Time for my two-year update. I really enjoyed reading other people's later updates when I first discovered this board, so I figure I'll post mine at two years, which is coming up in a few days.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with my hip. It's given me what I wanted: the chance to dance, to run, to play, to be active, to walk and on and on. Really the chance to feel physically free and yes, young again. The journey to getting really active took longer than I thought and I was helped by five months of physical therapy that I did starting six months after my surgery. I loved my PT, such a sharp and compassionate woman. I had never formed a real bond with a pt before and never had attended a setting where patients talked to each other and cracked jokes and bantered with each other. I stayed five months because my therapist was convinced I had to get A LOT stronger in order to be as active as I wanted to be. And I stayed five months because therapy was so much fun. We worked on my hip and my back. She had me doing all kind of balance exercises on foam pad (unstable things), using bands for standing forward leg lifts and backward lifts and sideways lifts. And we did a ton of work to activate my glute muscles and to strengthen them. And we worked on my back, which might have been hampering my recovery as well.
And I have to say: one of the best parts of going to physical therapy was the way my therapist basically calmed my nerves and fears. I was very frustrated at six months--though looking back, I realize that six months is still pretty early. I don’t think I understood or appreciated the psychological reassurance of a good pt. When a patient is panicked, you tend to go towards all or nothing thinking. But my pt would point out that yes, I got sore one day, but look at all I was doing compared to before and that I could slow down, but I needed to notice progress.
There haven some glitches. Last fall--ironically while I was visiting my sister who was having bilateral hip surgery--I experienced sudden weakness in the left leg with the new hip. It was like the thigh just suddenly gave way in the middle of just strolling slowly down a block. Strange and surprising--and yes alarming. The only thing that lessened the alarm was that the pain was not searing. Anyway, my surgeon got me in quickly and took a look at the X-rays and said quite confidently that the hip was fusing well to bone, that it looked beautiful. He said I could rule out the device as the problem and speculated that I might have some weak quads.
I was about to call up the PT to come in again when I decided to do a little experimenting. Going to pt for five months has its benefits: I really internalized a lot of how my PT thought. And literally I imagined myself going into to see her again, and I swear I knew exactly how she would react and what she would say. She would react with curiosity and utter calm. And she’d say something along the lines of, “I wonder if your glutes have gone to sleep again. We'll try some things and see.”
So on my own I resumed doing some of the glute exercises she had taught me. One simple one was to squeeze my butt cheeks as I walked. I also performed some of the standing glute exercises I had done. I experimented with weights at the gym.
One exercise surprised me for how much it pushed that sudden weakness away: doing squats. I'm not really sure why squats (with a barbell) worked. But as soon as I would finish a set of ten, my walking felt so much better, strikingly better and more secure. My guess is that the squats strengthened my quads (which fits with my surgeon’s theory). I used to work my quads long before hip pain ... but I had stopped because those kinds of exercises just resulted in the hip aching and screaming at night. I also think the squats forced my muscles up and down the leg on my operated side to talk and cooperate with each other as I lowered myself to the group and raised myself back up.
I continued the standing glute exercises and these episodes of sudden weakness disappeared. I have continued those exercises (which I can do at home) pretty much since then. At this point, I sorta figure I will need to keep working my glutes for as long as I’m on the planet and I’m OK with that.
The pandemic and quarantine forced me out of the gym, and so I began to jog outside. OMG! The difference between running on a treadmill and running on asphalt and pavement was huge! My bones felt it. My back felt it. But I went slow ... and let myself slowly build up my stamina and endurance. Sometimes I would feel soreness around the hip incision, but a little lidocaine helped. But what really helped was icing. I mentioned in an earlier post that last fall I went to a blues dance weekend workshop and gathering. The first night I danced harder than I had in years. My hip (or leg) was sore. I iced that the hip that night and a little the next afternoon. The second night, I returned and danced even harder. No soreness the next day. None. Zero. Zip. I was pleasantly surprised. I wonder if the ice had calmed a sensitive nerve.
I should mention here that my surgeon uses the anterolateral approach--from the side and front, and the areas of weakness I have had are where weakness can occur with the lateral approach. I've been taking dancing classes recently (non-partnered dance and the classes were initially held outside this summer). And I notice that standing on my operated leg, my balance isn't as good as when I stand on the right leg. I recently purchased a foam board so I can practice balancing more on the operated leg.
Now here's an odd thing. When I have soreness after running or notice weakness when balanced on my left leg, I don't say "my hip is acting up." I think rather that "my leg" has some weakness. The hips device in there firmly doing its thing. I can do ten times the activity as before surgery with a fraction of the soreness. I think I have normalized the device and when I have problems I think of it as muscle weakness in my leg. And since I'm no spring chicken, a part of me figures that hip surgery or not, I would experience some aches and pains after running and biking and dancing as often as I do.
The surgery gave me the opportunity to be really active again. I've mentioned my history of depression before, and one way I stave off depression is through exercise. Just the break that exercise affords, the way my mind has to focus on something very concrete and immediate, provides relief. But the sheer joy of movement plays a part as well and the joy of feeling physically--not just mentally--tired. Indeed I eat better when I exercise and I sleep better. I'm so grateful that at age 56 I could undergo a surgery that would allow me to exercise and dance again. I sometimes tell people that I had a “luxury” hip replacement—not done to walk around the block but done to allow me to physically thrive and push myself.
I am thankful to Dr. Matthew Austin of the Rothman Institute. Some days I walk around and I take a random moment to marvel at how stable and normal the hip is, and I'm grateful to the careful and precise Dr. Austin. And I'm grateful for this board, for many reasons, one being that it was on this board that I first really learned that total hip surgeons were getting more comfortable with not placing restrictions on patients after surgery. I had assumed for years leading up to surgery that I would have a resurfacing. When I learned that total hip folks were getting more comfortable with activity after surgery, I knew I wanted to go that route. One day I assume the hip on the right side is going to start crying out in pain. The cartilage has narrowed on that side, though it’s not bone on bone and I have no pain there. When that time comes, I am going straight to surgery, no delays, no denial.
I’m so glad I had the surgery. I’m so proud of myself for deciding to have the surgery while I still walked well and without a limp. I’m proud that I dreamed of a better more active life and believed in that dream. Dr. Austin would not have operated on me (given that I could walk well) if I did not make it clear that I wanted the surgery.