13 days Post op

The last two weeks have been interesting. First off, i think that the initial recovery from surgery was a lot easier than I expected. After the first day or two the pain in my hip was minimal (probably a 2 on a scale of 1-10) and once I was off pain meds (2 days after surgery) my head cleared and the rest of my body started to feel better. It hurt to do certain movements, and I was non-weighbearing, but still - I was hopeful that recovery was going to be a breeze. I think its been hard adjusting from the initial few days of feeling like everything was going well, to the following several days of not much progress. The fact is I had surgery in my hip - bone was removed, cartilidge was removed, and muscles and tissue was moved around quite a bit - so things are going to hurt for a while.

I went back in for my 10 day post op visit with the surgeon this past monday and he was all smiles and happy with how it went and how well I appeared to be doing. He cleared me to shower (yay!!!!!!!!) , swim (with kicking!), stop using the cpm maching, and start weaning off crutches. I was thrilled and left the office with a huge smile on my face - thinking how fun it would be to be walking around without crutches and suprise jon that night. I think maybe I was too pleased, and momentarily forgot that I'd had surgery - thinking those rules of slow recovery don't apply to me. Bad move. Well, I did what the surgeon said and started "weaning" off the crutches - which is a really vague instruction. I did some walkiing without crutches (VERY gimpy/lurchy) and did some crutching with one crutch and some crutching with two crutches with more weight on the left leg. I went on a cleaning/organizing spree around the house - moving things around and clearing out some of the stuff from post-surgery.

The next day I went down to the pool - I did a lap with gentle kicking and breaststroke - and the kicking hurt, so I stopped. I then used the pool bouey and it was fine, but a few times my hip felt like it slipped out of the socket - not a good feeling and it made me a little worried. I was also doing some walking in in the water - thinking this would be a good way to transition into using those muscles again - and it felt fine until hip just slipped and gave out. It was painful and scary and left me a bit shaken. After my hip slipped again with the bouey, i decided to get out of the pool and go home. Plus I had to race back for a work conference call before going to PT (balancing working from home with being a gimp - when everything takes 3 times as long, doctors appointments, and physicial therapy really sucks. I wish I could focus just on recovery. but i guess that is not the way its going to be). Anyway, I did go to physical therapy and asked about the hip slipping issue and she suggested that maybe it was a ligament slipping over bone which feels like the hip slipping out of the socket. I don't know. PT went ok (very mellow), but after leaving, i was using both crutches, and it happened again - left leg had the feeling that it was loose/slippery and then my leg went out. Had I not been on crutches, i woudl have fallen. Scary. So, I'm not giving up the crutches yet. Hopefully that will happen naturally in the next few days. And, I'm trying to look at the recovery in terms of weeks, not days - since progress day to day sometimes goes backwards and definitely doesn't go forward as fast as I'd like.

My worst fear is that surgery to correct too much bone coverage has left me with too little bone coverage - and a form of surgical dysplasia. I hope this is just me being crazy. My hope is that this is just part of recovery - and due to the fact that with the new greater range of motion in my joint I will have to activate and use muscles that have never had to work before - so maybe they just don't know yet how to work - and lead to the slipping feeling. I don't know. For now, I'm riding a stationary bike with no resistance around 40 minutes a day and doing a series of isometric exercises to remind my glutes, hammies, quads and core that its supposed to fire when I move.

Yesterday I also had an MRI with arthogram on the right hip. I have the same structural issue on that hip - though I've had less pain on the right than on the left. I had hoped to have the MRI before surgery on the left hip - since I was still riding my bike a lot and my right hip was aching/hurting. But now, since I've been inactive for 2 weeks, my right hip feels awesome. So, the diagnostic aspect of the MRI is lost - I don't know if the numbing injection in the hip made the pain go away since I wasn't feeling pain at the time. Hopefully the MRI will give an idea of what is going on and how much damage is there. Right now, with the scary stuff on the left hip, I'm starting to feel less certain abotu going ahead with the right hip. But, I want to move forward with the expectation that in a few weeks my left hip will be feeling good and I'll be more confident about the success of the surgery. Funnily, after the injection in my hip (5 inch needle into the joint capsule, with injection of contrast dye and numbing stuff), my right hip feels more painful at times than the left! i guess that is a good sign :)

Today I'm in LA with my parents - I got here last night. It is georgeous here - clear, blue, warm, beachy. I wish i could go walk on the beach. I will at least stick my toes in the sand :) Melodie and Mike get married on Sunday. Mel and I were teammates on Proman and Vanderkitten - here's a photo from our first race together in '08. Totally cracks me up. No brainer that we became very good friends.



I'm looking forward to catching up with my LA girlfriends tonight and tomorrow - I don't get down here enough! Steve and Lynn and the boys are in town too for a little while - so I get to see them and maybe get a little cute overload tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, doc review and work emails continue - but trying not to stress about that too much - and to enjoy a little mini break after all the bod's been through.

