THR Recovery in Labrador

[Miss Muffet]

I think you sound to be doing very well. What a rough start though - that journey! The Bonesmart mantras really are the business .... I followed them faithfully and swear they got me through. I iced 24/7 - couldn't get enough of it and took my meds on the button. Got up and walked around approximately hourly during the daytime and kept my toes up on my elevated lounge chair. Although sleep evaded me during the nighttime I just had plenty to hand to occupy myself and then napped during the day whenever I felt like it. Very early days for you, but those little steps are huge victories and I'm sure you'll look back and see just how far you've come. The pleasure of being rid of that ghastly bone on bone pain is a joy. Well done you!

 

[labanan]

Thank you Jane! I was just talking to my husband's cousin who had her hip done 4 weeks back. She had a nasty reaction to the epidural and THEN the stomach flu, but said she's good now and just walked to the end ofher driveway with her cane! This wee town seems full of people passing around raised toilet seats, walkers and reachers - very funny. I'm going to go read your recovery thread. Thanks so much for dropping by.

 

[Miss Muffet]

You're so very welcome. My recovery thread is a long one and I desperately need to update it, my 'excuse' is simply that life has taken on a whole new meaning since my two THRS. I promise to get around to it to elaborate soon. Just got home from a 10 mile ride on my new electric bike. Wouldn't have contemplated a 10 minute walk this time last year!

 

[labanan]

A bike ride!! We have way too much snow still but I certainly look forward to getting on my cherry red steed in the future.

I found reading your thread to be very helpful, Jane! I had a delay of only a week on my surgery but could fully emphasize. In my case the whole of the northern part of Newfoundland was having an enormous dump of snow . I went to a small hospital where the orthopedic surgeon is the ONLY specialist. I had an epidural and was completely awake and lucid excrpt for a 5 minute nap. The anesthesiologist said "I'm going to fade you out a bit." I imagine that was when the grinding happened. I did hear the hammering and could feel the sensation but of course no pain. I wanted a general feeling squeamish but the anesthesiologist quickly changed my mind and I am so glad!

And now for a couple of questions of anyone.

I have what my childhood ballet teachers called "perfect turn-out". It means my legs naturally rotate out and so do my feet. After I had disc surgery in my late twenties, which fixed the mechanics but not ultimately the pain, I learned to walk with my toes pointing forward. It was weird as I felt most unsteady, but I did it. Now, as I lie in this bed, this syndrome returns to haunt me. I'm either wriggling my hip knee and foot so all is pointing skyward, or getting my fella to gently make the adjustment for me. My legs, left to their own devices, would just love to open outward. Must I be vigilant in returning them to the correct position or am I needlessly fretting?

Also, my TEDs are making me nuts. They also have to be constantly attended to or they cut off my ring (?) and baby toe. Any thoughts? These might seem like petty problems of the bourgeois but they are making me a little doo-lally.

 

[Josephine]

rotate out

or externally rotate!

Must I be vigilant in returning them to the correct position or am I needlessly fretting?

I think you would feel better after you've read this article THR: Are Postop Precautions Necessary for THA Patients?. I think it states my position on these restrictions perfectly!

Also, my TEDs are making me nuts.

In my opinion (humble or otherwise!) too much emphasis is placed on the stupid TED stockings. There was a study done a few years back that dispelled the notion that they prevent clots.

I refused to wear mine because they caused deep furrows under my knee that were purple at the bottom! I knew this was a sign they were interfering with circulation so what was the point of wearing them! I took them off and laid them on the bottom of the bed. Staff were a bit alarmed when they saw them and shortly after they left, the ward sister rushed down the corridor, stopped at my door, clocked the stockings on the end of my bed and left without saying a thing! But her expression was, to say the least, dark!

Shortly after than, my surgeon arrived, pulled up a chair and sat and chatted for about 5 minutes. (He's a nice bloke and I always got on well with him when I was working). I saw him clock the stockings but he said nothing! So - they stayed off!

 

[VThereandnow]

Well you certainly seem to have things in the right perspective. Wow, I had a spinal too but with sedation, I really did not want to be that awake, but I agree sooo much better than a general. Right after surgery, being alert and with it, is so much nicer. You referenced something earlier in your thread that reminded me of my first recovery. That thread is sooo long, you won't want to check it out lol. However, the problems I had with my first surgery gone bad, changed my life. Figuring out a way to deal with things, the pain, the disappointment, led me to meditation where I developed a daily practice. Then I had a revision and was offered the opportunity (by the universe) to practice using my new skills off the cushion and in my life. Now that I had the other hip done, I've already cycled through some of the tough stuff so if it comes up, say comparing myself, I know what to do, what to say to myself to bring me back to the moment. Ah life is so interesting and we are all such interesting creatures.

