Quick update - as with my replacement, my body is trying to trick me into not following through with surgery, haha. We went to Yosemite this weekend (Friday through Monday), and I was very active with little trouble beyond muscle soreness. I was towing two kids in a trailer behind my bike, went for a couple of short hikes (Lower Yosemite Falls and Mirror Lake, both from Lower Pines if anyone is wondering), and generally did all the camp work. I did consciously avoid the movements I know trigger the groin pain (crouching and rotating to my left with weight on the left foot). After the rare bouts of sitting for a while at the end of the day, I had scares of the sharp pain that made me decide to get the wire removed, but it was gone in the mornings. I was expecting pain and brought ice packs / pain pills to manage it without taking this trip away from my girls, but didn't need either.
Of course I'm still going to follow through, I just came on to read my earlier posts and remember what a pain (literally and metaphorically) it is when it acts up. At the pre-op, the surgeon said he expects it to be very minor, but he isn't going to "get cute" and try to make a smaller incision than he needs to get it done cleanly. He says the recovery is pretty variable - I recognized that as "managing expectations," which I do frequently when talking to clients. My eldest is starting kindergarten tomorrow, and he basically said the limiting factor on pick up / drop off would be whether I feel I need opiates (and of course no driving if I do).
When pressed, he said he would not be surprised if I'm able to go about my normal business within a couple days (except caring for the incision). He said that if things go according to plan, I should be good to drive a few hours to my out of town fantasy football draft five days post op (assuming I'm off the major pain pills and stop to walk around every 30 minutes for clotting reasons). It's trivial, but this draft is the one time a year I see my college buddies, so fingers crossed.
Even though the timing is terrible for work and personal reasons, just gotta get this done. If it solves the groin pain problem, awesome - if it doesn't, at least we've eliminated the most likely cause and I'll deal with whatever comes next.
As always, very much appreciate the support from this forum. I think I've turned my girls into camping people, so hopefully I'll be able to come here and tell the story of taking them backpacking despite the hip next year!