Social Degradation Part 1

Pain In 100 Words (Or Less): There are a lot of symptoms indicating that you need a hip replacement. My most dramatic factor was my ‘100 words/month limit.’

In short, this tip can be alternatively titled, ‘Diagnosing hip replacement pain – what to listen for…’

Here is what happened, my business partner called while I was working out on my home elliptical machine. I was in mild to moderate pain, but I was trying to prehab my hip before surgery. He asked about a simple project we were working on, and I, rather than properly addressing the business problem, rather than wanting to go into a long explanation, I just told him I only had a 100 words for him for the month and that he had used all of them. It is all I could say. It made sense to me at the time, but not to him. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good time in our relationship.

This can be a helpful symptom to recognize if you are living with a person who may need a hip replacement.

Social Degradation Part 2

(More) Crummy Interpersonal Interactions – Now I am not saying I was good (or even average) at communicating with my spouse and friends to begin with, but it definitely got worse. It was as if I went from semi-social to feral in just a matter of months. My pain acuity often resulted in short and abbreviated comments rather than articulating what I was really thinking. Another example comes to mind:

My wife asked me a simple question about what option we should do to correct a problem with our home. Rather than laying out an analysis followed by a conclusion that normally would be a dozen sentences, I condensed it into 10 or so words – probably not making much sense. And ultimately told her to, “I will do whatever you want.” (Of course why should that result be any different than my pre-pain spousal relationship?)

In effect, I was reduced to a ‘yes ma’am’ husband.

I later apologized to both.

Moral of the story… if your pain is impacting your ability to speak, well, you are in a lot of pain. Go get your hip replaced.