Hip Replacement

It has been almost a year since I left Oakland, California, in a wheelchair. Before I left, I had been misdiagnosed by three orthopedic doctors. Not one of them could find what was wrong with me, except that I couldn't walk anymore. A little thing like that didn't bother any of the doctors. They gave me a handful of awful bitter pills, which made me dizzy and upset my digestion.This was all the help they offered. The pills were supposed to take my pain away, but they didn't. I was crying from pain and sometimes my teeth chattered like in an electric shock.

What upset me most was how come the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon couldn't find competent doctors to diagnose me in the old USA. I started praying to my dead step-father who spent more time with me than my biological one.

Dear Doki! Please help me get medical help. Please lead me to the solution.

As I cried and cried, a little voice started up in my heart. It said "No problem. Just come home to Budapest to my Clinic, We fix these things there all the time."

Doki's recognition filled me with peace.

Doki's recognition filled me with peace. This was Doki’s advice. He was watching. Doki was not my real father, not the biological one. However, I knew him since i was four years old, and when my mother married him i was eleven years old and lived with them six years. This was longer than i lived with my real father, which was just two years plus time in the diffrent boarding schools where my parents put me when I was four years old.

Doki apeared to me as a stable kind of man. He was a respected doctor and a devoted one who put kids back on their feet.

He used to argue with me about Communism. I was only nine years old but I could talk and I was already well read. Now that I think about it, he was the only person who said he was an actual Communist. He actually believed the concept of Communism. He overlooked the fact that it was what had impoverished us all and made all of us proletariat. Some equality! He thought Communism was worthy of trying out, of giving it a shot. I was deeply against it, but not in principle -- only the practice. He sang with me Sundays when he was home waiting for dinner. He gave me books to read that he still had from his sisters. I got a lot of self-respect from the way he treated me. I also got into reading books for pleasure. He gave me his sisters' youth books about adventurous girls and different types of tomboys and rebels. A good read at eight years old. This of course whetted my mind for more and I have never stopped reading. This was his most precious gift to me, the books.

But back to my hip.... Once my head cleared, and I accepted that the USA will not help me get better, I bought my airline tickets to Hungary. A word about insurance here. I used to have Kaiser Health Insurance, but their doctor too spent only two minutes with me and just asked: "Is anything broken?" I said, "No, it's my back. It's my hips." The Kaiser orthopedic doctor didnt even lay hands on me. I had waited three months for this appointment. "Nothing broken? Oh, that's all we do here," he said.

This was five years ago, and this was the point when I decided not to pay Kaiser a penny more and they dropped me, So I had no insurance. MediCal normally gives help when you have no money and a big health problem, but not me. After they counted up my monies somehow I was just a little bit over the 2,000 dollar limit, so MediCal was out, I was too young for Medicare. Three years too young. I couldn't wait that long to get fixed. My life had collapsed already.

I fought my way across the Atlantic, across the airports, I changed planes at Heathrow, a horrible experience because the airport had no more wheelchairs available. Malév, the Hungarian Airlines, was very far from British Airlines. A nightmare of bus rides, and the pain was so bad in my hips i had to stop to sob. Sobbing helped a little. An Englishman saw me crying and promised to come back for me, which he did. Finally I was seated -- in the last row of the airplane .Emigrants say "I am leaving home and going home." Two countries in my life, bilingual culture in my blood, I have an accent in both languages.

Hungarian was being spoken all around me, The airbus glided into the airport at the Feriegy (Feri Mountian), which is not really a mountain, nor is there anybody famous named Feri.

My cousin Andris found me first, He embarced me and i felt good in his strong arms. Then my brother came, too, He was a little shocked seeing me in the wheelchair.The important thing was I Was Home! Now, I thought, I will get help.

It wasnt only my hip that was hurting. My mother's sister, Aunt Titi, was dying in the hospital. She was hanging in there until I would show up to bury her. Before I could focus on me I had to go and see her in the hospital.

