Up and Walking... But pain issues

So I'm up and making short walks on crutches. The physio at the hospital completely agreed with me that I have a much better and balanced walk with crutches than I do with a walker. 

Right now I'm alternating an hour in the chair and an hour in bed. The hour in bed is when I hit my hip up with ice. I'm still having issues with pain, I guess I built up a bit of a tolerance to the pain meds because I was occasionally taking them for arthritis while I was off my NSAIDS.

The hospital physio thinks I might be able to leave tomorrow evening or on Saturday. My surgeon visited me at like 10:30 last night. Said I was making good progress after a quick chat.

I'm not massively bruised this time.

Well, the pain management issue came down to the ortho floor being short staffed and a misread chart. There have only been 2 nurses for the day and afternoon shift. One of the nurses read that I had a dose at 2 but didn't check the mg I was given and wasn't due until 6,but they've been giving me a half dose every 2 hours since that seems to manage the pain better.

I was given the extra dose of oxy that was missed as well as some toradol and just wrapped up in bed and let the meds do their thing for the last couple of hours. Apparently the look of pain on my face, convinced the afternoon nurse to double check my chart despite having 12 patients. 

My log leg is finally starting to loosen up with more activity. I think what really helped is when I had the physio manipulate my knee that had frozen up, and she gave me some light exercises to get my knee moving.

This stay has been overall more pleasant, as my roommates guests only come once a day or every other day for a couple hours max, there has been no snoring in stereo and I got the bed with the window.

Update

I have been icing, and I was finally able to get out of bed this afternoon, even if it was just to go pee and sit in the chair. The log leg is strong in this one. The physio helped me movebmyknee about because it was so still.

Right Hip, Replaced!

Hi everyone! I made it through so far I have no nausea,my mom says I have more colour. 
Surgeon told mom that my hip was absolutely riddled with arthritis but the bone was still good. I lost 250ml of blood. 

Had a spinal and a nerve block. I woke up once in the middle of surgery and again before I moved into recovery. I've got my ankle pumps going. Only got poked once for my IV. the anesthesiologist wrapped my hands in hot towels to wake up my veins.

I'm still on oxygen and I'm cathed overnight because of the spinal.

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I made it through my hip replacement well. So far no nausea 🤢. #hipreplacement #surgery #recovery #arthritis #osteoarthritis #coxavara

A post shared by Trenna Schram (@trenna.so.hip) on May 7, 2019 at 12:40pm PDT

Feeling Silly

I feel a little silly tonight. I'm laying in bed with an ice pack under my butt on my surgical side and a heat pack on my pre-op side.

I honestly can't believe how much difference there is in the pain levels. I'm at a 1 on my replaced hip, and a 2 after a full day activity. Generally it's just minor muscle pain. 
My big notice on the left side is I'm starting to get shin pain and I'm wondering if it's my shoes, the leg length difference or both. 

On my pre-op side I easily spend the day at a 3-4 going up to a 6 with light activity full of radiating and shooting pains.

Another thing I've noticed is that I didn't get pre-menstrual/menstrual hip pain this time in my left, but still got it in my right hip. I'm hoping the right replacement will solve that all together because that's been the worst pain I've been getting.

Post- Op Surgeon's Update

I saw my surgeon on Wednesday and he said everything looks great. The month of 50% weight bearing helped me heal well. He said that my stem is well fixed, and my soft tissue has recoved well enough that he was taking off all of my post-op restrictions.

He was pleased to hear that I'd been incorporating 100% weight bearing into my routine and told me to try it all the time for the next few weeks until my RTHR next month.

This is a no pain zone. If you feel ANY pain, stop.

I'm weight bearing more and more every day. I'm so glad to be off of 50%. I'm walking about a kilometre and a half every day according to my fitness tracker and my pace is only slightly slower than it was before surgery. I'd say it's similar to what it was last spring before I started prehab.

I've been walking around the house with either one crutch or none, but feel off balance because of my leg length difference. On the street, I'm trying to work my way to using my urban walking poles, so I still have support on both sides (replaced and upcoming)
I had physio on Thursday and they asked me why I waited a month post-op to start and told them my surgeon disallowed it for a month. I liked they said "This is a no pain zone. If you feel ANY pain, stop." In fact the whole session started with an ice pack on my hip for half an hour before starting anything. They're basically working with me to improve my leg strength ahead of the next surgery.

 

Thoughts and Achievements

My follow up with my os was moved up to the 17th from the 29th. So soon I'll have an xray I can see, unlike the ones done at the hospital. 

I'm starting to think that I'll have to push back my right thr from May until July-ish. There are 8 steps into my house and I don't think I'll be able to climb them with my left leg leading for another couple of months. I just don't have the strength yet. 

Otherwise I'm making great strides, I'm walking about 4000 steps a day, i have so much less pain, every day the stem feels more and more secure, and I'm down to one crutch in the house