My wife and I took a trip to Nova Scotia a few years back. It was lovely. We really enjoyed it and want to go back some time. Hope you have a better night sleep tonight. You made me laugh about ringing your husband. I have been sleeping in the spare room to be more comfy and our bed is too high for me. In the early days of recovery I would call the other room on the cell to say I was going to pee just for safety. Too funny. Good luck with the pain and getting things back under control. Cathy

 

[labanan]

Thanks Josephine - I read the article and Ron took the stupid things off. I put on sheepskin slippers as I was also getting those zinger heel alarms, which I remember from previous bed rests. That should solve that! And I once again got back into bed, after a small stroll snd a sit to watch the pinking sky for a bit, without help. Huzzah!

Cathy - it was only as it unfolded that I realized I was going to be awake. I was relieved that I could deal with it as I'd been carrying some stress about my ability to deal with both pain and squeamishness. I used to have a be strong driver, but now I'm a proud card-carrying woosy-pants. I hope when you and your wife come back to Nova Scotia you will come and spend time with us. We're planning on building our new home in 2018 when we're back from Labrador. We have property - one with a house and one with just the land in Prospect. We love to paddle our canoes or sail in Prospect Bay! You two are water folk, no?

 

[VThereandnow]

Lazy river kayakers

 

[labanan]

Like Rat tells Mole "there is nothing - absolutely nothing -half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

 

[labanan]

Well this is day eight or nine - I'm more inclined to not count the surgery day as recovery myself! I'm not nearly so chipper today. I didn't have a bad night but I'm having this distinct period of extreme discomfort as I approach the time for my pain meds. I'm driving the fella nuts, I think, with my need for constant adjusting of pillows. About an hour after that I sleep, deeply. Today I managed a good clean while my sheets got changed and Ron tidied up the bed realm. I planned on staying up but no way - too beat so it was back to bed and another snooze. I took my 12 o'clock pills a trifle early because I could feel the pain starting. Now I'm icing but not elevating ad that doesn't feel good right now. I had a late breakfast as l slept for most of the morning. I can still manage on my own to get into bed but not the out. Think I'll see if Ron can make me a strap thing. Tomorrow he goes back to work. The nurse is coming after lunch to do dressing but won't be okay from 7 am til after 1 pm without loo break. Think I'll ask a pal in for some help.

By the way, this ramble is really just a way to remember these dsys so I won't let it be all covered in some hazy sweet goo of poitivity!!
Happy Easter to those of you on that path...

 

[VThereandnow]

Ramble on woman It is true, this is kind of like a journal of sorts. It is a good recording of the experience. ...and there are people like me haha who will respond. It is so true that the journey of recovery is an up and down one. One day can be so good and the next, not so much. Yes yes yes, staying ahead of the pain is a good thing indeed. The body lets us know when to space them out more or take them a bit early as you did.

As we always say we are all different, so here is another example, I had trouble the other way, getting IN the bed, not out, go figure Might be a good idea to ask a friend to stop by if you will be all alone tomorrow and not quite comfortable yet. Keep taking care of yourself, Cathy

 

[Miss Muffet]

Re the moving the leg thing. Are you using you using your arms and 'good' leg to scooch yourself round until you're able to get out? Or if you can fashion a leg lifter from a knotted dressing gown cord you can use that to help shift it. I know it's annoying but this really will ease up over the course of the next few days, so this is just an interim measure. We all had down patches, which is all about a mixture of tiredness and a spot of frustration. You'll fall into managing routines as time elapses and in a few weeks' time you'll have forgotten all about it. So actually your diary is quite a useful memento of this patch.

 

[Irish Joe]

labanan
I was helpless at the stage you are at now so don't fret that your not recovering. Also Try your best to keep ahead of the pain. I don't know if CoCodamol exists in Canada. Its 8mg Codeine and 500mg Paracetamol. I found it great for taking the edge off the pain and letting me sleep. You'd need to check with your GP or pharmacist to see that your not crossing it over with something though cos I aint no chemist.
By all means ask friends for help. I imagine your a helper yourself so you'll find they will come out of the woodwork.
@VThereandnow you have a way with words. You've made me chuckle a few times. Keep patrolling the forum please.:smile2:
Keep Well guys.
Joe..........

