"Rock Star" here! hahahaha
Oh Donna, you are a hoot, making me blush here, however! I am so glad to hear you are really in a great frame of mind for your surgery. Keep it up.
Eeyore,
My surgeon agreed to do both my hips at the same time, but he had a fairly strict guide line of who he considered candidates for simultaneous bilats. I had to be lean, strong, young, positive and have great home support. As an active athlete, I did not want to have 2 surgeries and 2 recoveries with down time, not to mention that I am self employed so yea, no work, no pay. If you really want to go with simultaneous bilats, you need to do a little work before hand. For me it was by far the best way to go, but I did really work my butt off pre surgery to get prepared. My hard work did pay off big time. I was home in 2 days and forgetting to use my crutches in 4 days. Office work would have been very easy for me within 2 weeks, but I board, groom, show dogs so it was more like a month before I was dealing with the dogs again. I had my college son take over the kennel for me for the summer and my DH was the best at helping me out with day to day things.
But, I want to stress to you that my recovery was far from average. I love to let people know what is possible after THR, but every surgery, surgeon, patient is different and there are no guarentees. You can only control how fit, strong and positve you are going into surgery, then the rest is out of your hands. Hopefully you will have found the very best surgeon you can.
As far as the surgery itself, bilateral is of course longer, although not nessecarily twice as long since all the prep is the same. My surgery did take 4.5 hrs, but that was mostly because my left hip was in much worse shape than expected and took more time.
My recovery was awesome however. Up walking with crutches the next moring without the grinding hip pain! Doing stairs that afternoon, then home the next morning. The first week is really tough, you are on drugs for pain, really tired and struggling to figure out how to do things with 2 legs that don't work so well. But every day brings some improvement along with some plateaus and even setbacks. My very good friend (boxer breeder/exhibitor) had one hip done the day before me, same surgeon. She is thin, but not strong. Not only was I out of the hospital before her, I continued to recover faster and better. I was back in the ring showing my Siberian Huskies 6 weeks after surgery, while it took her almost 4 months to be able to show her dogs again. To this day (3 yrs later) I have better range of motion, gait, strength etc than she does. The biggest difference between my friend and me was that when I was in the pool working out, she was content to sit in her recliner, when I tried to get her to come to PT gait training with me, she said walking around was enough exercise. So I have to believe the difference is not in having both done at once versus one at a time, but how hard you work both before and after surgery.
I truly believe the best thing you can do for yourself if you are considering THR, especially simultaeous bilat, is to get as lean and strong as possible before your surgery. And have a positive attitude. Great home support is a big plus too. Then after surgery, you have to work hard at your recovery. The more you put into it the more you get out.
I was in very good physical condition before I found out I need 2 new hips, but I had to kick it up a notch and change my workouts after I was told my hips where shot. I backed off my cardio and concentrated on strength training. Anyone, even the very non athletic, can do strength training and even a short amount of time can make a big difference in your strength and body fat. Working out in a pool is fantastic especially for anyone who is carrying extra weight thanks to the bad hips. You can get an incredible workout with no stress on your joints.
I don't think you can think of your surgery as "a total of 4 weeks off". It is more of a journey. It may take longer, it may take different routes. Even when you are starting to do things again, it will not be at 100%. You will continue to improve for months, up to a year. You need to take time to prepare. You need to plan on time to heal.
OK, so now that I wrote this "book" I need to get out of here and ride my lovely mare!!
Andrea
United Kingdom
