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THR Surprised and glad to have op!

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Oh you must be itching to get back to work by now @isolde (sorry, asked in other thread if you were back yet, before I saw this) - good for your garden though! I suppose you have to be mega fit to be able to do full days doing your traindriving - and the responsibility for all those people too. At least you have been able to enjoy this nice time of year wandering round town - and all that swimming. You will miss all the available time soon!
:happydance:
 
Yes, @Great Aunt Janet, I will soon miss my leisure! I have mostly enjoyed this recovery process as the improvements were nearly every day and also the time of year meant the walks were a joy. And walking very slowly at first I noticed more and more detail of the gardens and houses in my village. Some walks I just had to grit my teeth against pain, or sweat at the effort of trying not to limp, but not too many and I always felt good for the fresh air. I've got the best tan from being in Britain that I've ever had! I'm missing my pals at work and the laughs we have, and just the normality of working. But I've also enjoyed the enforced time off if I'm honest: I've worked since I was 16 and it's been lovely to be able to just watch the birds and squirrels in the garden and have lots of time to read - I feel really chilled out!
 
So pleased to read you have enjoyed the recovery time to "smell the roses.." as the saying goes @isolde - best wishes.
 
Hi @isolde
Just caught up with your posts. Its great to read all the positives. I imagine you trying to stand like a flamingo! I too had the problem of not being able to stand unsupported on my operated leg. The physio said it was not my hip but my ankles being weak (sort of caving in). i was given exercises and it has improved but not better yet.

I admire you with your healthy eating. I found post op I really wanted only healthy food but now 5 months on unhealthy things are creeping in!

Do you work from St Pancras? It is my favourite station. I love the feel of it, the renovated iron beams and the space. I do recall hobbling across the concourse, having difficulty getting to the lifts, before getting my hip done so it was a pleasure to walk across it happily when I was last there.

Have a lovely last week of leisure and hope all goes well with your back to work medical.
 
Thank you @Poppet, and thank you @copsham - you make me sound like a healthy eating hero and I'm not! I eat my healthy food and then rubbish as well - like you I only wanted healthy food post op but that wore off pretty soon! I am still a very wobbly flamingo who can't do more than a few seconds without grabbing something! I keep forgetting to practise so hope the doctor at the medical isn't bothered by it! Might be my ankles too so I will try to find some exercises.

Yes, we go through St Pancras on all our routes, and start from there when there's engineering work and we can't go through the London tunnels. I love it too: it was nice always but since the refurbishment for Eurostar coming it is just beautiful isn't it? The atmosphere of the place, the lovely shops and those great public pianos. I was up there last week and it was just buzzing.
 
Hi @isolde
How did your medical go? Was it straight forward? Do they tell you straight away?
Just noticed you were in the Aosta Valley last year - we were on the Swiss side (through St Bernards pass) a few years ago and remember watching marmots play in the valley below. The flowers were brilliant I love mountains in the Spring.

Hope all went well. Sorry that first line of my post sounds like an inquisition! x
 
Hi @copsham
Thanks for asking, the medical went very well (at Grays Inn Road, so a nice visit to St Pancras station again!). I was completely honest with a very sensible African woman doctor who could see that although my right hip still needs an op, and my left hip still has some residual pain I had good range of movement and was basically fully fit for duty. She agreed that work is good for you and helps you complete your recovery. She just recommended that I had some time to refresh my knowledge of our routes, which I had already agreed with my manager. So this week I'm doing that for 3 days, then having 2 weeks' leave that was already booked, then back to work for 4 more days route refreshing, 5 days rest days then finally driving! Which means I will be back to normal duties on 15 July. She said that was a good way of doing a staged return to work. I am driving other people's trains while they are in the cab too so it physically as well as mentally reminds me of the route. We have to have a complete mental map so we can drive the routes in fog, darkness etc. I did about 7 hours of driving today, I'm tired but nice to be back.

Also, I get treated like a star when I walk into our depot, hugs and enquiries of how I am and how it went! I see trainees wondering who this woman is who's getting all the fuss! It's really lovely and touching and the managers are being really nice too so I'm having a wonderful time. I can't take any Tramadol unless I'm not driving, and am getting more pain now I'm at work, but I'm managing ok.

