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Awwww... @Barbaraj. "Date night". That is do nice ! :console2:

Honestly, now that I am into my 2nd week, I think it's amazing that you were able to give up the walker so quickly. I don't find that I am hunching over it and I am moving around a lot easier. The front wheels on the walker make a huge difference.

Enjoy your date night.......
 
The food you describe is making my mouth water.

It is lovely to get out and about again isn’t it? My hospital only had me on the walker for three days and then on to crutches. I found them fine. I transitioned from walker to crutches within half a day.

1 hour drive via taxi to work
5 hours work - including 4 flights of stairs twice as lift broken
2.5 hour union meeting
45 mins drive home as a passenger
Got home. Bed and iced for a bit then
Prepared and Cooked dinner

21.36 and a little tired to say the least. All the stairs Stairs hopefully do not appear to have made my burning top of incision pain worse but did take full allowance of paracetamol today.

I am very glad it is the weekend!
 
@Barbaraj ... And... You were walking unaided at 1 1/2 weeks ? I just started using the arm cuff crutches and although I need a lot more practice, i think I will like using them when I don't need the walker. I also found a big difference using the crutches vs the cane on the stairs.
I Did stairs And shower today !! I am in a happy/tired feeling this afternoon and it feels very nice ! !
 
Hey @Barbaraj, sounds like a great day. Truffle fries, yum!! I finally got the courage to step on the scale today (I told the nurse at the OS yesterday not to tell me what the scale said!!) Had to at least face that one in the morning on my own scale, not at 6:00 in the evening after snacking all afternoon. Turns out I better start watching the food. It can all turn depressing so quickly.

Have you tried a properly sized cane? It would be awful to fall after all this. I find myself unsteady at times, and when I get fatigued the cane seems to help quite a bit. I move it in unison with my op leg and it lessens the weight just a tad, and helps me to feel steady. My OS wants me to use it for another month. I’m pretty klutzy with my walking poles too, because I cannot properly relieve some of the weight bearing while essentially holding a ski pole. However I never went hiking when I healed up without two hiking poles.

Have a great date night!
 
An end of the day posting, as it was a nice evening with darling hubby. This is a second marriage but, wow, did I do a fabulous job the second time around--love this guy and so much enjoy our date nights! We went to a Pan Asian style restaurant with delicious food and good drinks. For dessert we had little banana fritters with caramel, raspberry and coconut dipping sauces--delicious! I have tried NOT to step on the scales during recovery, @Lmflora, as I suspected it would depress me. But today before my shower I said, "what the heck?" and stepped on. Relieved to find I was my "normal" weight, a pound of two above pre-surgery weight but I was so stressed ahead of surgery that I'm sure I wasn't eating as well as I should. Anyway, even if we end up a bit over our pre-surgery weight, I think feeding our bodies is probably more important than weight control right now.

@Lea61, yes, I was walking with the walking pole pretty early on, but I really had no trouble with my hip being weight bearing and I felt so clumsy on the walker. It may have been a problem because I'm tall and maybe the woman at the hospital didn't set the height properly. But as I said before, too much energy was expended on maneuvering the walker and not enough on walking properly. I think that, as with all aspects of recovery, different things work well for one individual but not for another--the key is to figure what works best for YOU, and go with that--and major congrats on your climbing the stairs and a shower, how lovely. I will say that I still can't easily walk up the stairs as putting too much weight on the operated leg makes me nervous, but coming down I can come down normally although I hold carefully on the bannister. Stairs, walking, whatever--you are going to get there on your own timeline.

@SurreyGirl, your schedule sounds exhausting to me. I did go on a walk with my neighbor this afternoon, out on a bluff above the beach in our neighborhood and walked along holding my walking pole but not really using it at all. It felt so normal and comfortable, and my neighbor said I was actually walking normally, not my pre-surgical gimp which made me very happy. And my step counter showed more steps than the I've done in the last 15 days--wahoo! Feeling comfortable and not very stiff at all tonight. I have another friend who always says, "motion is lotion", referring to the fact that walking is really good for you--and tonight I'm feeling like a true believer.

Tomorrow's the weekend, so hope everyone is making a fun plan for at least part of the weekend. Errands and then a dinner/auction at day's end on Saturday. Time to retire to bed with ice pack and "Father Brown" on the TV. 'Night, all.
 
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Nice day and relaxing date with hubby. A great way to begin the weekend.