I have never seen anybody wasting away to the last breath before. Titi, 88 years old, was once a spectacular beauty, and proud of it, and now she was in diapers, thin, with veins so visible on her hands I could count them. Titi, the baker of pastry and maker of great soups, now refused to eat. She was dehydrated, weak, and couldn't hold her head up on the pillow. I was sitting there holding her hands and singing to her. I loved my Titi. It was a sad goodbye, but she refused to live any longer. "I'm 88," she said, "Nobody lived this long in our family." She was almost ashamed about her longevity.

Titi died at midnight, six days after I arrived. She slipped away. I never saw her again. If you die in the hospital in Hungray, the body is taken down into the basement and kept cold, then cremated. I saw only a box of ashes at her funeral. Who knows whose ashes they were, but ashes cannot be so different from one body to the next.

Titi wanted a mass and a Catholic funeral in a place she had already picked out. She had all her hole in the wall, all paid for.

The only man of cloth I found who did burials wasn't even a priest. He said the wrong name for Titi, her ex-husband's name. He had died long ago. But she wanted this, and she got this. I understood why she chose this Urn Plebania, because here there were funerals and masses said daily, all day long.The air was filled with the scent of fresh flowers left at the urns by relatives. She had company. This was a long lasting pain in her life, loneliness. She wanted to die because of it as well. She was too much alone. She suffered. I come from a long line of lonely people. I have this pain myself as well. It doesn't matter that I was once married and had two kids, Now in my old age I am alone. Titi was married twice, no kids, Also alone .Motherhood is no guarantee to have company in the later years. Unless you have daughters. More likely, but I am not sure.

My bother took me to a doctor for MRIs of my hips and it was immediately clear to the first Hungarian doctor who saw me that my hips needed to be replaced. "Prosthesis," they said, "and fast."

A new feature enetered the picture. My brother started bahaving like a stranger to me. For example, he didn't choose to sit next to me, He wandered about while waiting for the doctors, He struck up conversations and entertained himself with strangers. I saw a very different kind of man. He was jovial. He was kind, polite. He joshed with this old man or that old lady, but he would not talk to me or even share a seat next to me.

Finally i said to him, "Brother, is anything wrong? You have not one kind word to me, yet you bounce around like a puppy with strangers." Finally, still fresh from California, I pressed him into confrontation. "What is it? What's going on?" His face changed. For the first time an auhthentic self became visible. He hated me.

"You are the most selfish person i have ever met," he said. "You only think for yourself."

This was a stunner. Here I was totally maimed, barely able to walk, facing a heavy opeartion -- two of them. My aiplane tickets were for two months only and now it looked like I was staying for a year. Plus, my brother knew nothing about my life nor what was in my head. Nothing about my years of voluteering for women’s causes, years of free work (make it thirty years), staffing womens centers, organizing festivals and confereneces. All for free. I certainly wasn't selfish. But this is how he saw me. I felt so bad I could not even defend myself. All I said was "You are so wrong."

I had to let it go, but it hurt my heart. It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks, This kid was only four years old when I left the country, thirteen years younger than I. We were not raised together. Now in later years our age difference is not that big, and he is judging me. I was in too much shock to put up a decent fight. It has become like a post-fight running in my mind, where I continue arguing with him about this selfishness issue. But the truth was, he didn't love me at all. He resented me for coming home for help when my new country let me down. He has forgotten that I have the right to come home to the old coutnry, I didnt stop being Hungarian and loving my homeland just because I had to leave in 1956 to save my life. Now it was his country alone. Mine was the USA. He felt I was intruding.

Yes, he is helping me get to the hospital like a good boy, He has a car and knows everybody. But he continued to seat himself seperately from me and to pretend not to know me. But he was there. We went to his biological father's Clinic and there I was examined by Professor Szendroi who scheduled an operation of my left hip for the end of Novemeber.

Imre, my brother, found me a place in a Home for the Elderly. This was a strange gift, back into institutions again, Always my fate in the old country. I have been put into nunneries, put out to live with peasants, and sent to boarding schools. And now, the Home for the Elderly. I was by far the youngest there. They scared me. This place was in his pocket. He was the head of the Second Kerulet that dealt with institutions like this and he knew the owner. He arrived at a good deal for me, 60K a month in forints. 215 forints make a dollar. Cheap. This place was filled with very old ladies and a few gents and had nurses around the clock, They cooked for and fed the oldsters three times a day. Washed clothes, cleaned the rooms. A good deal. I had a place to rest.

