@Cynthia777 - today is my 9 week anniversary! Since I was released at week 6 1/2, I feel like I've made great progress feeling stronger, able to have more stamina, have more range of motion, etc. I can move now like I haven't in a long long time - like walk upstairs reciprocally (how I love that word, I read it here first), I'm still working 32 hour weeks, spread out over 5 days, (it's been nice going into work late!), but will eventually move back to 4 day weeks.
I'm not quite like the rest of you here, since I had only 1 bad hip (and hope to keep it that way for a long time). My normal daily activities now? After getting up (which both cats have taken to helping with lately - one jumps on my leg and decides to have a wrestling match; when she finishes, the other one decides to pace up and down my body - what a fabulous feat: she can change directions pacing without getting off me! And the end of all their adventure, I'm disgusted, and get out of bed. It works!) Before leaving the house to go to work, I ride the stationary bike for the assigned amount of time (tomorrow I ride for 12 minutes), and have hubby do some OS recommended hamstring stretches with my leg: basically, I'm laying on the bed and he lifts my leg from the ankle -- upwards -- keeping my knee flat, until I can feel the hamstring stretching. We do both legs 5 times each, for 10 seconds each. I'll also ride the bike and do more hamstring stretches in the evening after dinner (before bed).
I'm also still tracking my steps. My Jawbone UP bit the dust about 3 weeks ago - I took it off to charge it, and then it never came back to life. I was insistent in continuing to track steps so I bought a Fitbit Charge the next day (and noticed the step tracking was completely different - but I've decided that's OK as long as I use the same device consistently to track). Right now, the Fitbit is telling me I walked 5,559 steps today, equalling 2.45 miles.
Usually, when I get home from work around 5, hubby and I will walk our neighborhood before dinner: instead of walking only the gravel road across from our house, we'll walk that road, then proceed up one of the hills - either the one that approaches our house (I'll call it Cardio hill), or the departure hill - which doesn't make me nearly as out of breath. We walked Cardio Hill on Sunday, and walked the departure hill yesterday (it's actually a longer hill, but the ascent isn't as steep). When we got to the top, I decided to continue walking down another gravel side road (flat), to the end, then we traced our steps back home. I have yet to track specific distances with these evening walks - I'd have to write down the starting steps / miles and end steps miles and do some math... sort of more than I care to be concerned about right now. The most I've walked in a day is 3 miles - the least, one mile (rainy day). The best part of this? My hip isn't complaining at all! A lot of the lower back pain I felt previous to THR is also gone. All that tromping up hills, and I'm generally not even sore the next day. Somedays, I do still feel a bit of hamstring tightness, but I've noticed that the more I walk, the less I feel that.
About a week ago, I decided I was going to celebrate all this walking by buying a new pair of 'walking' shoes (what better celebration, then new shoes, right??)
They are actually running shoes, but my feet don't know the difference, and they sure are comfortable!
I don't sense that my hip recovery is slowing me down at work. Somethings I'm still can't do: Get in & out of the driver's seat of the car by just stepping in.... I'm still wanting to back into the seat and swivel around. The swiveling is much less than before, and I'm able to scoot into place once I'm sitting down.
Other things I can do now: put on my own socks, and tie my shoes (operated leg still isn't the easiest to do, but DANG! I
can lean over and do it.) My hip is still stiff at the joint, I can only lift my left to about a 90% angle - but I can! Yay. Presurgery, any lifting motion was aided with my arms assisting the lifting; (I was ridiculously demonstrating to someone yesterday how I could now lift my foot and place it on the seat of a chair. Woo hoo. I'm sure they thought I was a little 'off'. )
Getting range of motion back has been so exciting to me. Even if the OS said it would happen, I'm one of those who have to see it to believe it. I feel like a kid running around showing everyone how I lost a tooth or something!
For anyone taking the time to read this, having THR really is all worth it. It's true what everyone else here says, you get your normal movements back, and soon you don't even think about it.
I found the Bonesmart forums in between my initial diagnosis (dysplasia causing osteoarthritis) and the 2nd consultation -- reading everyone's experiences made me feel much more comfortable about moving forward and deciding to have surgery. Thanks Bone-smarties!
For those of you two-stagers, anticipating hip #2 can't be exciting, but at least you're soon going to see the end, and be on a path to forgetting about all this! (Can we really forget?)
United States
My original appointment time was scheduled for 1:30p - as the OS office is about 50 miles from us and I didn't want to negotiate morning rush hour traffic. About 2 weeks ago, I got an email stating my appointment was canceled. When I asked about that, they told me the OS had scheduled surgery for this afternoon, so I needed to reschedule. Well, the only times available were 8 a.m., 8:15 and 8:30, so I took the 'late' appointment at 8:30. But that meant getting up at 6 a.m. today and leaving the house at 6:45 am. Talk about a rude re-introduction to the regular world 
.... but all went well - mostly rush hour didn't exist today.
It's been sort of nice working 3-4 hours and day then going home.
He's been a great UBER driver for the past 6 weeks, and I imagine he's ready for a break. 
