Hip Op Update
Tomorrow is three weeks since my surgery. To my great satisfaction, it is going better than projected. I am now back to work full time (and then some), and I generally hobble around without even the use of my cane. I haven't really mastered the synchronization of the cane and my leg, so I end up looking like a cross between House (the TV doctor) and a drunken Emperor penguin. Without the cane, I just look like a sober penguin.
The surgeon was duly impressed with my progress, saying most people come in after two weeks barely able to move on their own with a walker. He did insist that I don't drive for another couple of weeks, for reasons that were not quite logical to me. I nodded as if I was agreeing. (I didn't drive home from his office, but I did drive to the grocery store later that day.)
I am still unable to bend over my left leg enough to put on a sock or tie my shoe so I am sticking with bare feet in loafers. I no longer have a therapist coming to my house, as my insurance won't cover it since I am working again - gotta be "house bound." I still do my exercises and I take short walks. With time I will lose the limp and be able to bend over more. Although I have only a little struggle getting up the 21 steps to my bedroom, I will soon be relatively oblivious to that too.
I don't know what to tell other people contemplating the same operation, but I'd suggest getting some muscle tone in your appropriate leg/butt before the surgery rather than afterward. Don't expect to skip rope the next day either.
And try to figure out some kind of 10 point scale of pain. The nurses and therapists kept asking me what my pain level was, on a scale of 1-10. My answers varied widely depending on what I was thinking was the pain in question. They always seemed so disappointed that I'd give such a high number, so I was apparently doing or saying something wrong.
If a 1 is the pain of a pin prick (my definition), then when I was resting comfortably for a while, I would answer 2 because I could only perceive the pain as a modest but persistent ache. On the other hand, if I had just been trying a straight leg lift, my answer was a 7. The leg lifts are very painful at this point, but if I think of the torture scene in the 007 movie Casino Royale, with the big knotted rope swinging at his jewels under the chair with the seat cut out, I feel like a sissy complaining too much. What number would Jack Bauer give them for something like that? 5?
The surgeon was duly impressed with my progress, saying most people come in after two weeks barely able to move on their own with a walker. He did insist that I don't drive for another couple of weeks, for reasons that were not quite logical to me. I nodded as if I was agreeing. (I didn't drive home from his office, but I did drive to the grocery store later that day.)
I am still unable to bend over my left leg enough to put on a sock or tie my shoe so I am sticking with bare feet in loafers. I no longer have a therapist coming to my house, as my insurance won't cover it since I am working again - gotta be "house bound." I still do my exercises and I take short walks. With time I will lose the limp and be able to bend over more. Although I have only a little struggle getting up the 21 steps to my bedroom, I will soon be relatively oblivious to that too.
I don't know what to tell other people contemplating the same operation, but I'd suggest getting some muscle tone in your appropriate leg/butt before the surgery rather than afterward. Don't expect to skip rope the next day either.
And try to figure out some kind of 10 point scale of pain. The nurses and therapists kept asking me what my pain level was, on a scale of 1-10. My answers varied widely depending on what I was thinking was the pain in question. They always seemed so disappointed that I'd give such a high number, so I was apparently doing or saying something wrong.
If a 1 is the pain of a pin prick (my definition), then when I was resting comfortably for a while, I would answer 2 because I could only perceive the pain as a modest but persistent ache. On the other hand, if I had just been trying a straight leg lift, my answer was a 7. The leg lifts are very painful at this point, but if I think of the torture scene in the 007 movie Casino Royale, with the big knotted rope swinging at his jewels under the chair with the seat cut out, I feel like a sissy complaining too much. What number would Jack Bauer give them for something like that? 5?
posted by Grog @ 10:59 AM
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