That Great St Bernard pass is wonderful isn't it, we went over there twice and that's what a border should look like, very dramatic (even though it was actually unmanned both times!). x
 
:SUNsmile:Thanks @Constanze that is very kind. I cycled for the first time today, not to work but lots of back roads and bridle paths around my village. For about 45 minutes and it was great and my hip didn't mind at all. I've been putting it off as I had a nasty accident a couple of years ago (got knocked off my bike by an idiot flying out of a side turning without looking) and am a bit nervous, but it was lovely. It was all you on here getting back on your bikes even though your ops were way after mine that inspired me, so thank you!
 
I went back to work for a week, only re-learning routes although I did some long days. If I'm honest I found it very tiring and also got a lot of pain. I'm annual leave for 2 weeks now but a wee bit worried. I know my right hip is going to be operated on as soon as the NHS can do it, and I take on board that the pain from that might make me put a bit more pressure on the operated one, but I'm surprised by the amount of pain I'm still getting a lot of the time from the operated side one. Is this normal still at this stage? I think I've finally plateaued but am surprised by the pain as I can walk and swim and really am not overdoing it.

And now the scar tissue has started to really hurt. I went to see a friend in London yesterday and was walking around lovely, not much pain and at one point none at all. I came home all happy thinking at last it's going, sat in front of the TV and then an hour later stood up to go to bed and pain just crashed in, including the scar tissue. It felt swollen in bed, hard to lie on like just after the op. I'm sure I haven't overdone it, nor hit it on anything. No redness, feels a bit warm and hard and swollen. It has been painful all day today and also I felt sick and headachey - could this be an infection of the tissue? No broken skin anywhere on body so how?
 
OOh, just had a look at it again and my husband said "that's bruised". It looks red both sides of the scar. I've got a GP appointment coincidentally for Wednesday so if it doesn't clear up I'll tell him.
 
Realised I had scratches on my arm from gardening on Saturday. Today the hip scar area is still red, swollen and painful and I feel headachey, nauseous and sleepy. Managed to get a doctor's appointment for this morning so probably strong anti-biotics coming my way......
 
Hi @isolde - I'm sorry about your hip scars. That's a piece of bad luck. You have definitely not been overdoing it. If there's anybody who is suspected of overdoing things, it's me - cycling long distances at that stage - but I'm ok.
Well, I wish you will get better as fast as possible and that the headache will disappear. Keep on reporting how things are going - warm hugs in warm weather (this week they've forecast +36°C here) - Constanze
 
Just back from doctor, it's an infection and he's given me strong anti-biotics to take 4 times a day for 10 days, to get on top of it properly. Apparently any bacterial infection makes straight for an operated hip, I'd read you have to be careful with this especially when having dental work because mouth bacteria are nasty if they get into the bloodstream. If the infection attacks the new joint itself it starts getting very serious. I'll have to be more careful weeding amongst sharp bushes from now on! Amazing that there is no sign of infection around the scratches on my arm but that it went straight to the area around the scar tissue - if it was the scratches that caused it. Also surprised at how unwell the infection has made me, how confused and how much it's made the hips hurt. Thanks for hugs @Constanze, we have got beautiful weather here too and go with how your body feels on the cycling: my new hip loves it and doesn't find it as wearing as long walks. And as for your lake swimming, that sounds SOOOOOO good! xx
 
Hi @isolde, So nice of you that you sent me a message. I'm sorry about the infection. Hope it will get better soon - infections usually heal faster during the warm season and fine weather.
Thanks also for reminding me to exercise caution while weeding in the garden. I often scrape myself or even prick myself on the thorns when I cut back the rose bushes. My garden is not a marathon - worse - a bit of a tall order with neverending weed growth - we live next to a field. Lots of love from Constanze
 
Hi @isolde
Sorry to hear about your infection. I also had an infection in the incision scar. Being me I immediately went in to panic mode had visions of hip revision needed. Then Josephine advised that there is not an automatic route between a superficial infection in the incision and the actual hip joint ( relief to hear that logic) I took the antibiotics and 3 days before the end of the course the infection had not get better at all, had visions of IV antibiotics. Then suddenly on the last 2 days it started to clear and then completely cleared quite quickly and has not returned.

