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.