Hello, hello @
shrinkette --
I'm so glad to see you posting and mending! I have not been on BS regularly for the past month or so, so I get "updates" in the form of reading weeks' worth of posts at a time. I have to say that despite your log/cement pillar/unwieldly leg, it's been really neat to see your progress! You've come through this way better than some of your earlier worries indicated you might (for example, the expectation of a rehab facility, but not for the cement leg reason). Instead, you're stepping and moving and... you did it! Is the leg numbness like trying to walk on a leg that has "fallen asleep", minus the pins and needles? I can see where that would be hard, not truly sensing where your foot is meeting the ground. My post-surgical numbness is limited to a surface area near my incision and kind of down my leg, where the I-T band would run. I say surface, because I have sensation on the inside, and it doesn't affect my gait, but a finger touch feels very odd indeed. The assistant told me it would heal, so, okay I guess!
I like @
Poppet 's phrase above, where she speaks of dancing to her own recovery timeframe. It just has to be that way if any of us are to make sense of recovering from a major surgery. My dear sister-in-law, meaning well, I am sure, told me how her boss was "back at work two days after having a hip replacement." Now, apart from the fact that I am not sure she heard correctly, and therefore this would be as impossible as it sounds, I had to re-evaluate and say, "And this affects my recovery how?" It changed nothing-- in fact, rather than worry about how I wasn't living up to her superhuman expectations, I figured I'd push a big old "reset" button in her head by showing her a more typical recovery. And that band of "typical" is very wide, not to mention very rarely linear!
It's interesting, this trend to dismiss people from the hospital so quickly. If we were to poll people, wouldn't you think they'd find it more abnormal to send people home 24 hours after surgery than to let people recover a while in rehab? To be honest, I was nervous to go home, even without any complicating factors. I am glad you get great care in your facility, and I hope that your foot sensation comes back quickly, but you're already doing more walking than I told myself to do for a couple of weeks (maybe I hit that 110 steps over the course of a day, but it wasn't a big, concerted effort to exercise). I think you're tracking super well! And finally, getting in and out of bed was, bar none, my biggest challenge in the first couple of weeks (it got better). I think I had an advantage there because eventually I figured out a ridiculous-looking system that I never would have implemented had I had an audience! You'll figure out your own system, and this too shall improve.
Finally, a weak little analogy (discard at will): If this were a flu forum, and you had been hospitalized a little longer to rid yourself of a persistent infection, would you doubt your own strength and progress in your recovery, or would you accept that the bug hit you a little harder than some others? I don't think there's ANYTHING you should be doing differently, other than going easy on yourself, because your recovery has indeed been set into motion and you're on your way.
In a few months, when you're reaching other milestones on YOUR trajectory, the time spent in the early days in a facility may be more easily viewed as a great base and not as a consolation prize.
You're admired and loved on this forum, and your posts are so filled with the humanity that we all feel, but that we can't always articulate. Thank you for posting-- I hope you know just how much we're pulling for you.
United Kingdom
