Salamander
Fire Walking

Lately I’ve been having a little trouble with my right hip. In the face of everything else that’s going on, I deemed this to be less than important. There are days when the hip acts up, maybe once or twice a month. On those days I need to watch how I place my feet. If I pigeon-toe with my right foot just a little bit, or if I turn by swiveling on my hip, then I get a sharp, sudden pain that can be enough to drop me. The pain is instantaneous, and goes as quickly as it comes with no residual discomfort. The days I know I’m having trouble I take a little more care, holding handrails and taking my time on slopes.

I mentioned this in passing to my personal physician last week, letting her know that I wasn’t interested in accumulating yet another specialist, but wondering if osteoarthritis could be a side-effect from one of my medications. She said that with all my medications that was a possibility, but she was more concerned about a rare but known side-effect of steroids that could affect my hip. My doctor’s office has an x-ray machine in-house, and she wanted to get some radiographs to make sure that wasn’t the case.

When she called back she was able to assure me that the changes in my hip that are causing pain are from normal wear-and-tear of aging. There was a pause. “I hear a ‘But’ coming,” I said. I’m getting good at reading the silences of doctors.

“Did ever have any surgeries to your hip?” she wanted to know. I assured her I had not. “That’s what I thought,” she said. Apparently the radiologist who read my radiographs had ashed her that question because he noted that part of my left sacrum was missing, as was nearly half of my right sacrum. “I know you don’t want any new doctors,” she said, “but I really think you need to see an osteopath about this.”

There goes another $40 co-pay down the toilet.

Interestingly enough, the sacrum is thusly named because it was considered the “sacred bone” of the Greeks. According to some sources, this was apparently the bone offered in sacrifices by the Greeks because they considered it to be the site of the soul.

I guess this means that if you’re “hip” you have soul. I also guess this means I’m not fully hip.