Happy New Year to everyone here!
I just looked back at this thread and can't believe I fell off posting at six weeks. My six week surgical check up was good. I asked my surgeon about my scar -- which is pretty enormous compared with my mother-in-law's scar which she claims she can now barely see -- and he gave me a very friendly chiding. He said, "You can't compare your recovery with anyone else's. Your surgery was very complicated." Glad to know I put him through his paces.
Overall, the implant looked good and my surgeon took me off toe-touch restrictions. He actually said, "You have no restrictions now. Have at it." I can tell that he wants to see what this particular implant can do, as the dual mobility joints are still fairly new for HSS.
Thinking of Josephine, I spent a month just walking before I actually started PT. I'm glad I did it that way. It gave me time literally to get two feet under me again and take recovery slowly. My husband and I started doing some walking tours of Brooklyn from a book that he got me when we first moved here two years ago. The inside cover is inscribed, "For when you get your hip done..." Finally, we were able to use it and do some walking tours in our neighborhood. In truth, though, I was anxious and frustrated on those early walks. Being on the sidewalk with other people made me a bit crazy at first. I couldn't zig when they zagged, and I got tired so quickly. I also experienced some pain in the hip and hear clicking when I started to get tired, so that contributed to anxiety. Later, my PT said that when I got tired, the clicking was me using the joint rather than the muscles in my leg for mobility.
Started PT in July, and that went well. The therapists had never had a patient with the dual mobility joint and they seemed excited to put it through its paces as well. I've gained a range of motion that I never had before in my life. Because my hip replacement was due to congenital dysplasia, I had always had a severely restricted range of motion. I've never sat cross legged or crossed my left leg over my right, for example, and I never was able to rotate my torso to the left when I was sitting, so in the passenger seat of the car, I would twist around to my right if I had to get something in the back seat. I still have stretching and strengthening to go, but I'm almost able to cross my left leg over my right. So close!
Actually, the worst part of PT and the longest thing to recover has related to my left knee. My surgeon said that he had to stretch my quads and hamstrings quite a lot to accommodate the new leg length. Consequently, those muscles are terribly tight, and I am experiencing tendonitis in the patella tendon. In August, before my son went back to school, we went out to see a play. By intermission, I was nearly in tears my knee hurt so much from sitting with it bent and restricted.
These things are slowly getting better, though just in the last two days, I had a set back with my knee. Feels like I strained something in the knee, so going up or down stairs is agony. Rest and icing for now, and I must get back to stretching religiously! I got a bit lazy over the holiday with the arrogance of feeling normal, so I haven't been stretching as I should.
In retrospect, although I have tried to let go of expectations and just let recovery happen at its own pace, I can see that I haven't been perfectly patient with myself. At each milestone, I felt as though that should become the new normal, and of course that's not realistic. There have been set backs, stalls, and the need to rest!
United States
