Thank You Mr Case!

Isn't it strange how sometimes people you don't really know can have a profound effect on your life?

I was pondering over the fact that the surgeon who put my hip back together again, Mr Case, (who unfortunately is now deceased) will never know how much quality of life I have had at his hands! His modest estimation that I might manage until my mid-twenties before requiring a replacement hip joint, far under-estimated his own skill and knowledge - I am nearing my 33rd birthday and I am still very active (even if I am in a lot of pain!).

At some point in the fiasco around my birth, my Mother was told I was dead, until they found a heart beat and revised thier analysis to brain-damaged. Fortunately - I am neither. In diagnosing my hip complaint, my mother was this time told I would never walk (not by Mr Case I might add), and again I proved them wrong. I have had a normal active life thus far.

Normal - that, I think is the crux of it. I remember a sports day at my primary school - I was probably 10 - and I was the last one round the running course. Everyone else had finished way ahead of me, but as I came around for my final lap, my teacher said to me "It's OK Lucy, you can stop here". It was met with a breathy but emphatic "NO!" and on I struggled around the field, to be met with applause and cheering at the finish line. I didn't want pity - I just wanted to be normal.

I also remember visiting Mr Case on one of the last occasions I saw him. I had hurt my hip and just needed to be checked out. "So how did you do hurt yourself?" I remembr him asking me. I replied I had been ski-ing and fallen, and I am still not sure to this day whether the look he gave me was one of horror or silent pride.

Sometimes I wish I could share my gratitude with these people who helped to put me where I am today - and I realise that Mr Case isn't likely to read this (unless they have broadband in Heaven!) but if anyone who knows him does...on his behalf please receive my thanks, for letting me be normal!