Funny you mentioned "Motion Is Potion"...the PT who taught me how to navigate stairs and get in and out of bed before I was discharged from my surgery site used the phrase "Motion Is Lotion". It was the first time I ever heard the phrase and tonight is the first time I've heard the version you mentioned also. I guess either one works. :shrug:

Sounds like you have plans for tomorrow also. You seem to be handling all very well and balancing your activity with enough icing and rest. Great progress!
Enjoy the weekend!
@Barbaraj
 
All sounds very positive! I am having a light touch re crutch and just having it there helps with stairs etc but I don’t put much weight on it when walking on straight paths so using my legs more. I have stopped beating myself up about the fact that I still need a stick/crutch and know that walking unaided will come eventually when the time is right. Going back to work is proving a tad challenging so I am using all the physical and mental crutches I can for now and not ashamed of it.

Re food. I cooked a duck mussaman curry last night which hubby really enjoyed. Nice and warming dish for Autumn. I love cinnamon and star anise and this dish uses both in addition to Thai herbs and spices.
 
Good morning, @Layla. I reread my post from last night and, as usual, had several edits, including a change to "motion is lotion", and not "potion" as I'd originally written. I was a bit skeptical when I heard that, sometime in the first week where my private response was "yeah, right..." accompanied by a good chunk of skepticism. But gauging how well I felt yesterday evening after my walk, I'm beginning to think there is something in that adage.

And, @SurreyGirl--I am amused that you like my posts about food. You will note that my posts about food all involve me eating food in a restaurant whereas your posts are about food that you've prepared for yourself! I am frankly a pretty basic and uninteresting cook, although I love baking. I just ordered a baking stone, pizza peel and bench scraper from Amazon, as I discovered to my horror that I'd left these items in our timeshare condo months ago, and they've probably been given away to charity according to the management staff at the condo complex. With a kitchen remodel this summer plus surgery, I haven't felt like a lot of baking but I do love homemade bread and I have an easy recipe for that which I'd love to start making again. Items should arrive next week and I'll be getting to work! Once I start baking bread, the scale numbers WILL be going up. I love, love, LOVE homemade bread. I wish I was someone who was into homey, wholesome brown breads--but nuts to that, I am all about a chewy Italian style loaf, unrepentantly made with all-purpose white flour!

Feeling reasonably well this morning, slept through the night, and it's the second morning I've opted out of the morning dose of Tylenol so over 48 hours with no medication at all. I did ice my groin/hip this morning, although on these chilly starts to the day I am absolutely freezing within a few minutes, with cold nose and hands, as a result. Suggestions, anybody, on how to counteract the cold that overwhelms when using an ice pack in the cooler months?
 
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Ha-ha! Thank heavens for the Edit bar! I use it.
Sometimes weeks later when I notice a typo of mine while back visiting a member's thread.

Try your favorite warm cozy blanket while icing, warm socks or slippers. If you get really chilly while icing, try a heating pad on the non op leg to offset the cold.

I hope you enjoy the day!
@Barbaraj
 
What??? You can edit something that was already posted? I still can't figure out how to use the "quote" LoL.
 
You can absolutely edit, @Lea61, and it's a lifesaver--I think Layla just posted something for you about how to do it. We all need editing! And despite reading the directions, I can't figure out quoting either.
 
A foggy Sunday here in my neck of the woods, with the promise of drizzling rain this morning and the gradual turning of nice weather we've had this past week to the more normal overcast, rainy weather we "enjoy" here in the PNW this time of the year. Feeling a bit stiff and awkward this morning, and dutifully slapped on an ice pack as I was sipping my latte and skimming the Sunday paper. I think the extra dose of stiffness is probably due to last night's event where we did a fair amount of walking at the auction/dinner, including what felt like a very long hike up several long flights of stairs on our way from the event back to our car parked in a garage across the street several levels above the street. I felt pretty good during the event itself although, as always, fairly early in the evening this sense of physical tiredness came over me in waves and I was so glad when we were able to leave around 9:30. I can successfully get out and about these days, with minimal pain and discomfort, but it's still discouraging how this energy drain is omnipresent and wearying. I wonder when folks generally start noticing a return to their pre-surgery energy level?

The steri-strips are finally beginning to chafe off my scar which looks sobering to me--a thick, raised red line, although it's only about 4" in length. I am surprised by that (I actually dragged out a measuring tape from my sewing box this morning) as it seems like that whole new hip replacement device is HUGE in the X-rays I've seen and I'm baffled as to how it all got crammed in there with only a 4" opening. If I were a real glutton for punishment I guess I could watch one of those horrifying surgeries on You Tube to get a better sense of this, but I'm sure I'd have nightmares for days after. However, I am really amazed at this surgery--although a 4" scar is still a notable scar, compared to the length of other scars I've read about, that seems pretty darn short, and really small in comparison to what they stuffed into my hip and thigh!
 
