Today marks a whole month since my right hip revision, although somehow it seems more like half a year for some reason. I suppose all the monitoring, breakthroughs and symptom-checking tend to elongate time! Anyway, enough of that. My right hip revision recovery arc continues to hammer home how much more severe my left hip revision was in comparison. Not to downplay the challenges of the right hip revision, but I am clearly weeks ahead of where I was with the poor left hip, bless its little cotton socks. Fair play to the latter though: it has been rock solid as the main support anchor throughout the last month, perhaps proving that a complex revision and protracted recovery do not necessarily doom one to a sub-optimal long-term outcome.
As to the right hip, there have been a number of notable milestones in the last week or so. From a trepidatious start, I am now walking unaided reciprocal gait indoors more often than not, and this has come around seven weeks earlier than with the left hip. On Monday, I also walked to the local promenade in Aberystwyth and back using my Urban Poling Activator 2 poles rather than crutches, feeling pretty good while doing so, and reaching my current one-mile walking cap until I see Mr Steele, my surgeon, in a fortnight's time. My discharge letter prescribed crutch use for the first six weeks, but I feel the poles are appropriate for me outdoors at this stage, particularly as I was allowed 100% weight bearing from the outset post-op.
I have also returned to indoor cycling on Zwift, doing 35 minutes on Friday and 38 minutes yesterday, both rides feeling surprisingly good all things considered. I mount the bike using a stepladder by the way.
Another breakthrough has been returning to floor-based exercise, on top of my usual standing based ones. I have now completed two floor sessions, one last Wednesday and one yesterday. Yesterday's session included a full one-minute plank, 100 full press-ups, full prone I-Y-T holds balancing on the pelvis, abdominal crunches and other exercises. The biggest win, however, was 25 lateral side leg lifts on the operated side. I could not comfortably and repeatedly perform these after the left hip revision until around four months post-op.
As to the ODIC, or "Oh Richard!" club, I remain well aware of the need to be mindful of overdoing things. This is particularly relevant now that I effectively have four separate sources of loading: day-to-day household tasks (not to be underestimated for a 100% self-supporting chap), Zwift indoor cycling, outdoor walking, and indoor exercise. At present, as a guide, Zwift twice a week say is ample.
In considering capacity and exercise load, it is worth remembering that my right hip was, somewhat ironically, functionally high-performing and completely asymptomatic going into surgery. Against that, however, must be set the inevitable soft tissue trauma of revision surgery and the ongoing healing of bone around the prosthesis. My principal limiting symptom, and to be honest my only one, remains a right-sided glute ache. At its infrequent worst it is perhaps 3/10, entirely manageable without analgesia, but it serves as a useful reminder that healing of the invisible surgical trauma remains a work in progress and that I still need to be mindful of load.
To sum up, my first month post revision surgery has perhaps followed a familiar pattern. The first week or two felt like the classic "fake it to make it" period, where nothing much seems to happen, and then suddenly the breakthroughs begin to accumulate. As for the forthcoming X-ray, and the follow-up with Mr Steele in a fortnight's time, I do feel slightly apprehensive given the subsidence detected at the first post-operative review of my left hip revision. However, the circumstances are quite different this time. The left hip revision was uncemented and verging on salvage-grade complexity, whereas the right hip revision was a relatively straightforward cemented procedure. So, as I count down the days until I see Mr Steele, I remain quietly confident, whilst retaining what I hope is a healthy reluctance to count my chickens just yet!
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