxi from our rented apartment
in the barrio of Belgrano to downtown BsAs for my first appointment
with a local doctor. "Have you had a x-ray taken?" was his first
question. The thought hadn't crossed my mind for what I thought was a
muscle strain. Later on I would reflect on this with frustration as none of
the UK healthcare 'professionals' had suggested that a hip x-ray would be
useful to them.
It took the doctor less than a minute to conclude his
diagnosis. "You have osteoarthritis....." he continued talking but I
have no recollection of what he was saying. I thought my life was over.
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Only
months before, we had sold our house and business to chase our dreams
and fund the setting up of a business based on tango dancing.
I remember sitting in the back of a black and yellow cab on the journey
back to Belgrano, half laughing, half crying at the irony of having to
come all the way to Buenos Aires to be told (and I truly thought this at the time) that my tango dancing days were over.
I spent a lot of the rest of our month in Buenos Aires going to
physiotherapy, taking advantage of the 5:1 ratio of £:peso which
made the treatment very affordable. Thank goodness I could still dance,
but a future based on dance mobility looked very bleak.
Back home, I read an article in the BMJ about a keen rambler whose
story read the same as mine if you substituted the word 'dancing' for
'wallking'. Her life had been changed by a hip resurfacing operation in
Abbeville in France. Less than a year after her op, she was back to
active walking.
On her advice, I contacted People Logistics (the UK facilitating
company) and was so impressed with their answers to my (many)
questions, I booked a hip resurfacing operation for July 2006.
In the summer of 2006 something remarkable happened in the midst of a nightmare.
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Just
before I left for France, my father collapsed and was taken to
hospital. Debbie stayed at home to help look after Dad instead of
accompanying me for my two weeks in hospital in France. He died, a
grand old man of 89 two
weeks after I got back home.
In spite of all this, I felt like I was standing in sunshine when everything around me was falling into chaos.
My sunshine came from tango. I was sent off to France on such a
groundswell of moral and financial support from our local tango
community. I was buoyed up by such a strong feeling of goodwill and
physical well-being every moment I was away. I felt truly blessed,
thank you.
The rest I think most of you will know. I kept a recuperation diary
which can be found online which I hope will encourage other dancers and
active baby-boomers to take the same decision if their bodies stop them
from enjoying life. DIARY
These days I don't even think about walking bionically on a titanium
hip. I can dance and sleep without pain and feel I have more than
regained my previous mobility and strength.
We now drive around to events with "Life is not a rehearsal" emblazed
across our trailer and in quiet moments in my dance, I sometimes feel
like I am stepping into the warmth of a ray of sunshine.
July 2008
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