 

[HippyHappy]

Hi @labanan !
Just read your early recovery, and I hope you continue to improve. I too have traveled through the Maritime Provinces, but did not get to Labrador. Maybe in the next few years, we'll finally get there.
In the meantime, I want to share how I solved the leg lifter strap issue. Then maybe you won't need to ask:

I'll see if Ron can make me a strap thing

...

Since I did not purchase a proper "leg lifter", I have a long cloth belt and just used it to wrap or loop around my foot. I was able then to pull the extra cloth part of the belt to lift up my bad leg onto the bed. It really worked so well for me that I'm hoping you can find a long cloth belt or perhaps put 2 neckties together. Or try using a very long rolled up towel, smaller sheet, or even an old pair of nylon pantyhose or something else creative you may have around the house. Then try and loop it around your foot, then pull up on both sides of of the cloth which is around your foot and raise your leg high enough to reach the bed. I sincerely hope you can figure out a way to raise that leg, since I know for me that my operated leg just would not lift up on its own for over a month. It was very difficult for me to get that get "UP". Best of everything to you in your recovery. Keep us posted.

 

[labanan]

Thanks all lovely peoples! Just woke up from a long ole nap to read these. The fella came in from a good ramble on the frozen bay with Bella, our dear dog, and brought with him a strap doo-hickie he had in the workshop. I'm going to give it a try on my next expedition to the loo. I am still planning to ask a pal to come tomorrow morning.

In Nova Scotia, where I lived since I was twenty-two (but two years I spent on Vancouver Island) I have a very big circle of fabulous friends. We moved to Labrador for work for the fella and because although, like me, he was raised as an armed forces brat, both his parents were from here and his mother was living in a home in Goose Bay. Ron has many cousins here but I knew no one when we arrived. I'm extremely gregarious but this is one tough community to break into. It isn't as if they are unfriendly, but they are so used to things not changing much that we both gave up after a bit. After years of dinner parties, of shared adventures with folk who like to talk, cook, argue, make music, wax poetical or political - our social life became each other. We both work very intense good jobs so we accepted this as a temporary situation. Plus, we both love the wilderness here, which is unexplainable to folk who haven't experienced the North. I get lots of my more outgoing needs satisfied by staying in touch with my friends back home and I've long been part of a writing community online as well as a sketching one.

So, were I at home I'd be having to fight off the well meaning, here I must humbly request help. Gah! I shall do so, but I want you to know, as fleeting as our connection has been, I'd rather ask you to drop by!

There then, fully unburdened, I will now try the strap things and then come back to tell you how they went!

UPDATE: used the tump strap (for carrying loads with a strap round your head) and worked perfectly! Also organized a visit for tomorrow morning. And had a wee sit by the living room window. Feel altogether much happier.

 

[Josephine]

When in hospital after my first TKR, I used a cotton bed jacket I'd packed. I would hold on the corner of the hem and toss the rest down the bed and get my foot in the arm hole! Wasn't as good as the leg lifter but was better than nothing.

Well this is day eight or nine - I'm more inclined to not count the surgery day as recovery

Quite correct. Surgery day is day zero so you start counting the next day.

 

[VThereandnow]

Wow, I can soo relate to being somewhere without your friends. I am from WIsconsin, but moved to Upsate New York for Cheryl's job. That was difficult moving away from my family and friends, but we then built a lovely community of the kind of friends you describe and were there almost 15 years. One of my favorite things is to be around the table with friends engaging in the "art of sparkling conversation". We moved here to Vermont going on 6 years ago not knowing anyone and I was all broken down trying to accept the reality of my first hip replacement. We had, again, moved for Cheryl's job. So my first recovery was very lonely and very different than if my friends were around. New England is a very friendly place, but seems hard to break into. I am the extrovert of the two of us, and I have been busy the past few years with my health challenges and have not been as outgoing as normal. I also think the older one gets, the harder it is. People have their lives all filled up already. We do have some friends here and I have reached out for what I need. I am part of a meditation sangha and a samba band etc. but it is not the same to me as our last home. I am grateful for the friends I have here, it is just a smaller circle and the connections are not as deep.

Well, better get some shut eye, stop by again soon

 

[labanan]

Thanks Josephine for your story of dogged inventiveness! I can just imagine. And whatever happened to bed jackets? I so want one.

