Scared newbie... Hip is shot. What if it doesn't work!!??

[shrinkette]

@sharonslp... Hope you managed to hold on to your electric power. Having survived threatened & actual hurricanes, I know it's no fun when it goes out. That's why we bought a generator after the last bad one in 2005 & now have NO idea how to use it!

So what kind of dancing do you do? Ballroom? Country? Salsa? I used to enjoy dancing... Nothing serious or competitive -- just for fun. Closest I get now is "Dancing With the Stars". Someday, maybe.

 

[sharonslp]

Ellen, power is out all around me, but somehow mine is still on! So thankful!

I used to do all kinds of ballroom dance, swing, country-western, latin, etc. Really any couples dancing. But these days, we limit ourselves to just contradance. (Picture old English country dance jazzed up with Appalachian influences. Picture square dancing sort of, but much more flirty and fun. Check youtube for examples. Picture the Titanic folks on the lower decks having their party.....they were doing a contradance.)

Sharon

 

[Peaches]

@shrinkette ... I have read some of your postings and always enjoy them, even though I don't enjoy the trials and trepidation you have gone through. It's been a long time coming, but your time is almost here. I wish you the very best!

 

[shrinkette]

@Peaches Thanks... I do appreciate that. It has been and is getting rough. I'm about beat! On my more negative days, I keep thinking "What if it doesn't work" or I read about someone's dreadful experience. But I'll get through it -- I have no choice. Hope you're doing well & are enjoying life without pain. Wow -- does THAT ever sound good! Happy New Year!

 

[Peaches]

Hi, @shrinkette ... oh, boy ... do I remember how rough the final weeks are. I reread recently some of my journal postings from my final pre-op days. The tears and fears. But according to the stats (which is what always calmed me down), it's a hugely successful surgery. I'm 8 months out and my operated side is doing very well. My life is far from pain free, thanks to my bad back and the other hip --- but that's all the more reason why it was so good I got the first hip done! Hang in there and keep reading and posting here. That will help a lot. Take care ... oh--and thanks for posting that animated Jacquie Lawson card. I've always liked her cards, but that one you posted is my favorite. Happy New Year!

 

[Poppet]

Hi @ shrinkette, you truly are going through the worse part of this process - the pre surgery phase... I found as I got closer to my date, I tried to focus on the future without pain.. Not easy, but we are here to help you with this

 

[shrinkette]

Hi @Peaches, @Poppet, @sharonslp, @Butterfly, and @ anyone else who wants to add their 2 cents. I've noticed that many here have been active either almost up until surgery or were, up until enough pain sidelined them from any number of physical activities. I've never done anything athletic in my life, never enjoyed a sport of any kind, never went to a gym. It just wasn't part of my life. I WAS going to say "generation," but that's obviously very untrue. (Sure, as a kid I biked, played catch, roller skated, walked). As an adult -- an excellent non-doer of physical things. I did get up and dance a lot at weddings & bar-mitzvahs! And I did once attend some kind of ersatz exercise classes.

So... am I the only slug around? I was plagued with a bad knee for a couple of years probably, which kept me progressively limited, but which is now fixed. Lets just say that prior to bad joints I did the usual: errands, worked full-time, cooking, travel, entertaining, shopping, went back to school for my Masters, etc. (God, sounds like a million years ago! Did I rilly, rilly DO that?!). My question now is how much of my inner-sloth will impede a successful recovery, do you think? All I have to go on is my TKR; I did ok last February. I guess this is my newest worry-of-the-week. Any reassuring comments out there? Love you all... Oh, and HNY!

Ellen

 

[Poppet]

Hi Ellen, @shrinkette... Regarding your question...

My question now is how much of my inner-sloth will impede a successful recovery, do you think? All I have to go on is my TKR; I did ok last February. I guess this is my newest worry-of-the-week. Any reassuring comments out there? Love you all... Oh, and HNY!

