Reflections Pt 16: here we go again

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Reading my last update from early this year only reinforces how stuck I’ve been feeling. Back then, I was trying to make sense of how to move forward—still recovering, still unable to work, still tangled in an ongoing lawsuit. I thought I had reached the end of a long road: 17 surgeries behind me, and none on the horizon. I was trying to figure out how to live in this changed body, how to honor both the needs of recovery and the desire for connection, growth, meaning.

But things shifted again.

In the last couple of months, I learned I need four more surgeries—two on each hip. I could delay them, but there are so many competing factors: managing daily pain and preventing further damage, getting through the hardest parts of recovery so I can eventually reclaim a more stable “normal,” syncing the timing with a (no-longer-happening) 13-day jury trial this fall, and making space to enjoy even a sliver of summer.

The first surgery is on my right hip, coming up August 4th in Boulder, followed by the second on August 11th in Denver. I’ll then stay for at least two nights at Swedish Hospital—an emotionally loaded place for me. It’s where my dad died, where I stayed for two weeks of rehab after leaving the trauma center in 2022, and where my mom recently had spinal surgery.

The left hip surgeries will follow in December.

All of this is a lot. It’s reshaping the next two years of my life and bringing fresh waves of grief, uncertainty, and surrender. I’m still deep in the process of understanding what it all means.

Thanks for being here. As always, I’m sending lots of love and will share more updates soon.