Brother dutifully took me to the hospital on the appointed day, and left me there. I got into room 116, a room with eight women. First floor.

Our day started with a nurse taking temperatures, asking about our night's sleep. Then a doctor showed up and tended to the complaints. Then around 11am the entire floor's doctors, about five of them, came for a visit. The visit was when everything was communicated to all doctors and the decisions were made about the operations and the order in which they would be done.

I was taken the next day which was great because this meant I had to spend fewer days with nothing to do here. If you are not working on getting better it's pretty boring in the hospital.

When i was dressed in my green gown, head covered, and wheeled towards the operating room I realized how close my father Doki was to me. I felt his soothing care, as if he wheeled me himself. I prayed to him to make sure the operation was successful. Doki and I knew each other since I was 4 years old, way before he married my mom and way before my brother was born. Doki and I had an exclusive relationship in his youth. He corrected my shoes when I was a teenager, and now he was there in the operating room with me.

In my veins drips were placed, antibiotics and sleeping potions to make me doze off. A light sleep, Nothing like a major anesthetic. An epidermic in the base of my spine and I felt no pain at last.

I dreamt i was in a smithery. Sparks were flying, Machines were going, Totally like a workshop. When they pulled aside the green curtain, I saw Dr Kiss (the name means little, not kiss). He was checking me and then declared that i was up and could now be wheeled into the Orzo (the safe room).

This is for the first 24 hours after the operation and is brutal. You are thirsty and would sell your soul for water.They don't let you drink a lot. A nurse takes blood pressures, checks temperatures, urges you to pee into bedpans, which of course I cannot do with so many strangers around me,. So i got cathetarized. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means, I will not be explaining it to you.

After 24 hours they wheeled me back into room 116. My post-op sisters welcomed me, What a great room. We did this to all the members of the room, When they came back to their beds, we all cheered for them.

Room 116 I have renamed the Crone Cave. Mostly rather older gals in here. Country-woman Julcsa nenei who cursed freely, Elisabeth who was a church-lady, prayed to Jesus, Magda neni with knee surgeries who had trouble having a BM, Agi who had bunions removed. She taught me the culture of the hospital. She had been here often before, And of course cigi-smoking woman Vera who was first up after her surgery and walking the same day just to get to the smoking-allowed space in the hall. I considered her a freak. I didn't take a step til the fourth day.

The food was surprisingly tasty. Soup with every meal and meat and potatoes or noodles, but always delicious. It was slimming food. I lost 2 kilos in two weeks. Medications to go with every meal. No radio, No TV. But eight lives, talking truth to each other. For Hungarian women this is a therapy session that lasts two weeks, not just surgery that fixes the body parts. Many of them never had this many women listen to their storiers. They are brutally honest, They tell all. When their relatives showed up for a visit we knew all the background, We knew who they were and what they did good or bad. Visitors, of course, no matter how low they speak they are audible in the room to everybody. We pretend we are not listening, but it's impossible.

I was reading a lot of poetry. Read a book a day. Time crawled slowly, but finally it was over and I was allowed to go "home."

I took an ambulance ride back to Senctus, the home for the elderly. They received me without much fanfare. I fixed my bed up with an extra mattress, installed the toilet heightener so i dont sit down to deeply, which is dangerous with a prosthesis. (I bought it in the hospital along with the frame walker and crutches.)

Hospital Costs: 2ooo dollars, with everything included. Great success with the operation.

I rested a lot for the first two months, You need a place to kick back, let go, and be served. Senectus was the perfact choice after all. Brother did good with this choice. It slowly dawned on me how wise it really was.

The only problems i had here was boredom and loneliness. Brother only came if there was business to be done, like the inheritance matters from Auntie Titi.But once that was over, he didn’t come anymore.

I had made some new friends. I have a gay cousin Andras and he gave me some contacts. Martika, for example, An art restorer, She was supposed to know everybody. This might have been true. Martika introduced me to Agota Gordon, a lesbian novelist. A beautiful writer and poet. Both introduced me to Ini, a gay guy who worked with computers. He scored me a Zenith computer and installed it in my little room. Installed the Internet. Costs About 5K in forints .Time went by much better after this. It would take six months before my other hip was fixed up as well.

