Jennie Garth shares her experience undergoing two hip replacement surgeries and how she developed a new sense of self-love as a result. Hip replacements are often seen as something older people go through, so when the Beverly Hills, 90210 legend was faced with it in her 40s she was scared to be seen as 'old'. Healing from her surgeries was not just a physical process for Garth, but an emotional one too as she gained the perspective to age with confidence and cherish the life she was given.
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00:00I didn't want anybody to know that I was getting a hip replacement because I literally thought,
00:06that is for old people. I'm not old. I don't want to be seen as old. It just scared me.
00:21I had always had this clicking thing in my hip and I had seen a doctor for it a while back and
00:28they told me that I had like slightly misshapen something in there that made that clicking sound
00:36and I was a dancer when I was younger and I would always hear the click like it was and
00:41then it became like more of a clump and then eventually it became something that was so
00:48painful that I couldn't even like go on a walk with my dogs. I kind of knew osteoarthritis was
00:56coming for me just because of my parents. That's sort of a daunting thing to know you're in store
01:03for but it made sense just given my family genetics. There was a lot of procrastinating on
01:11getting the surgery because it was scary and I thought oh my I'm too young. I was 48 and
01:18approaching the big five-oh and you know I just kept putting it off until I couldn't put it off
01:27anymore. Like I couldn't do the things I wanted to do and I said no my life is not going to go
01:34down like this. I'm not going to be slowed down by something that I can go potentially get fixed.
01:41With a hip surgery nowadays you're in and out the same day which I didn't believe but they have you
01:48walking like an hour after like with a walker and I went home that day with my little walker
01:56and we went straight to bed and really tried to keep off my feet which was next to
02:01impossible for someone like me and within three days I had ditched the walker and replaced it
02:08with a vacuum. I was literally facetiming my sister and vacuuming at the same time. She didn't even
02:13know I had had the surgery and I was like look at me I'm vacuuming and she was like okay great
02:19that's not a normal and I said wait I just had my hip replaced and I'm vacuuming and she was like
02:26wait what you had your hip replaced? So I did not take it slow enough on my first replacement. I
02:34didn't give myself enough grace to be still and let my body heal but remarkably my first hip healed
02:43very quickly and I was back and so active within two months probably. One month I felt like good
02:52two months I was on the go and like by three months I forgot that I had even had it done
02:57and I had to remind myself oh slow down sister you got a fake hip now but the second surgery
03:04took a lot longer to heal. It still hurts like it's still healing and I have to kind of baby it
03:11and I think so on an emotional level I was just a little kinder to myself
03:15and on a physical level just working back into things slowly and listening to my body like
03:21instead of pushing through pain I would say no I need to modify this move or I need to wait on this
03:29exercise because it hurts and you I don't think that's something you should push too early. It's
03:36really hard for me to receive people's help because I like to help people so that was hard
03:42for me asking would you mind getting me some more water? Could you please bring my medicines in? You
03:49know like that was challenging for me and it's still challenging for me to ask for help. That's
03:55just the kind of person I am I guess. As women we're taught we're supposed to take care of others
04:01and when you shift and you start taking care of yourself for you it just changes everything. I
04:09felt like my personal development and my maturing was incredibly stunted because I spent you know
04:23such formative years on a set as a teen working so hard and not having a sense of myself at all
04:32and always trying to be pretty and look good and have people like me and accept me and want me and
04:39my worth was dependent on looking a certain way feeling valued by others for whatever reason.
04:50Your priorities shift as you get older the things you want change things that were so
04:58consuming and important in your younger years just don't matter anymore and you really come to a
05:05place and thank god I came to this place because I spent so much of my life wasting my time
05:12worrying what other people thought of me and you come to this place where you're like I don't want
05:17to waste my precious time on this earth worrying about what other people think of me it's futile
05:23and it's damaging and so you just have to let that go and you do it happens as you get older
05:32it's okay to love yourself it's not selfish it's it's vital so for me doing that kind of work was
05:42really scary but I also felt like it was helping me I saw the growth and I could see the progress
05:52and it wasn't overnight there were a lot of setbacks and then I ended up getting remarried
05:58and then splitting up with my husband unexpectedly three years into that marriage and thought that
06:05that marriage had ended also and so I was like I don't know if this is too personal
06:10too much we had before we broke up we had been undergoing IVF treatments and trying to have a
06:16baby and it kept failing and that was really really hard on both of us individually and on
06:22our relationship and when we decided to let go of that possibility it sort of freed us up to
06:33love each other in a different way Dave is just an incredibly supportive loving person
06:41and he loves to take care of me he's just always thinking of of how he can make me happy and make
06:50the day go better I'm so grateful for the generosity of his you know his spirit and his love
06:58every day so going through the operations I did I did want to make it look easy I didn't want to
07:06look old to him I didn't want him to see me struggling but I couldn't really hide it from him
07:14and you know because I wanted to hide it from the whole world I didn't want anybody to know that
07:17I was getting a hip replacement because I literally thought that is for old people
07:25I'm not old I don't want to be seen as old and it just scared me and then you know I had to have
07:32that kind of epiphany that your physical state has nothing to do with your spirit and no matter
07:42what physical condition I'm dealing with I still have a young spirit you know and I just encourage
07:48people listen to your body respect your body because this is the body we came into this world
07:55with and this is the body we're going to grow old with we have to take care of it and the first part
07:59of taking care of your body is by listening to the messages that it's giving you when something hurts
08:07go have it looked at by a doctor and do whatever you can to alleviate the pain because you don't
08:14have to live in pain modern medicine is so miraculous now like a robot and a doctor put
08:21two fake hips in me like and I'm working out and I'm doing all the things in my life I wanted to do
08:27like I you know it has not changed things on such a level that I can't adjust you know
08:38and I have to tell you it really is the best time of my life