Hip Replacement - Round 2

Today is the day when I go for my second hip replacement.  I've been getting along pretty well lately with the new hip on my left side, other than my left leg is 7/8's of an inch longer than the right one.  But that will get rectified later today when they put the new titanium hip joint in my right side.  I was told by my doctor that they usually don't pay much attention to the leg length on the first hip replacement, but they take extra care in making sure the two legs are as close to equal length with the second hip replacement. 

I was getting used to walking around with the weird little "hop" to my step with one leg being longer than the other.  It's kind of funny showing people how I can keep my right leg perfectly straight and have a bend in my left leg at the knee and I'm standing straight. 

Physical therapy is going well.  I feel like I'm getting stronger all the time in my left leg.  The two physical therapists - Nicole and Aaron - have been great to work with.  I usually do all the exercises on my own with the help of a P.T. assistant, Megan.  Then Nicole or Aaron work on stretching my muscles in the leg to help with increased flexibility and mobility, as well as some resistance exercises.  Lately, they've been working me a little harder, adding more exercises, more weight, and more repetitions.  I'm actually kind of looking forward to not having to go to physical therapy for a week just to help rest my left leg.  Sometimes, I feel just wiped out and really sore after the therapy. 

But strength and flexibility in the leg is what I need.  Because they actually cross your legs to dislocate your hip to take it out of the socket during the procedure, you're not supposed to cross your legs after the surgery.  When I asked the doctor at the post-op exam when I can begin to cross my legs, he said, "Never." 

Never again.  Well, in order to put on my socks and shoes, I have to cross my legs.  Right now, I have to have Cindy put on my left sock.  I've been working on putting on the right sock without crossing my leg and I can do it pretty well.  But with little flexibility in the left leg, I can't even come close to being able to put on a sock.  That's really disconcerting because I don't know how the hell I'll be able to put on socks and shoes if I'm on the road by myself.  I told Cindy she may have to go on the road with me just to put on my socks.  She said, "I'll do it!" 

Unless I get about a 50% raise in the next couple months, that's not going to happen.  And with business as slow as it is right now, any raise is not going to happen anytime soon.

But I've also been told that some doctors are overly cautious when it comes to the hip replacements.  One of the physical therapists where I go told me that in all the years he's been involved in hip replacements, he's never seen a hip dislocate after surgery.  In fact, my doctor told me that one lady in her 40's who had a hip replacement came in for her post op exam and  excitedly told him, "I can do the splits again!  Do you want to see me do the splits?!"

He said he was horrified,  He said he told her, "No, no, no!!  I don't want to see you do the splits!  You shouldn't be doing the splits!  No matter if you can do them again, don't do them!"

But I'm guessing that lady was still doing the splits showing off how great her hip replacement was. 

I've lost nearly 30 pounds since I went on my diet a little over three months ago.  I'm a little behind on my schedule as I got to about 28 pounds down for over a week, then fluctuated up and down a couple three pounds.  I really wanted to be down 35 pounds by the second hip replacement.  I'll gain some weight back with the swelling over the next couple of days, but I hope to be down 40 pounds by May 1.  Hopefully, the weather will turn nice in the coming days that will allow me to get out and walk three or four times a week during my recovery. 

Most of the weight I've lost has been in my upper body.  My neck has lost an inch.  I've noticed that some shirts are beginning to hang on me a little bit.  Cindy said that she's noticed that I've lost a lot of weight around my shoulders.  I can tell that many of my shirts aren't quite so tight on me. 

I had bought a couple pair of larger waisted jeans back in the fall.  I can't wear them without looking like I'm some sort of a rap star.  They now fall down when I walk up or down stairs.  I put on my old *smaller* jeans last week.  They haven't fit that well since, well, I don't know if they've ever fit that well.  They were always sort of tight on me to begin with.  But buttoning them up and pulling up the zipper was the easiest I've ever had with them.  So I guess I am making some progress. 

The one problem through all of this is something my doctor cautioned me about before my first hip replacement - that the pain in my left hip has been masking the pain in my right hip.  He said, "You may begin to feel some pain in your right hip after we take care of the left one." 

Well, he was certainly right.  I notice - especially during physical therapy - the right hip has that same dull pain in it that the left one had a couple three years ago.  The doctor told me the right hip wasn't too far behind the left hip in deterioration.  That's why he decided to do both of them five weeks apart.  "You're going to eventually need to do the right hip," he told me during my initial visit with him last December.  "We may as well get them both taken care of and out of the way." 

I'm anticipating the recovery for the right hip replacement will be a little easier and quicker than the recovery time for my left side.  Because of the muscle atrophy in my left leg from favoring my hip - plus severely pulling my quad and hip flexor muscle in a slip in a St. Louis hotel bathroom over a year ago - my left leg had little to no strength before the surgery.  As the physical therapists have told me, the longer the leg has had little to no strength, the longer it's going to take to get the strength back.  But I will say that I'm able to lay flat on my back and do straight leg lifts - 3 sets of 10.  Even though I can't do them with any weight on them, it's still a long way from a couple weeks ago when I couldn't lift my leg an inch off the table.  Yes, it's still a bitch, but I have this sense that things are getting better every day.

As my cousin in Los Angeles told me after my first hip replacement, "Hip replacements are becoming the tonsillectomies of the 21st Century.  Everyone's getting them."  Well, I don't know if everyone is getting them, but the procedure and recovery seem to be almost too easy.  Even though there still is some periphery soreness from time to time, plus I don't have full flexibility as of yet, I certainly didn't think I'd be doing as well as I have.  I'm hoping to be done with physical therapy by mid-May.  That would be sweet.

Comments

[Stryker hip replacement surgery]

What a lovely read I’m having here. I am so happy that everything works just fine for you. There are others who suffered big deal upon going through a hip replacement.