Time flew after i could walk without crutches, which happened after about three months, By the fourth month, nothing hurt. I was free of all pain. All Pain gone!!!

As a reward, I flew to Malta, I walked about a bit, celebrated a normal life. I didn't walk too much, but I could walk without any help. The only thing that hurt was the unoperated leg. Soon six months was up and i had to repeat the process with the right leg. I could say things about Malta, not all good. The tourists ruined it for me. Fighting for quiet nights, The hotel noise, The rude americans on the cell phones yelling up the halls and gardens late at night, The cold water in the advertised swimming pools. The food was fine, buffet-style breakfasts and dinners.

Willow from Goddessing and her friend Marie took me around a bit, Not too much to see in Malta after the four big Megaliths. After that it's three churches per street block, Tourist trinkets and visible poverty. Willow organized a small party from the few Goddess people, We watched the Marija Gimbutas video, which brought the sweet lady back into my conciouness.

Back to the hospital.... Totally different expereince with Room 110, Fewer women, but larger personalities. I realized how good it was the first time around. Now it was spring, birds were singing outside the hospital windows, especially mornings when i frame-walked to the toilets, I could hear the birds mingled with the snoring of the different rooms as i walked by. The large personality I had to contend with this time was Bozse, who was a pale peasant lady from Northern Hungary. They have an accent and they have no couth. Bozse, however, liked to talk and she was rather interesting at first. I learned about her upbringing, her strict abusive father, They had to wash the cows' behinds so when the old man checked them by sniffing their tails he could not detect any bad smells. Imagine sniffing a cow's behind! But this was the rule to clean stables.

They wore folk dresses to church which were made hard as boards with some kemenyito. Ironed and worn with many skirts hard as boards so they swing out like flowers. I never knew the price for these folk customs. She said it made their legs bleed.

But after the second week the stories started repeating, and i had to cut her off by finishing the story so she would believe it was already told.

The other personality this time was another countrywoman with hip operations also. She was a fussy neat-freak. She lay across from me in full view of my bed and tablés, which were just in survival mode, not neat all. I placed everything close so the things I needed were within reach. Cups, tooth-brushing equipment, books, soups, towels, All just there withiout any order. It drove her nuts.

She exploded at me once. "You are so messy!" she yelled. "Look how your place looks like!"

I had to smile.

You have no idea how low neatness is on my priority list! I am still working on daily regularity.

All was forgiven me, however, when they realized i still know the old folksongs and we sang them in one moment of painless abandon.

Again, I took an ambulance home, using my brother's energy as little as possible. He still didn't tell me why in particular he stopped loving me. It still hurts because now all I have from blood relatives with heart is his son Martin. He is only 2o years old and goes to the University. We talk sometimes, and he did come out to celebrate Lammas with me. The kid's got witchy potential.

My country is filled with festivals, cultural ones, Wine tasting ones, Horse fesstivals. Even stork festivals. It's a way of remembering community. It fits into the new image of EU members.

But I am viewing it all through the TV screen. Best seats in the events, but none of the bustle. On May First they had three bridges turned into festival places, One was covered with grass, one with waterfalls, and the other one ... well, I forget what else. Book festivals, Food cook outs, Hungarins are mad with festivals. Right now we have the Sziget festival, a kimd of Woodstock on the island in the middle of the Duna river.

I am only two months and a couple weeks away from the second operation, and this is not without comp;ications like the first one. I had to return back to get my wound syphoned out from fluids it built up, The pain is not all gone yet, but it's getting less. Especially in the mornings my thighs feel like lead. As I use them it gets lighter. The good news is that I am off painkillers.

I'd rather know how I am than mask reality with pills.

Another 2ooo dollars for all services. Two weeks, meds and operations, follow-up visits, XRays. 2K. So for 4K I had both hips replaced, My old country had given me a repair job when the USA wouldn't even diagnose me.

Cultures are judged by how well are their healing arts?

USA not too good. Many bad doctors afoot. Costing to much undeserved money.

Hungarian doctors are very well trained, Great hospital culture, Overwhelmingly successful operations and follow-up. Bad equipment, Old-fashioned unpleasant toilets.