On my way

I'm writing this from my couch - partially reclined - left leg in a gameready machine - being pressurized and iced simultaneously, and in a cpm machine - which is moving it in a nice little up and down flex motion. I'm supposed to be icing with the game ready machine 24 hours a day for the first few days, and in the cpm maching 6-8 hours a day. Luckily, I'm still kinda drowsy and drugged up and not itching to do much more than this.

Surgery was on Friday morning. Jon was still in NYC - so my parents drove up Thursday afternoon and we got everything situated with their bedroom, and all of my christmas goodies - such as a raised toilet seat, a few different kinds of crutches, shower chair, walker, and reacher. My goodness! such good stuff. We then went down to sakae and ate some delicious sushi and i drank a bit too much sake. And then off to bed.

Alarm set for 4:45 am, so I could shower with the special soap as instructed, and get to the surgery center in Redwood city by 5:45. I was regretting the sushi and sake and the fact that i couldn't have anything to drink - as i was feeling a bit queasy - hoping that i'd hold it down until surgery. Once there, we checked in and i met with both the nurse - to get ready for surgery and get my IV in place and with the sales rep to get fitted and instructions for the various equipment I might be taking home. I was told that if I had a labral repair I'd wake up in a hip brace which would stay on, night and day, 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. That hip brace was huge and would have been not so fun. In addition, i'd be in the cpm machine. The CPM machine would be required for 8 weeks if I had a microfracture done. I was hoping for the best case scenario - just the game ready and cpm for 2 weeks. thats what I got :) Now, i say best case scenario, but I gather that the reason they didn't repair the labrun is because it was too far gone to save. So, while I like not being in the brace, I do wish I'd still have a labrum. can't win em all. But, I did not need microfracture - which means that I had enough cartilidge still intact to not need to create any more artifically. This is a very good thing in my book.

Before surgery I also met with the anesthesiologist, the medical student fellow working with my surgeon (who I had met at the pre-op) and the assistant. All were friendly and made me feel at ease. When I was wheeled into surgery - i saw Dr. Safran briefly and was in awe of the massive amounts of modern equipment. Then I said good night :)

My mom and dad talked to my surgeon after the surgery and he explained waht he had found and what he had done. My dad figured out how to use his computer to record the report so I got to hear it later which was really helpful.

When I woke up from surgery I was in a fair amount of pain, and was really foggy/groggy - i just wanted to doze off. I think the pain level was around a 4 or 5. They kept giving me more pain medication by IV but it wasn't helping the pain and was just making me sleepy and wonky. I also started to get really nauseaus, and had some medicine to help with that - along with some saltines and sprite. Once the nausea was under control and the grogginess faded away, we decided it was time for me to get dressed and leave. so, the nurse helped me into my shirt and pants, and i was rolled out the door. The drive home was not so fun. I felt like i'd been hit by a truck and every jolt in the road and every car that came too close felt painful. finally, we arrived at home, and my parents helped me down the 9 steps from the car to the house. Once i got all set up on the couch with my new gear, I was feeling much better. I slept through the night pretty well - waking to take pain meds at about 3, to make sure that any pain was kept in check. I stayed on full meds all day yesterday - which means i was napping a lot :) Last night was fine, except for a bout of nausea and feeling chilled by the ice machine. Today i've cut the dose in half, and so far so good. I'd like to be off the pain meds by tomorrow - I don't like the grogginess/spaciness and I feel like they mess with my body.

It feels weird crutching around - like my hip is loose in its socket. Jon thinks this is because i was in traction - where they pulled the hip out a bit. who knows - i guess that whole area has a lot to relearn. I had a lot of bone shaved off - and have more range of motion now than i ever have - so lots of muscles to strengthen. I'm looking forward to starting P.T. I'm also looking forward to getting this massive bandage off of my leg - whcih happens tomorrow at my first follow up.

I'd say that so far, this is an easier post-surgery situation than when i broke my collarbone. That is probably because with the clavicle there was a lot more damage and trauma with the collar bone surgery - with broken ribs, lots of drilling into bone, and lots of broken clavicle bits. Also, i think having one leg and two arms is easier than two legs and one arm. Except that I can't seem to get my coffee from one place to another - hands are full with the crutches. Thank goodness I've had a full support staff - Mom, Dad and Jon - alll generously helping out as I shout out commands. I'd better not get used to this :)

One last thing - I am feeling very good about my choice of having surgery with Dr. Safran. He and his team were all very professional and everything went flawlessly as far as I could tell. It is confidence inspiring when you are part of a well oiled machine. The Stanford outpatient surgical center was also very nice - felt sort of like a nice hotel. I'm happy to go back and have the second hip operated on there. Maybe i'll have my clavicle plates removed there as well.

signing off,
v