Cathy - you are a soul sistah for sure! Thanks for that story and yes, that's it, people's lives are filled up. I also think different areas have their own personality. North West River was founded by rugged Scots who got on under very harsh conditions. The same families are here that were here in the early 1800s - trappers and Hudson Bay employees. Nice, but decidedly about work and duty. Halifax was a crazy port city that knew how to party as well as work.

You mention sangha - I think I'm the only practising Tibetan Buddhist here! Like Vermont, Nova Scotia has a large sangha of very ardent practioners. My practice has fallen off a bit but luckily my teacher (Dzongsar Rinpoche) has a strong online presence!

My night was better. No large bouts of pain. I was mostly awake between midnight and six but I think that was simply because I slept alot yesterday. The fella has headed off to work so I'm on my own, which I feel quite content about. Later...

 

[VThereandnow]

My goodness we certainly are soul sisters lol. Yes, I definitely have heard of your teacher. I do have a daily practice and my group but really do not call myself a Buddhist, but I never call myself anything I guess. I was in a coven for 12 years in Syracuse and was the only one that did not call myself a witch, haha, just thought of it more as an earth based religion. I just say, whatever it is I am into, that I am practicing in that tradition. Not sure why, but that's how I roll my main teacher is not a master like yours, his name is Soryu Forall -he founded the Center for Mindful Learning here in Vermont, which is actually in the next phase of growth. They just purchased a retreat center which will help them achieve more of their goals, and Soryu bases some of his teachings on another teacher who I also study with - Shinzen Young.

I had dabbled in meditation over the years but it was my pain that brought me to it fully. As many, I was so broken down before my first surgery and here I was all alone, so I was trying different meditation things around town, searching desperately for something to get my feet on the ground and help me deal with a turn in my life that was unexpected. I found the Center for Mindful learning and it seemed to fit me. Soryu was back from Japan and just starting the center, calling it a modern monastery. The first group of residents had just arrived and they were using space at the Quaker mtg house (where Cheryl attends) I was able to join their morning sits, and with those came many audiences with Soryu which go me off to a great start. They also had Wed. eve sits and Sunday evening sits/dharma talks/chanting. I had them close through my whole first surgery and quest to find out what was wrong after it. They eventually moved out of town but continue the Sunday Eve's and hold workshops at their place up on the mountain. It literally changed my life. I learned so much, the main thing being "pain is inevitable and suffering optional." This changed my life so much I was able to go in for my revision looking at it as the universe giving me an opportunity to practice what I learned on the cushion to life off the cushion, which of course is the whole idea. Don't get me wrong, I would not have asked for that opportunity haha, but there it was, and this time I was able to recognize it. So going into this one I was in a whole different place, much more able to go with the flow. Yikes, I feel like I just when on and on, but it is part of my journey, hope that was ok.

Back to you- that seems like a long time to be up during the night. What do you do all that time? That would be difficult for me. Personally I would be pulling out my iPad. For some strange reason I have been able to sleep well. I am not a napper, though I would love it if I could take one sometimes. I will kick back in the recliner, but just can't seem to nap.

Make it a good day today and I hope it is ok I went on. It was just so nice to find another meditator in the bunch Cathy

 

[labanan]

Oh, he looks to be a very good fellow! Yes, I chose Buddhism or it chose me when I couldn't find the druids! Halifax has a very large Buddhist community because Choygam Trungpa made it the center of the Shambhala mandala. The retreat centre in Barnet, Vermont - Karme Choling was started by him. I took my first vows with his son and lineage teacher - Sakyong Mipham over 25 years ago. About five years ago I requested that Dzongsar become my teacher. I often wondered what it would have been like to connect to a Zen teacher rather than these crazy wisdom Tibetans! The Zen practices seem so straightforward and clean. They are the Quakers and us Tibetan types are the Catholics. However, I love the practice and continue to regard the sangha in Halifax as mine. There are a lot of Dzongsar students there. And I know what you mean about the effect of the dharma on processing pain and invasive proceedures. I called them all out for my op and had them round me reminding me of the dreamlike quality of all existence. Made me calm and aware in a curious and not fearful way.

I think I'll sleep more normally tonight as I haven't been napping. Nurse was here to change dressing but no need - completely clean. I managed my own lunch and now am going to draw a bit for my drawing course that began today. What did I do in the middle of the night? Read, watched a few episodes of The Mind of a Chef, played frozen bubble - that's it! I wasn't unduly concerned so...

Thanks for coming by, I truly appreciate it.
Jan