Tears stung the back of my throat as I held them in. The nurse counted to three and penetrated my smooth, unmarked skin. The needle became one with my vein and began pumping me with drugs. It would be the first of many marks I received that day. It would be the first of many permanent scars I would receive over the next three years.

The doctor came in next and drew some markings on my hips. I was clearly already pretty out of it because I asked her to write "sexy" to mark the leg getting operated on. Funny, because I would never think of that leg as sexy again. I sat with my mom and we waited. One consultation and doctor after the other. Another anesthesiologist was next, I think. I remember him being pretty good looking and if it’s possible to become aroused in a hospital, I was definitely aroused. He rolled me over so my entire ass was exposed in the back of that heinous hospital gown. Although, I can assure you the next thing he stuck inside me was not what I was hoping. I now had my own epidural pump and full control over my drug supply, which turned out to be pretty ideal. The anxiety overcame me that morning. It was all I could feel despite the pokes, prods and rushes of fluid through my IV. I wasn’t ready to give up life as I had known it. This procedure meant to change my life for the better was about to ruin everything.

I had been dancing for fourteen years at this point. My ability was nothing compared to the way I felt full every time I stepped on the cold floor. I felt complete when I danced, it was my passion and my purpose and it was something I believed I would be doing forever.

How was I supposed to anticipate it being ripped out of my grasp at such a young age?

While this particular surgery waiting room was unfamiliar to me, the hospital was not. For years I had been jumping from one doctor to the next. One injection, MRI, X-ray, physical therapy appointment after the other to get me where I was; lying cold in a hospital room. If I could have never stopped jumping between those things I would have, if I could have never figured out what my problem was and what I needed I would have.

I had been laying on that bed for hours now. The anticipation was more real than it had ever been before. I needed to stop thinking about what happened after that day. The hell-hole I knew I was bound for, the wheelchair I knew I was bound to for the next few months after that. I remember trying to convince myself that it could be worse, I could have cancer and be dying, I could be paralyzed. It could have been worse, yet it still felt like the end of the world. I thought up some new scenarios. Maybe the hospital would burn down with me in it, unconscious and unaware. Maybe the worst case situations would happen and I would end up with an amputated leg or dead. They were cutting through bone near my spinal chord so it could have happened. I knocked it off when my whole team of nurses and doctors came in to tell me it was time to head back to the operating room.

At this exact moment I really had to pee. It must have been my bodies way of stalling. I got up, ass bare again and wheeled my whole hanging pharmacy to the bathroom. I sat there on the toilet and momentarily I began to cry, not because of what was to come but because I couldn’t even pee. I hadn’t been allowed to eat or drink anything for 16 hours at this point and my body was run pretty dry. I wanted some cheddar cheese and a coke. I milked these last forty five seconds by myself, going to the bathroom by myself. It would be the last time for a long while that I was allowed even that small, personal responsibility. I returned to my station and let them roll me away to the operating room. I remember looking back at my mom to say goodbye, just in case. She was crying. Before I got the chance to cry I felt a rush of cold fluid through my IV site and I was completely unconscious.

At this point I can only infer what must have happened next. I had stupidly watched a live video of my surgery on youtube the night before my own. I also heard stories about those next five hours. Well really I heard stories about the next four days I was in the hospital. It was all very blurry. They must have rolled me onto the cold metal operating table and rubbed my legs down with iodine, I do remember them being oompa-loompa orange. Sometime after this, they sliced five inches into the skin between my hip bone and groin. They inserted a drainage tube to catch blood and pus. I always hated the word pus. They cut my hip socket and removed it from my body. I imagine myself laying there without a hip socket, bleeding and most likely sleeping with my mouth open. They later bolted it back in with some big old screws, exactly the way it should have been positioned from the beginning. My mom said a nurse called her halfway through, she started crying because she thought there were complications and that I was dead. They just wanted to let her know it was going okay.

Some time later I wound up in the recovery unit. I tried to set up the hot anesthesiologist with my blonde nurse. She was feeding me ice chips and he was feeding my morphine. I am still convinced they would have been a match made in hospital heaven. I guess once I stopped falling asleep every twenty seconds, they wheeled me to my next temporary home. I do remember this part, vividly and clear as day. I saw my mom and grandma walking with balloons and flowers when I was on my way to this room and it was in this moment that I burst into tears. I really wanted to know that my mom was okay. She was.

Days passed and the room filled up with balloons and flowers and teddy bears and candy that I couldn’t eat without puking. It is ridiculous to think about the number of people who bring you Starbucks after a surgery. My friend Jackson brought me some growable dinosaurs that I had some fun with. I sat there in the hospital and all I could really think about was the fact that I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t sleep either, no matter how many times I pressed my pain pump button.

The worst day was when they finally ripped that thing out of my back. The overly adhesive tape they used reached from my butt to my back and I think they waxed a strip of hair off my back in one swoop. I no longer had my pain pump as a crutch. They also removed my catheter and I was put on a leash every time I had to use the bathroom. I saw the anesthesiologist a few more times, still curious as to why he never called me. Not sure if it was my methuselah hair, the giant bags under my eyes from lack of sleep and drugs, oompa loompa legs or the blood and pus filled sack that hung next to me at all times. Needless to say I was quite a catch. The nurses all really loved me because I was the only person under fifty on the orthopedic floor of the hospital.

The nurses and doctors became family over the next few years. They did the same surgery, same process, same hospital, same drugs, same procedure on my other hip. Different anesthesiologist though. A year or so later they removed all of my hardware. For those two surgeries my room had less visitors, less Starbucks and no growable dinosaurs. Not dancing was no longer really on my radar. It hurt... but not as bad my incisions, not as bad as learning how to walk.