Figured I better play a bit of catch up here. About one month since surgery and 3 weeks since leaving hospital. Just had my last in home therapy session - one step finished!! Start out patient therapy this week and am looking forward to that. If nothing else, it will get me out of the house 2 or 3 times a week!!
The hip replacement appears to have gone well - so far so good. My delay in recovery time is not from the hip but from having to repair damage done to nerves and muscle by the hip being bad for so long.
Do admit to some frustration when these folk keep making comments about major problems from long term damage - where were they when I was telling doctors in the 70's about the shooting groin pain that made me see stars? the ones that doctors said were probably just some occasional pinched nerve pain from pushing myself too far? while making me feel like a big sissy for complaining. I mean, no one even suggested taking an x-ray. Anywho - seems the darn thing was going bad back then. Guess that partially explains why and how it went from being a little sore to the hunch-back of Notre Dame in what I thought was a six month downfall. It was actually 30 plus years of damage that pushed me over that edge.
So now I have to get some muscles to not only work again, but do so correctly. Gotta' try and get the left leg as "straight" as possible, then rebuild the hip strength - all so he can remove the right one asap before it falls out as bad as the left one did.
While progress appears unbelievably slow to me - there has been progress. A 4" kick off the floor doesn'tseem like much till compared to 3 weeks ago when the foot couldn't even get up off the floor by itself - that kind of thing. I'm standing a bit straighter and standing and walking a bit further and longer - still not much more that across the yard and into and out of medical buildings - but it's getting easier to do that each time instead of harder!!!
What it all boils down to at this point in time - am in much less pain than I was before the surgery, posture is better, still not much mobility, but am seeing slow improvements. Have to stick with my exercises and hopefully they'll approve me for at least 3 weeks of pool therapy, fingers crossed, knock on wood, cause I think that will really help too. Also still haven't smoked a cigarette - know the physical addiction part has to be over but the mental is definitely still a bitch singing to me at all hours of the day and night! Do feel better and heart doesn't pound quite so hard after hauling my fat ass across the back yard and into the van. One month smoke free with one new hip - so far, so good. And having to face the fact that a walker is going to be a permanent part of my life for the next six months or so and it or a cane will probably be a part of my life for a while, if not forever.
Guess that's about it at the moment. Wanted some positive stuff to share before writing and being me, since I wasn't ready to walk a mile or two, didn't think progress was being made. Only progress is being made, am better than I was - it's just not going to happen overnight and a total return of mobility, as in easily walking 2 to 5 miles in a day, may not be a realistic goal - or perhaps needs to be a more long term goal. And hopefully, will be able to cut back on some of the pain meds, or at least the more mind stupifying ones. One of the main reasons you do not hear more from me. For once, I am in thrall of pain meds cause all those joints that my advil or motrin kept unswollen and pain tolerable - well they've been totally cut off from any anti-inflamatories except for tylenol. For the first time I have learned the wisdom of "stay ahead of your pain, take your meds on time". I kept trying to "cut back" until the time I almost literally couldn't move because of the pain - duh!!!! okay, so I gotta' learn the hard way.
Been brain dead a good part of the time. Just now finally got the book finished that had started before surgery - a month to read a book - me??! duh - what did I just read? who shot who? who's the good guy?gal? duh? and forget reading any cyber punk or steampunk scifi - I can't keep up with regular day to day reality never mind alternate realities operating on different time planes!!
And I refuse to be one of those doddering old gals that can only talk about her latest surgery - which is what I've just done - but had received some "so what in the sam hill is going on" emails and figured I better talk about it enough to say - yeah, I'm still alive.
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