Still I recommend this health tourism to you all. If you have no insurance and can travel, this is a good option. You don't have to be Hungarian to partake in this.

Write to me if you want to know more.

Blessings and good healing.

Zsuzsanna

Z Generation

At long last you have arrived! At long last you made it to the center stage, You crawling little grandchild, you're now in suits demonstrating for peace. Peace! After 30 years finally a new generation takes on the mantle of history makers. Not an easy job. The spells it took. The love of history and taking responsibility for one's times is brave. And very American.

We can be proud again.

Do not ever doubt that you don't matter. Smaller groups of souls cultivating community are even better, Undisturbed for a long time you germinate new ways to live on earth. Ways of peace. Bake a lot of breads.

Inaugurate Generation Z's presence with big public sharing of bread. Bake bread, There is wisdom in that activity. You have to knead the dough, You have to hurt your knuckles to get it right. And then you have to be patient. The bread needs to rise in a quiet cool place. It’s the bread aborning.

Such it is with Peace. You need to just bake the bread or buy it baked, and eat it as in worship.

Bread is the symbol of peace. Sharing bread together is communion. Communion makes you strong, puts you in touch with spirit.

Gather together, Hold peace in your hearts and make bread or buy and eat it. Wash it down with something red.

Members of Generation Z have already absorbed all that we have learned since the seventies. and we've grown up in the culture of multi media awareness. WW2 is fought on the educational channels over and over again, and you can catch up with any war on video. 9/11 played for months. War is already a video game format. But until war becomes a regulated sport it will not be safe, like fencing today.

The war model exists as a leftover from our reptilian brain. This brain enjoys war in images just as well. So we don't need war in real life. War games works fine. That’s ok.

Generation Z have seen the reruns. They have seen history on documentaries -- onsite pictures and moving stories. In the beginning, probably still in the womb, generation Z has imagined a better world, Just better. Not worth. They wanted more. They wanted back the innocence. The fun. They tried to have Woodstock again. The peace was missing in all the recreation.The first Woodstock was built on peace. Generation Z can make it come back.

Generation Z can escape into their visual world of high tech imaging and the brain is satisfied. As long as you could imagine it in detail its like you have done it. Then you can go home and plug in the new light bulb. The one with swirls take less electricity. Better for the world. The past and the future never before existed side by side with this clarity. You can live in all the decades you missed out by your late arrival, Cool, It's on TV in the afternoon. You can wear any decade’s fashions, too. Retro fashions. Generation Z lives in many realities at the same time. Generation Z can be in many centuries at the same time. Their world is all the living we have done so far, all the history we have created so far.

I wish we had peace for you to live in and only the surplus to spend .Not burden you with debts, poor dears.

And you could start the Aquarian Age with a full deck. But that is not the case. All you have is the stars on your shoulders. The alignments. The Aquarian sub age. Now we are a good forty years into it. We still have a lot of time, It takes 179 years, so in fact its is still early. Historically early. But we have a cross generation resonance from grandma to grandchild. There is no generation gap. We need to
figure out how to use the celestial favorable chances.

Sub age of Aquarius, The stars, The Human flowering. Human flowering is Woman flowering.

If you are a member of Generation Z, you are the One! You are the seed. You are the winning combination. You are the new reality. Spend your mind on thinking about peace, wisdom, women, You are protecting the humans. Our species has been misled with wars and generations are missing out lifetimes of joy. Too much suffering. It has to end. And you are it.

What about us women? We have created/given birth to all these bad leaders, what is our responsibility in there?

You generation Z will catch the last bad spasms of patriarchy and deal with it. You will with your bare hands dismantle the dangerous plans, the bombs. Because on the subliminal level we can do as we wilt. And we are regenerating the old Peace seed and sprouting a new course.

It is good so. We deserve this honor. Lets just have a good laugh right now. See the divine ridiculous. Hahahaha! Cackle too. It’s a soul thing. Cackling. Feel your emotions just looking back up to you saying, We are fine. Just for a moment be happy for no reason at all. Just because you can do that to your head. The heart is next to follow. Try to make irrationally happy moments like this. I'll be thinking of you.