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Barbaraj said:
I wonder when folks generally start noticing a return to their pre-surgery energy level?
Click to expand...
Like everything else it varies. I found the space of time between week 4 out and week 6 was very positive. Activities I just could not do were suddenly easy. And suddenly I didn't need the afternoon nap anymore.

You will need to pace yourself - but this does ease with time. You did well to do what you did last night. Quite challenging for a new hippie!
 
You're funny! I agree though, curious about that too but I'm not watching either!
I wish I could recall how long the fatigue had a grip on me, I simply don't remember.
At not quite a month out though, it doesn't surprise me that you're still feeling tired. Think of all the construction that's going on, as 1stSurgery always refers to it. It isn't leaving a lot of energy for all of the other activities of daily living. Personally, I think you're having a wonderful recovery so far and you'll slowly be getting back to, yourself.
Hang tight, you're doing great!
@Barbaraj
 
Okay, afternoon has arrived, and with it some hazy sunshine peeking through the clouds, although I was expecting the drizzle to turn to rain, so a cheerful surprise! Another first for me this afternoon! I went to the gym again with my husband in late morning, and this time I did NOT bring my walking stick. It was a quiet time at the gym without a lot of people there and, honestly, I'm not using the walking stick to walk--only as a warning in public to folks "stay away and don't bump into me", or I can sometimes lean on it, as I did last night after standing for awhile. But walking around I don't need it anymore and I end up just carrying it which seems pointless. I managed a slow trudge on the treadmill for 30 minutes before getting off. I am no speed demon with or without my walking pole, but I can definitely see the progress since the last time I was at the gym.

I am also trying to go up the stairs the normal way, one foot after the other. I couldn't do that for awhile as I'd get a bit of an ache in my right hip, but I've been trying it slowly a few times today and no problems so far. I'd already tackled coming down the stairs foot over foot with no problems, so going upstairs is a new trick for this old dog! After exercising I feel surprisingly good, although a bit tired so I quickly retired to a chair in the gym's lounge, waiting for my husband. But a shower when I got home plus a grilled cheese sandwich and apple slices for lunch has restored my strength and I'm feeling good. A few more steri-strips fell off this morning so just a few more towards the bottom of the scar which seem to be more firmly attached. I am sure they, too, will be loosening up soon--and after the initial shock, I am getting more used to seeing the scar in all its horrible beauty.
 
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Well, thank you @MrDIY! I know in the greater scheme of things venturing out without the walking sticks isn't that big a deal, but nice to just walk along without a giant sign plastered to my head that says "danger--gimp approaching"! Yes, I know that realistically nobody is paying the slightest bit of attention to me or my walking, but it's just another small step towards feeling more like myself. Tuesday will be the end of my 4th week, and I feel as if, all things considered, I've done pretty darn well with this recovery nonsense (stupid bragging look on my face!)
 
@Barbaraj Great news on the 30 mins on the treadmill :yes!: You must be so thrilled!

Things start picking up after week 4 I have found :)

Great that the sun obliged eventually :SUNsmile:. I'm not looking forward to the rain this week...
 
A very foggy morning here today, quite pea soup'ish. Feeling a bit stiff this morning, in both hips (just the outside, at the top of both hips) which concerns me as the Game Plan was for me to heal completely with this right hip replacement and enjoy a few carefree months (well, a LOT of carefree and comfortable months) before thinking about a second hip replacement. Left hip is bad, too, but wasn't as bad as the right and wasn't bothering me before surgery. I think with the whole healing process I am undoubtedly putting more stress on the left and it's complaining a bit. I haven't taken any Tylenol for a few days, but may pop a dose before heading out with my husband to do some errands this morning.

I made it to Trivia last night, my husband and I plus another couple, and I'm happy to say we WON first place which was very gratifying. I brought my little foam cushion to sit on, but again I opted not to bring the walking stick and was able to enter and depart the bar, plus use the restroom at one point, without having a problem. Between that and my 30 minutes on the treadmill, even though slow and cautious walking yesterday, I may have pushed things a bit which explains the extra ache this morning. Note to self: BACK OFF! My husband will probably hit the gym again today and while the cocky me from yesterday would probably urge myself to accompany him, I may opt out. Yes, I know--be sensible, don't push things! As happens with, I suspect, so many folks with this kind of surgery who do fairly well from the beginning, the real test comes about now, when I'm feeling reasonably good and tempted to overdo things. I KNOW this, so I need to take a deep breath and ease up. It's frustrating but I will try to be more of a sloth today. Argh! Slow and steady, slow and steady....
 
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