Thank you everyone for your responses. There is definitely an upside to doing the second hip sooner rather than later....I'm hating living in fear, wondering if vacations I plan, etc can actually happen or if I will be in pain and have to cancel. Same with pilates.....I was excited to be back to "feeling normal" and building strength back up but now I'm having to go back to restrictions and limitations, whereas if I was on the other side of having both hips replaced I wouldn't be worrying about the restrictions and limitations.
I only had one cortisone shot before surgery and it actually lasted a good 5-6 months, might have lasted longer but I went ahead and had the replacement because having younger kids, summer was just the best time for me and I didn't want the cortisone to wear off in the middle of the school year when it would be extremely difficult for me to have the surgery. My oldest son will be getting his driver's license soon so that will be helpful when I need a second replacement.
Also, when my right hip was really going bad it caused my back to go out as well all the time on top of the hip pain. My back is not great now, but since getting the replacement my back has not went out once, I just have to be careful
I don't want to repeat that again by waiting too long to get the left side done.
Now, I know some of it is fear.....my left side isn't hurting that much, its more like now I know all the tell-tale signs and understand what the feelings really are, whereas when my right side was going bad, I really had NO IDEA what was going on....I just thought I tore something excersizing. I mean, I'm in my 40's, NO WAY would I need a hip replacement right?!?!? Well, now I know better.
I will keep checking in....this is the only place where I feel like people actually understand what I'm going thru. Everyone "in real life" is compassionate, but I do get sooo tired of people asking me WHY this is happening to me. I get tired of explaining that my darn body is just deteriorating and really don't know why arthritis is hitting me so hard so young. Just lucky I guess.