You will be so pleasantly surprised. As Jo indicates many times, hips have a way of looking after themselves and slowly building up the walking is the best activity. Also, because your bone on bone pain will be gone, you will be so thrilled with yourself when you take those first walks around the hospital ward... fear not my honey, your 'inner-sloth' will disappear xx

 

[shrinkette]

Thank you, lovely @Poppet. You always make me feel better. Maybe if, in fact, I DO ok, I won't be so slothful... well, eventually!

 

[Poppet]

I am have written many times @shrinkette whilst recovering and reading everyone else's posts, full of PT and activity... Me.. I declare myself to be the consummate lazy BoneSmart member, LOL...

But from my own experience, I was totally immobile for 8 years, so I always knew I was going to take a long time to recover. I also figure, I work full time, 9-10 hour days at a very stressful professional executive position, and do the general chores of living.... and an occasional Nordic Walk - which is a great cardio workout as well as giving one the reassurance of the sticks... I am doing ok and you will also! Xx

 

[Peaches]

Move over, @shrinkette ... I'm in the slug camp as well. Prior to my hip going downhill, I was a pretty avid walker and occasional dabbler in exercise bikes and treadmills ... but that was it. Once the hips were shot, I really did less and less. I met with 4-5 surgeons when the hip pain first started 6 years ago and asked each one of them flat out if my slothness posed a problem for surgery and for surgical outcome. The answer was no. I asked all surgeons if I needed to exercise or do PT prior to surgery to get in some kind of shape and the answer was no. I relied heavily on walking in lieu of outpatient PT for the first six months after my THR and I feel this served me very well. No problems with that new hip. The only thing slowing me down and derailing me now is the other hip going to pot.
I understand your worries, but I think you'll be okay. Oh, and one more thing: There IS always a possibility that you can overdo the exercise prior to surgery and make things worse. I've read about that a few times on Bonesmart. People who thought excercising a lot prior to surgery would postpone surgery somehow, but instead they got inflamed and were laid up more than they would have been. Hang in there. I know how hard this time is, waiting for surgery, but you got through knee surgery and that is supposed to be tougher than hip. So try to take some consolation in that, if you can. Take care.

 

[sharonslp]

By nature, my idea of exercise is turning the pages of a book. If brain exercise worked for the rest of the body, I'd be in great shape. I've always had to push myself to get out and be active. It's not that I didn't enjoy riding a bike, or playing racquetball, or going hiking in the mountains....they just weren't my first choices. If it were up to me alone, I wouldn't do them. But I was raising active, healthy kids, so I had to be their active healthy mom.

Later in life, when my husband and I separated, I stumbled into dancing as a way to meet people (okay, men), and have fun. Took lessons of all kinds, discovered contradancing....the greatest invention on earth....and did eventually meet my SO of the last 16 years....and many more to come, we hope. In the process, I was also the most physically fit of my entire life....until the arthritis started to sideline me.

Today...post THRs....and having watched both parents get more and more immobile before they died....I can see my own future if I don't actively work to change it. I no longer dance five nights a week, but I do get out a couple times a month. I don't walk five miles a day, but I do walk every single day if I possibly can. It's so hard in the winter....my recent fall on black ice was so upsetting....but I am forcing myself to get on the treadmill instead. I hate hate hate it...but I'm doing it.

Ellen, in a couple of months, you will be in a lot less pain. I know you can't conceive of it now, but you will find it pleasurable to move without limping. You don't have to become a work-out machine; you just to get out and walk every day. 10 minutes three times a day will be an enormous benefit for you. Anything more than that is frosting on the cake. We all love the frosting, don't we? Go for it. Any movement is better than no movement. More movement is better than some movement. You won't get rid of your inner sloth, but you can put a leash on him and take him for a walk.

Sharon

 

[shrinkette]

@Poppet, @sharonslp, @Peaches What can I say but thank you from the bottom of my heart for your respective responses to my latest angst. Sharon, I laughed at your comment about page-turning as exercise. That's so ME! If i exercised the way i read, I'd be Wonder Woman. Peaches, I so appreciated what all the OS's said about the outcomes for sloths. Made me feel lots better... now I can go back to hanging upside down on my tree. And no danger of me overdoing any PT stuff pre-op... My OS didn't think it necessary, so far be it for me to perspire if I don't have to (except for well, you-know-what, if I remember correctly). My knee was another story: I was very diligent about doing the home exercises for that.