It is am amazing pathway. You sounded so back to "normal" as was I , then we have these blips when we least expect them. Overall I feel lucky to have had a couple of months of normality before my blip. A Chinese acupuncturist that I go to would say "what is your body trying to tell you?" In your case is it saying don't go back to work before your second hip? or maybe just telling you to be careful with the gardening!! Look after yourself and hope to hear it is improving soon. x
 
The infection hasn't cleared up with the antibiotics that the GP gave me. It isn't in the scar itself - that was all well healed, but the soft tissue around it. The antibiotics managed to fight the area of pinkness back from a big area going from around the scar to about 6 inches above my knee, to a circle about 8 cm diameter. They did that in about 3 days, but never managed to advance beyond that. It would get a bit better by the morning and then worse again by night. The antibiotics were to run out Friday, but this was way longer than a normal course.

This week I thought the pre-op assessment centre nurses (who I'd seen 5 days before the infection started, as the first part of the process of getting my next hip operation), ought to be told, as they had said to tell them of any changes in my health, infections or wounds. The nurse took it very seriously and said it should be seen in clinic and although my surgeon is away on holiday, the other consultant who was there during the op had a clinic on Wednesday.

I saw him on Wednesday and he took a full history. The fact that my hip felt so painful from a couple of weeks before the surface infection started and I was getting so tired at work might be relevant or not: he said he couldn't tell if it was just a surface infection (hopefully it is) or a deep one in the joint as well. So the gardening scratches might or might not be the culprits. He said with most of these infections they never discovered how they got in. He said the antibiotics the doctor prescribed weren't a combo they normally used and also the fact I'd taken any antibiotics already would interfere with some sort of tests they might have to do on pus, if it comes to it. He wasn't being critical, just telling me all the facts. He said if it happens again, don't go to a GP but straight to them, via the surgeon's secretary (who you normally have to leave voicemail for - how would you know she got the message or was even at work that day?). He sent me for blood tests and arranged to see me again in his clinic this afternoon. I'm really hoping that it will just be a different lot of antibiotics and not the flushing out of the joint that he mentioned on Wednesday!
 
Oh Isolde this ain't fair!! At this minute I need to read some "happy ever after" stories but then real life intervenes. I am rushing round trying to get prepared for being admitted at 7.30am tomorrow but I feel like I am on tread mill not going forward.

I wish you every positive sentiment to go forward with. Keep posting xx
 
You are so kind, @copsham , and all the best "happy ever after" stories have the bits where you wonder how the heroine is going to make it through! That's just the bit you're going through at the moment, and when you're out of pain and all fixed it will be all the sweeter for it. You will be running for trains at St Pancras by the end of the story!

I saw the consultant again this afternoon. The blood test showed infection, inflammation, but not whether the infection was deep in the joint or just the soft tissue that is so painful, red, hard and swollen on the surface. He had even discussed my case with my surgeon who is on holiday! The hip joint hurts when I walk on it, but not when I was lying down or sitting and he was moving it and twisting it, which it should if the joint is infected. So the pain could well be from the swollen soft tissue pressing on nerves around the joint and causing pain, and not from infection inside the joint. He said they can't be 100% that it's not in the joint, but will try 2 weeks of a monster dose of penicillin. Then come and see them again in 12 days. He also thought I went back to work a bit early and had been doing a lot of exercise, maybe got run down..... I'm an absolute slob compared to some of you lot! (yes and I do mean you, @Constanze!). I really like the way this consultant treats me like an intelligent adult and lets me in on their worries, how difficult the judgements are. Took the opportunity to ask him about breast stroke legs and got told to take it easy and let the antibiotics do their work!

I went into work on the way home to show them my drugs so they could ring Bupa, who advise them on whether there are side effects that affect train driving. The foreman was genuinely shocked that I will be taking a combined dose of 8000 mg of 2 different penicillens a day. He kept saying, "But that's 8 grams a day", so I think it must be the highest dose he's seen! No reply from Bupa yet, we shall see! Only taken one lot so far, so I wonder if it will give me the galloping ***** like the other ones did at first.
 
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