Getting a hip replaced - an eight-week update

Since my last post about the hip replacement, and few things have happened. Shortly after that post and two days before my five-week check-in appointment, I got cocky and had a pretty big scare.

A pretty big scare in my fourth week post-surgery

I had been encouraged to spend a bit of time on a stationary bicycle (with no resistance), so I had tried that out a couple of times. It went well generally - not fast and not exercise in the sense of making me sweat, but it was good to be moving the legs a bit with no impact or pain. 

Well, almost no impact. 

Our stationary bicycle is a fairly sleazy folding thing that we have not used much - just in instances where we want some exercise with no impact, generally after an injury or other issue. 

Our "exercise room" is perhaps a bit cluttered. Note the folded up walker.

Because of my limited mobility after the surgery, getting on and off the bike required me to use a step stool. After I finished the ride that day, I stepped on, well, some of the step stool, and when I put my weight on it, it rolled and I ended up going down. Hard. On my left side - the side that was operated on. The fall was partially broken by landing across the foot bars of our rear-drive elliptical. 

That did not help at all.

Mrs Notthat was on a Zoom call in her office with her door closed and had no trouble hearing the fall. I immediately thought that I had likely done something really awful to my new hip. I felt like an idiot.

An idiot in a fair amount of pain. After a bit, and with lots of help from Mrs Notthat, I got up and hobbled to the recliner. I took it as a good sign that I was still able to hobble. I applied ice, took some pain pills, and tried to think of a way to explain this to the doctor where I don't come out being an idiot.

There was no way to do that - I was an idiot.

But after a bit, I started to think I was maybe going to come out of this unscathed - I felt like no damage had been done to my hip - my left shoulder hurt (it had hit the side of the door frame), my lower-left thigh hurt a bit, and so did my left calf. But I was still able to get around as good as before.

Then Diane saw this:

The bandage is over the incision (and is a lot bigger than the incision).

I couldn't see the bruise until I looked in a mirror, and, wow! Critically, the bruise wasn't all that close to the incision area (but way too close for comfort).

When I went in for the appointment, they took a planned X-ray and the doctor was able to confirm that no hip damage had occurred. (And for the record, he didn't call me an idiot.)

Whew!

OK, now a funny Mango thing

Mango loves sleeping on the extended footrest of my recliner, between my legs. He thinks he's floating I guess. (We will extend the footrest even when I'm not in it and he will often sleep there without me.)

Alert readers might notice Princess laying in her bed in a different chair. These two will never share a chair.

One of my exercises has me sit back in the recliner with the footrest retracted, then lift and hold each leg for ten seconds. If you are not looking carefully, it can look a bit like the footrest is out, sort of.

Lifting and holding one leg at a time.

I was doing this exercise and Mango, sitting on the floor, assumed the footrest was up and jumped over my outstretched leg, assuming he would land on the footrest. That wasn't there.

It did not go well, and I got some claw scratches as he tried to work out what was going wrong. Of course, being a cat, once he landed on the floor, he composed himself and acted like that was all on purpose. I really wish I had video of this - it was such a bizarre thing for him to do.

Wrapping up at the end of my eighth week post surgery

So there was a scare after a fall, but otherwise all has been going according to plan. My next appointment is at three months (I can't believe it's been eight weeks since the surgery already). 

I haven't used the cane in several days, including on walks of up to a mile or so.  I'm still occasionally riding the stationary bike, but with a much sturdier step stool and with my increased mobility, it's not nearly as much of an adventure as before.

I've mowed the lawn, critter-proofed the strawberry bed, and pulled lots of weeds. I can get socks on and off my left foot without using that assistive device (still takes some bonus effort, so still room to get better). I've started wearing lace up shoes occasionally - tying them has been no issue.

I'm still using the booster seat thing over the toilet (really handy at night) and a seat for taking showers (I may try eliminating that next). And of course, I'm still doing the exercises twice a day.

The progress is encouraging, and there is still a ways to go to get to be totally normal, but the results already make this whole process feel worth it. 

That's it - move along…