Sharon, what you said about my not being able to conceive of being in less pain is right on the money. It therefore occurs to me...duh!... that if I don't hurt, I might actually not mind walking! Not necessarily like it, but not dread it. What a concept! That would be really great. As usual, I got some good stuff from you guys... Someday I hope to be able to kind of pay this forward to other terrified but grateful loonies like moi.

Hey, and you know what? My OS doesn't like TEDs! YAY!
Love & kisses.
Ellen

 

[bottomshollow]

now I can go back to hanging upside down on my tree.

Loved the mental picture I got from this comment. So here's you

and here's me

I think we may have a lot in common when it comes to exercising. I love turning pages, too. I've read about 4 books in the past 2 weeks.

Take care and keep us posted. We care.

 

[shrinkette]

Awww... @bottomshollow .. That's so me, indeed! I love it! Thanks for the pics. Now I'll think of you as a nice, friendly snoozing leopard! So cute!! Just back from the dentist and a manicure (no, dentist does not do manicures!). And lunch. Chocolate chip crepes with strawberries. (Very nutritious -- i ate fruit!).

Every time I get in and out of the car I'm reminded of why my hip is getting done -- wow, that hurts!! I'm driving, & it's my left leg. Ooh, baby!! And how are YOU doing, my friend?

Ellen

 

[Peaches]

Hi, @shrinkette ... I was about to ask about that dentist of yours who does manicures. And I thought my ophthalmologist who inquires on a form when you go see him if you'd also like a BOTOX injection was fancy. (I answer the question with a smiley face and a "No ... why? Do I need it?" and to the "Are you pregnant?" question I answer with a smiley face and a "Uh, no ... Did you catch my age?")

Those surgeons I talked to were talking only about whether being in shape or having exercised prior to surgery would make a whit of difference as to the outcome of the surgery ... and they quickly and emphatically told me no, don't worry. Now, as to whether one should embark on an exercise campaign after the surgery (and by that, I don't mean arduous PT, but, you know, exercising once you are healed and embracing your new, pain-free life), I'm sure they would have endorsed it. But like you, I was just worried if my sloth-state imperiled my surgical outcome. That was one less thing to worry about.

You can X off one more day of pre-op jitters. You are one day closer to "showtime." Which is a good thing. That's one day closer to being on the other side!

Take care.

 

[shrinkette]

Countdown has begun -- two weeks from today it happens, barring any unforeseen results of my pre-op exam on Tuesday. Had a CT scan today at the hospital per surgeon's orders, who will use certain results from that to more precisely place the implant & fix leg length, all with the help of a robot. I know -- sounds kind of Star Trekky, doesn't it? Hey, whatever works, & I sure hope this does!!! I'm alternately calmly fatalistic, excited, a nervous wreck, & scared. Like most everyone else, I guess.

One thought: if my OS should feel I need to go into a rehab, I'm afraid they will make me work at it much more aggressively than is advocated here, which as we all know means lots of rest, icing, elevation, not overdoing anything, & walking a bit as the best exercise -- at least for the early weeks. I have internalized all that & intend to follow it religiously, but what if I have no choice? How will I know how much is too much?

 

[Poppet]

Aaaww @shrinkette, you most certainly have a choice - you just say NO that will hurt me and I won't do it. Your medical team (including the rehab team) have a duty of care - cause no harm!

It is important to be a strong advocate for yourself and I know you are a strong woman.

 

[shrinkette]

Anybody told to take Iron for awhile pre-op? I'm not anemic, so I guess it's just to build up my hemaglobin. But it's very... um... cement-like, if you get my drift. Will necessitate prune recycling. (Ah, euphemisms)

 

[MajorHeidi]

@shrinkette You are getting closer to that new hip. Yay.... Question for you, is the robot more advanced I would guess than my OS with computer assisted surgery, or similar?