Hip Op

A few months ago I was toying with starting a blog about dealing with arthritis pain. I’d been suffering increasingly with pain in my hips and I thought I’d get some satisfaction from sharing the many different methods I’d tried to keep the pain to a minimum.

Then one day it just got to the point that nothing was helping with the increasing discomfort I was experiencing, so in early March I found an osteopathic surgeon. He showed me the x-ray of my hips from straight on and it was clear that my left hip was a different shape than my right one, which appeared pretty normal. He said I could put it off, but a hip replacement was clearly justified.

My darling wife argued that I didn’t want to be unable to keep up when the family went on a few upcoming trips, so I scheduled the surgery for April 17th.

In the weeks before the surgery I quickly overcame any reluctance I’d had about moving forward with it, as the pain, discomfort and disability from the arthritis continued to build. I found that the 100 yard walk to my mailbox was about 50 yards too long on occasion. The wrong move would sometimes make me wince out loud. When my sweetie asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, I said not unless she was willing to walk slowly, not very far and was prepared to carry me home if I pushed it too hard.

So here I am, nine days after my surgery. I have a 7-8 inch scar up and down my left butt cheek, and I am hobbling around with a walker at my in-laws home in Ft. Myers. I’d be home except that my home only has bedrooms upstairs and it’s a 15 foot climb to get there. Delia’s had a full travel schedule this week, so she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on me (forget the girls, since my biggest need for assistance this week was pulling my pants up.). The in-laws have a beautiful home on a golf course that has no stairs to climb and my mother-in-law has a seemingly unlimited capacity for care-giving (I think she’s a little disappointed that I am not more needy.). I am sure to gain back any weight I might have lost in the hospital.

The doctor said that the surgery was a little tougher than normal because my butt muscles were firmer than he’s used to. He said he had to sweat a bit to get and keep the muscles apart so he could do the surgery. He offered to certify mine as buns of steel. Hopefully my buns of steel will be a help rather than a hindrance in my recovery.

The day after surgery the therapy girls came in to get me out of bed and on my feet. I didn’t walk at all, but they did get me to move from my bed to my chair, and back. Fortunately I had a catheter that meant that I didn’t have to get to the toilet frequently. My diet was restricted to "clear liquids" that included juices and broths. I was filling my pee-bag pretty well.

I didn’t mind the catheter, or much else, as I had an IV hookup to a morphine drip that I could use to ease the pain. In retrospect, I think the morphine was more effective at making me feel disconnected from the experience than actually reducing the pain. But I did make frequent use of it in spite of its ineffectiveness. I had been told that it would allow me a dose every six minutes, and on occasion I watched the clock for the magic moment when thumbing the button got me the little beep that meant that a dose had been administered.

On Thursday they pulled out the catheter (oh, what a feeling) and a few hours later they disconnected the drip. By the end of the day I would miss the catheter more than the drip. Come 6pm, about 10 hours after removing the catheter, I felt the need to pee, but couldn’t deliver a drop into my pee bottle. A complaint to the nurse began an effort to find a replacement catheter.

First they delivered me to the ultrasound department where the technician determined the size of my growing bladder – about 1100cc. Back in my bed I found that with Delia’s help we could force about 500cc of pee into the bottle. Still not enough.

Eventually, a grey-haired pony-tailed male nurse showed up with the necessary catheter and got me flowing again into the bag. By this time I was no longer the least bit shy about having all the female nurses around handling my Johnson, but I was fine with the guy as well since he was actually going to fix my dilemma. In no time at all I had unloaded another 1100cc or more. I think the normal really-gotta-pee volume of an adult male bladder is about 500cc.

An urologist showed up who pronounced everything okay and recommended that I keep the catheter until early the next week. By then I would be in Fort Myers, but I figured I would find one easily enough.

Without going into details, I did find one and got the catheter pulled out (ooooh, what a feeling) on Monday. Suffice it to say that I was relieved to lose the pee-bag that I had to keep strapped to my right knee for the four days since my discharge. I can pee fine now, thank you very much.

I have moved into the recuperation stage of my experience. Every other day I have a nurse visit the house to check my vitals and change my bandage. The days she isn’t visiting, the physical therapist visits to torture me.

I’d had a few visits from PTs in the hospital but they were content to get me out of bed and taking a few steps around the floor, and to give me some pointers on how to manage with my limited reach. One guy did tell me about a few basic exercises, but hadn’t pressed my efforts.

When Marilyn came by the in-laws house on Sunday, she put me through a string of exercises meant to get my muscles toned again. The toughest one she gave me was simply lifting my left knee while lying on my back. One was tough, but she asked for twenty. With a good deal of effort I gave her all twenty, but I didn’t like her so much any more. Others were a piece of cake, like clutching my butt muscles or flexing my ankles. One that I simply couldn’t do at all was to slide my leg sideways while on my back.

Twenty of these, those and the others weren’t strenuous in the cardiovascular sense, but it was difficult in the sense that I couldn’t do many of them as well as I could with my right leg.

Marilyn was replaced by Jennifer, a pleasant Philippino woman, who has come by two more times and wasn’t quite as demanding in terms of reps, but who added a few new motions that I couldn’t do. The toughest by far is the straight leg lift. Even with her assisting considerably, lifting my straight leg while lying on my back, a movement easily accomplished by my right leg, I struggled mightily to do five reps. This, she told me, is the exercise that pretty much defines when your recovery is complete.

Since I have no enthusiasm for malingering, and a business to keep in order, I am doing all I can to work my muscles to gain strength. I still struggle a bit with the knee lifts but I get in a lot of them. I can now move my leg to the side, and I am concentrating on those exercises that will lead to being able to do the straight leg lifts.

Jennifer isn’t due back until Monday, so I am determined to show off at least a partial leg lift on my own, and I want to impress my surgeon when I see him again on Wednesday.

So many people and sources say that this is a 4-8 week recovery period, but I want to put it behind me quicker than that. I want to get back in my kayak again, and I want to go back to driving my sports car (It’s a violation of my recovery since it has a clutch and the seating is so low.)