Yesterday, July 11, was one-month since my surgery. I marked the occasion as I have tried to mark other days recently - by parking my crutches. Actually, I parked the crutches the afternoon before... but it sort of sounds more monumental by making it happen on the one-month mark. As the official historian of my post-surgery journey, I hereby fudge the record accordingly.
So will it "take" this time? Y'know, I think so, but I'll allow for the possibility that I might need them again in the coming days. Until two days ago, walking without crutches was a very asymmetrical undertaking. I sort of hobbled, listing significantly to port like a wounded ship each time I put weight on my operative leg. Then, when I tried walking Thursday morning without my crutches, I found myself staying more or less upright. I'm not ready to declare myself ship-shape by any means, but two days of smooth-sailing does buoy my confidence - and my spirits. (More nautical metaphors to come - be warned).
The pain of walking seems to have abated somewhat, as well. That doesn't mean I'm pain-free by any means. It just means each step doesn't necessarily have me biting my lip to keep from wincing aloud. I think there's a cumulative pain-price to be paid by walking without the crutches; last night was one of the more painful evenings I've had for a while. But I do think as long as I can walk without suffering too much in the moment and without making that cumulative pain component too much to bear, I should probably go for it. And that raises an interesting point: How do I really know?
I haven't seen the surgeon since the day after the operation, though I did see his assistant a few days after that. I was discharged from physical therapy a week later. And I'm not scheduled to see the surgeon again until ten or twelve days from now. So I guess it's up to me to figure this out. "To walk or not to walk, that is the question." I read on an online patient bulletin board somewhere that your new hip will let you know what you can and can't do. There's probably a lot of truth in that. I hear a popping noise in mine sometimes when I walk a certain way - probably the new joint's way of saying I shouldn't walk that way. And I've felt that odd hyper-extension thing a few times when I try walking with my operative leg completely straight - definitely my hip telling me not to do that. I took a little walk down the street with Toby this morning, while Hettie walked the younger dogs. My hip told me when I was trying to go too fast. In the next few hours, it'll probably let me know if I've overdone it. So, I'll likely have this stuff all figured out by the time I see the surgeon again in a couple of weeks, as long as I listen to my new joint.
All of that, I think, points to the minor miracle of contemporary joint-replacement surgery. The whole process has come a long way. And maybe the best evidence of that is that that you get to go home the day after the operation and there's no one breathing over your shoulder every step of the way. It reminds me of the first time Hettie and I rented a boat for a week in the Bahamas.
You get a five-minute briefing and suddenly you're heading out of port, trying to plot a course to somewhere you've never been before. I remember thinking, at the time, "Did that just happen? Is it really all up to me now?" It did and it was. Of course, then, as now, I had my trusty First-Mate to help me sort it all out. But also back then - as now - neither of us really knew what we were in for.
As I think of why I started this blog in the first place - trying to leave a real-time record of my post-operative experience for the next person contemplating this kind of surgery - I think that's a pretty good notion to mark the one-month milestone: I really didn't know what I was in for - and I still don't know what the future holds. But so far, I'm OK. No regrets, except maybe that I didn't know more about the journey heading into it. It's been an adventure, for sure, with high-points and low-points and moments I'd never imagined. It's changed me beyond just the new part that's replaced a worn-out part. All-ahead 1/3 speed for now.
So will it "take" this time? Y'know, I think so, but I'll allow for the possibility that I might need them again in the coming days. Until two days ago, walking without crutches was a very asymmetrical undertaking. I sort of hobbled, listing significantly to port like a wounded ship each time I put weight on my operative leg. Then, when I tried walking Thursday morning without my crutches, I found myself staying more or less upright. I'm not ready to declare myself ship-shape by any means, but two days of smooth-sailing does buoy my confidence - and my spirits. (More nautical metaphors to come - be warned).The pain of walking seems to have abated somewhat, as well. That doesn't mean I'm pain-free by any means. It just means each step doesn't necessarily have me biting my lip to keep from wincing aloud. I think there's a cumulative pain-price to be paid by walking without the crutches; last night was one of the more painful evenings I've had for a while. But I do think as long as I can walk without suffering too much in the moment and without making that cumulative pain component too much to bear, I should probably go for it. And that raises an interesting point: How do I really know?
I haven't seen the surgeon since the day after the operation, though I did see his assistant a few days after that. I was discharged from physical therapy a week later. And I'm not scheduled to see the surgeon again until ten or twelve days from now. So I guess it's up to me to figure this out. "To walk or not to walk, that is the question." I read on an online patient bulletin board somewhere that your new hip will let you know what you can and can't do. There's probably a lot of truth in that. I hear a popping noise in mine sometimes when I walk a certain way - probably the new joint's way of saying I shouldn't walk that way. And I've felt that odd hyper-extension thing a few times when I try walking with my operative leg completely straight - definitely my hip telling me not to do that. I took a little walk down the street with Toby this morning, while Hettie walked the younger dogs. My hip told me when I was trying to go too fast. In the next few hours, it'll probably let me know if I've overdone it. So, I'll likely have this stuff all figured out by the time I see the surgeon again in a couple of weeks, as long as I listen to my new joint.
All of that, I think, points to the minor miracle of contemporary joint-replacement surgery. The whole process has come a long way. And maybe the best evidence of that is that that you get to go home the day after the operation and there's no one breathing over your shoulder every step of the way. It reminds me of the first time Hettie and I rented a boat for a week in the Bahamas.
You get a five-minute briefing and suddenly you're heading out of port, trying to plot a course to somewhere you've never been before. I remember thinking, at the time, "Did that just happen? Is it really all up to me now?" It did and it was. Of course, then, as now, I had my trusty First-Mate to help me sort it all out. But also back then - as now - neither of us really knew what we were in for.As I think of why I started this blog in the first place - trying to leave a real-time record of my post-operative experience for the next person contemplating this kind of surgery - I think that's a pretty good notion to mark the one-month milestone: I really didn't know what I was in for - and I still don't know what the future holds. But so far, I'm OK. No regrets, except maybe that I didn't know more about the journey heading into it. It's been an adventure, for sure, with high-points and low-points and moments I'd never imagined. It's changed me beyond just the new part that's replaced a worn-out part. All-ahead 1/3 speed for now.
