It Stopped Being Funny

Today's shopping, my new floral walking stick,
and my backpack-style handbag.

A month or so ago, my son and I were at the shopping centre, and I was complaining about how much walking hurt my hips.  My son offered to go and get me a walking stick.  I said, "You do, and I'll hit you with it." We both had a good laugh.

Well, maybe it was a bit funny.  But you know what's not funny?  When I start walking my left hip hurts, then I start to limp, then because my right hip is doing so much extra work, it starts to hurt.  Then the level of pain in both hips just increases the longer I have to be upright.

I guess the reason I didn't want to try a walking stick was that they look so overwhelmingly like "old" and "disabled", maybe even like "helpless". I don't want to look like those things.

People tend not to change until the new thing is more attractive than what we already have.  Being able to walk further without as much pain has been becoming more and more attractive.

Today, I did it. I bought my first-ever walking stick.  It's a light-weight aluminium one, which has a floral pattern on it. So at least it's pretty, and doesn't look huge. And.... well, we spent a long time at the shops today, and I didn't feel much hip pain at all. So I guess it's a success.

Since I was spending on things to make life more pain-free, I also replaced my handbag, with a backpack-style handbag.  It means I'm distributing the weight of the things I carry across both shoulders, so one doesn't get so sore.

It's going to take a bit of adjusting, because using a walking-stick at the age of 47 doesn't fit the "me" I see myself as... but the flowers on it make it more fun and pretty, and I do enjoy having less pain.