Thank you
@Skatie, for your response. I'm embarrassed to say I made that first post high as a kite! I really hated those narcotics, boy oh boy. I'm now 13 days post op and I do have a few questions, if anyone will indulge me. But before I do:
1. I find this surgery/procedure to be a remarkable, almost miraculous, solution to the horrible arthritic pain I was having. The Dr. sent me a pic of my femoral head post-op -- I had ZERO cartilage on all weight bearing areas of my femoral head; it was just this bright red ball, with a skirt of cartilage at the bottom. No one knew it was that bad; so my worry about doing it now or doing it later was for naught...I'm so glad I had it done! Even with post op swelling, tightness and all that goes with surgery -- I am so happy to be out of arthritic misery. Hallelujah! Above all, I feel OPTIMISTIC again, about everything in life, and I did not feel that way when I was laboring around in pain 24/7. For those in the pre-op stages...the anxiety and stress I had about this surgery was unfounded. I was having heart palpitations, anxiety, ringing in ears, sleeplessness...I was so upset about this surgery prior, when I should have been excited and dancing into that hospital! Get a great surgeon and just go with it!!!
2. Also,
@Hip Hip Hooray!, I have to call out your posts in particular. I read your recovery thread (given my familiarity with Dr. Matta, plus you are a fantastic writer!), and at some points (in complete ignorance!), I would read something and say, "Oh, that won't be me..." Namely, when you said you couldn't be around people with aggressive or negative energy post-op. Also, when you said you had moments of real sadness and grief and you attributed that to your hip surgery/recovery. I must confess, I have had the exact same experiences, much to my surprise. My father in law came for a visit about 5 days post-op, and his energy (as best I can describe it), was so aggressive, too aggressive, for me, I literally had to turn my body away from him so I could not receive it. This sounds utterly crazy, but I thought of you in that moment. And I cried, and cried and cried when I got home. I was just immensely sad, and still feel a sadness in ways I haven't really pinpointed. Someone else on this forum mentioned the fact that a body part of yours is now medical waste. Well, my hips bore 3 super amazing kids, and carried my body through such fun sport and activity. I mourn its absence in a really odd way, and obviously this procedure makes you think of aging and such. I'm still going through that process, I think. I guess my learning is that there is an emotional and psychological aspect to this surgery that is not often emphasized and to me it's the tougher of the recoveries! Thank you
@Hip Hip Hooray! for generating dialogue on that front; I am grateful.
Now, my questions:
- What are the common conditions one can get if they overdo their rehab? I have a tendency to overdo, and I really DO NOT WANT any type of stubborn tendonitis or tight muscle condition of some sort to drag me down months to come. I will go back into the articles to gather them if there are any, but if anyone knows, say, the Top 3 things one can get from overdoing it, I'd love to have those top of mind to help keep me in check. I feel really, really great, for 13 days post op. As of today:
- I'm not using any assistive devices to walk
- I am using a pedi-cycle (the hospital pt lady told me to get one and use it ASAP, working up to 30 mins x 3x/day)
- I'm doing light pt (10 straight leg lifts, 10 abduction squeezes, 10 adduction squeezes)
- I do 1 'activity' per day - go out to lunch, run 1 errand, etc., then rest pretty much rest of day
- I sleep very well at night (about 10 hours, wake up briefly twice), plus a nap
Also,
- I have a 'functional' (vs. structural) leg length difference, post op. My legs are anatomically exactly the same length, but if you watch me walk it looks like my surgery leg is 2 inches longer than the non surgery leg. My physical therapist says one hip is rotated up, and the other is rotated down. So we are working to fix that in physical therapy. I can't really get a good smooth gait going until this is resolved! If anyone has experience with this and can offer help/exercises/timing on resolving this, I'm all ears.
*A note on pt: I am 50/50 on pt (I live in the US; my pt is a PhD, and I gather pt differs amongst the countries represented on this forum). I think sometimes they do not help, sometimes they do. For my shoulder surgery they helped immensely in me keeping from getting frozen shoulder. For my first hip surgery, not really. For my knee, not really. So I take the good and toss the bad and go from there. So far my pt for my post op hip has focused on my functional leg length difference and I most definitely feel an improvement when I leave there. The problem is it wears off an by 36 hours later I'm back to feeling like one leg is much longer than the other. Anyone have stories to share, or hope to offer!? In addition to my above pt exercises, I'm doing two hip exercises to help the leg difference (too hard to explain online but they are really tiny little moves they want me to do).
Any experience on the above out there? Thanks to all! Your intelligence has proved so helpful this past month, or two, or three!