The Day After

Amazing. Thirty hours after being wheeled in to the operating room, I left the hospital with a brand new joint where my left hip used to be. How lucky that it's 2008... how much I kept thinking about people who had to stay in the hospital for a week or longer, endure weeks of physical therapy while muscles healed - and that was just a couple of years ago. How far things have come! How lucky that I even had this option. Of course, in a very real sense, the hard work is just beginning now that the surgery is over.

The whole reason I started writing this blog was to give someone considering surgery a sense of the procedure and the recovery - and I'll keep that commitment. I've just been home for a few hours now; by tomorrow, I think I'll be in a clearer state of mind to write more.

Quickly, though, first impressions: Kind of scary, those last few hours before the surgery. The procedure itself, of course, I don't recall... just being wheeled in and sitting up for the spinal block. I remember recovery, trying to wiggle my toes, heading to my room, those first steps. Pain was bad only when moving; with a new "pain ball" that is delivering drugs right to the surgery area, local pain, when I'm not moving, is tolerable (with other meds). Moving is still pretty tough - hurts a great deal. But I have to say, bottom line, there's nothing about the past day and a half that has caused me to regret this decision. In fact, I'm more convinced than ever it was the right thing to do. More info soon.