A health coach’s raw, real journey through hip surgery and what it taught me about deep health
Welcome to something I never planned to write.
Three weeks ago, I was in a hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how the hell I got here. Not just physically—though the hip surgery recovery was real enough—but mentally. How did I, a certified master health and wellness coach who helps busy professionals optimize their lives, end up as the patient? The answer, I’m realizing, is often the same one many of you might discover if you keep prioritizing ‘busy’ over baseline health: chronic self-neglect, ignoring the whispers until they become a physical scream.
This isn’t the polished, “I’ve got it all figured out” post you might expect from someone in my field. This is the beginning of a raw, weekly journey through recovery that I’m sharing because I believe it holds lessons for every high-performing professional who’s ever felt their body betray their ambitions.
The Pain That Couldn’t Be Explained
The hip pain crept in like a whisper that gradually became a scream. No dramatic injury story. No gym accident I could point to and say, “That’s when it started.” Just a slow, relentless ache that made sitting through long work meetings torture and turned my beloved golf games into exercises in frustration. And what’s worse, my gym workouts became nearly non-existent.
For months, I pushed through. Because that’s what we do, right? We’re the generation that wears exhaustion like a badge of honor. We’re the 30-50 year-olds who’ve built careers on grinding through discomfort. But this was different. This was my body saying, “Stop.” The inability to workout like I used to took a huge toll on my mental well being as well.
The diagnosis was clear enough, but the cause remained a mystery. Sometimes our bodies keep score in ways we don’t expect. Sometimes the very drive that makes us successful becomes the thing that breaks us down.
When the Coach Becomes the Patient
Here’s what they don’t teach you in health coaching certification: what to do when your own deep health principles get tested in the most personal way possible. As I lay in that hospital bed, all my expertise felt simultaneously irrelevant and more important than ever.
Deep health—the interconnected wellness of our physical, mental, emotional, social, environmental, and existential well-being—isn’t just a concept I teach. It became my lifeline. But more on that as this series unfolds.
What This Series Is Really About
Over the next several weeks, I’m going to share the messy, imperfect, deeply human side of recovery. Not because I want sympathy, but because I believe this journey contains insights that could change how you think about your own health priorities.
This series is for you if:
- You’re a busy professional who’s been sacrificing your body for your career
- You’ve ever wondered what would happen if your body forced you to slow down
- You’re curious about how deep health principles actually work when life gets real
- You need permission to prioritize your wellness without guilt
Each week, I’ll share:
- The physical reality: What recovery actually looks like, day by day
- The mental game: How I’m managing the psychological challenges
- The deeper lessons: What this experience is teaching me about sustainable high performance
- Practical insights: How you can apply these lessons without having to go through surgery
[Photo: United Wellness team supporting me during a gentle recovery session]
The Wake-Up Call I Didn’t Know I Needed
Here’s the hard truth I’m still processing: this setback might be the best thing that’s happened to my health coaching practice. Not because I’m glad I needed surgery, but because it’s given me something I didn’t know I was missing—genuine empathy for what it feels like when your body limits your ambitions.
I’ve spent years helping clients optimize their performance, but I’d never truly understood what it felt like to have your physical capabilities suddenly constrained. Now I know the frustration of wanting to move and being unable to. I understand the fear that comes with wondering if you’ll ever get back to your previous level of function. This isn’t theory anymore; it’s lived experience.
Setting Expectations for the Journey Ahead
This won’t be a linear story of triumph. Recovery never is. There will be victories and setbacks, insights and confusion, hope and frustration. I’m committing to sharing it all because real transformation happens in the messy middle, not just in the highlight reel.
What to expect in upcoming weeks:
- Week 2: The first week home and learning to ask for help
- Week 3: Redefining productivity when your body says no
- Week 4: The mental health challenges nobody talks about
- Week 5: How my work routine adapted (and what stayed the same)
- And more, as the journey unfolds…
Why I’m Sharing This Now
As health and wellness professionals, we sometimes feel pressure to be perfect examples of our own teachings. But perfection isn’t the goal—resilience is. Growth is. The ability to adapt and find strength in unexpected places.
Your body might not force you to slow down with surgery, but if you’re a high-performing professional between 30-50, the odds are good that something will eventually demand your attention. Chronic stress, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, lack of movement—these things accumulate.
My hip surgery is a relatively minor setback in the grand scheme of things. But it’s given me a preview of what could happen if we don’t start taking deep health seriously. If we don’t stop treating our bodies like machines that should run perfectly regardless of how we maintain them.
The Question I’m Asking Myself (And You)
What would have to happen for you to prioritize your health? Would it take surgery? A diagnosis? A wake-up call that couldn’t be ignored?
Or could you choose to make changes now, while you still have options?
I’m not saying everyone needs to overhaul their life. But I am saying that my recovery is teaching me things about sustainable high performance that I wish I’d learned before I was lying in a hospital bed.
Join Me for the Journey
This series isn’t just about my recovery—it’s about reimagining what it means to maintain high performance in demanding careers without sacrificing our long-term health. It’s about the intersection of ambition and wellness, of drive and sustainability.
Every Wednesday for the next several weeks, I’ll share another chapter of this journey. The real stuff. The insights. The setbacks. The breakthroughs.
Because if we’re going to talk about deep health, we might as well get deep about what it actually takes to live it.
Comments and questions are welcome. This is as much a conversation as it is a story, and I’m learning as much from your perspectives as I hope you’re gaining from mine.
Next week: How the first week home taught me everything I didn’t know about asking for help—and why that might be the most important skill for high-performing professionals.
If you’re already noticing those early warning signs from your body, or simply want to proactively build sustainable ‘deep health,’ don’t wait for the pain to become unbearable like I did.
I’ll be sharing more of my recovery journey in the coming weeks. If these reflections resonated with you, or if you’re interested in exploring how deep health principles can transform your approach to sustainable high performance, I’d love to connect. Contact us or reach out via Social Platforms – see links.
Remember, sometimes the most productive thing you can do is rest and recover – a lesson I’m learning firsthand, even from my recovery chair.