5 weeks post op

So today I am 5 weeks post op.  Last week was really hard, I was having increasing pain with each day that passed and I was trying to work myself off of crutches.  I felt like I was falling behind in my rehab as even the basic PT exercises were becoming more difficult instead of easier.  BUT...on Friday, I woke up and felt a ton better, I was able to do my therapy exercises in the morning without any trouble at all.  I was so happy and surprised!  It finally felt amazing!  So for the past few days I have been continually feeling better and better, doing my therapy exercises 2 times a day without any issues.  Yesterday and today I walked without crutches at all, all day.  My back today is sore though as I am twisting my pelvis as I have a slight limp, so I am working a lot harder at stabilizing my pelvis with my core, which means I really have to think about every step I take, but it will be worth it as my leg needs this to get stronger.  I also went to the pool today for the first time.  It felt good, albeit different.  I didn't realize how much and quickly I adapted to the feeling of walking in the water without so much weight on my hips until I got out of the pool and the limp was back.  So I think I am going to try and get to the pool on the days that I am not in PT.

In PT I have been working on a few new things, like external rotation, which feels weird as my capsule is really tight, but each day, my range of motion gets better and better and its always nice to see results!  I have started doing abduction exercises with my left leg, which means I have to stand on my right (operated leg) to start some more strengthening.  I was really afraid to do these exercises but they turned out ok, as I did not fall over!  We have also upped the resistance on the bike, so I feel like I am getting a slight cardio workout, which is something new.  In the pool I can start doing some aqua jogging and laps, as well as the normal exercises which just use the resistance of the water to help strengthen.

My pain has been minimal the past 3 days or so, after I got over the awful flare up that I had.  I am already on less drugs than I was before, which is promising!  I am suppose to have a follow up appointment with Dr. Philippon on March 11th, but I have some family issues that need attending too so I will be cancelling this appointment and rescheduling.  I also want to push it out a little so that I can try and fly out there myself and save some money on plane tickets as its starting to get a little too pricey flying out there every 6 weeks!  So, thats about all for now.  This week in PT we will be adding some new exercises, so we will see how the hip does without crutches and some more strengthening!  Each week brings something new, its exciting to see the changes happening!!

Stay pain free and have a great week everyone!!

Two weeks post op

Good Morning all,

Its a cold, snowy day in northern Michigan today (again!).  We have been home a whole week now and its been great.  My mom left about 3 days ago to go back home and since then its just been me and my husband, plus my giant baby, which is some might confuse with a German Shepherd.  I went to physical therapy every day last week and its been going really well.  My hip has been feeling great.  I feel like my range of motion is really good, although I still can't do any external rotation.  I am able to sleep on either side,  if only for a short period of time, without much pain.  There is still some swelling that I can see and feel, but overall, its not bad.  My incision sites are looking really good, I have an appointment to see my primary care physician next week to get my stitches out.  The pain that I am having I believe is left over from traction.  My IT band is really tight and the area that PT has been working on the most.  I keep getting pain around my knee and ankle quiet a bit.  I am still having to take one Norco every 4-6 hours as well as a muscle relaxant. Yesterday was Saturday and I since I didn't have PT I went to the gym and rode the bike for 20 minutes and it felt great.  Overall I feel pretty good, I have been able to sleep well the last few nights which has been amazing!  I am a little worried about pain management because Dr. P's office only does pain management for the first 10 days, then they want me to make an appointment with the pain clinic again.  Its a little frustrating, but not much I can do about it.

Below are some pictures from the surgery :)

Post OP

Well, it actually happened, surgery really happened!  Today I am 9 days post op and overall feeling pretty good.  I actually got to go home the day after surgery, after the epidural wore off.  I came out of surgery around 2:30PM and was feeling pretty good.  I was told that I could go home after I got on the bike in physical therapy but the epidural was taking a very long time to wear off and I could not move my feet until about 6PM, which was after physical therapy closed, so no bike for me.  I was in some pain once home and walking was difficult at first but I was happy to go back to our condo instead of having to stay in the hospital.

As for surgery, I was told that things went well.  They did a lot of work.  I had a labral reconstruction with a cadavar, an osteoplasty with rim trimming for combined FAI, thermal chondroplasty on the femur, chondroplasty on the acetabulum, plication of iliofemoral ligament, thermal treatment of the ligamentum teres, a synovectomy, and the removal of a lot of scar tissue.  I was in traction for 127 minues.

The physical therapy protocol is very intense starting the day after surgery.  I had to be at physical therapy first thing in the morning.  I rode the bike for 20 minutes then one of Dr. Philippon's fellows came down and explained to me a little bit about what they did, showed me pictures and then the nurse changed my dressing.  Each day I had physical therapy twice a day which includes 20 minutes on the bike, some simple movements and exercises and some soft tissue work, and then 20 minutes of icing.  Also, each day I have to use the CPM machine for 4-6 hours, wear my brace while walking around, use the DVT preventative boots while sitting for more than 20 minutes, use the anti-rotational boots whenever I am sitting or sleeping, and of course crutches.  It a lot to keep track of, but so far, I have been feeling great.

The plane ride home I was very worried about, but went well.  Both of our flights were on time, which I was very grateful for as I was worried about getting delayed in Chicago.

We got home 4 days ago and its been wonderful being back.  I was so happy to sleep in my own bed, even though sleeping has been difficult for me.  I have been going to physical therapy here at home once a day this week and its been going well.  There has been a small problem with getting the CPM machine home to Michigan, seems as though UPS mixed some things up, but hopefully we it will come tomorrow.

Overall, things have been going well.  I am feeling good and able to get around pretty easy.  I get tired easily, but that's about it.  I am looking forward to this rehab process as I can't wait to see how things progress!!

The day before surgery with Dr. Philippon

Its the day before my hip surgery with Dr. Marc Philippon and I am getting pretty nervous.  Its odd to be here again since my debacle of a trip last time, it almost seems surreal.  I won't actually believe surgery is happening this time until I wake up in recovery.  Seems like any little thing will cancel surgery, which before I never had any issues with.  I have been wishing for this day for weeks and weeks now, but now that its tomorrow, part of me just wants to be home, cuddling with my dog, watching the snow fall.  But I know that this is the first step to getting my life back as I knew it before.  I have struggled for a long time now, coming to peace with the fact that I cannot do many things in life that seemed so easy before.  How many people have to think about how long and when is the best time to do laundry to create the least amount of pain as possible.  I want to ride my horse again, I want to take my dog for a walk and not worry that I will hurt to much to walk the next day, and I want to run.  I want to work on being a fit person, as person who is proud of how they look and feel.  So in some ways I am excited, hoping that this is a turning point in my life, putting the days of chronic pain behind me.  It will be interesting to see how this recovery goes compared to my previous ones, but I know no matter what, I need to keep my spirits high and listen to my body.

So pre-op instructions so far have been pretty minimal, really only consisting of making sure I drink a lot of water or Gatorade.  I have also had to wash for the past 2 days with Hibiclens, which is this awful pre-op soap that they make you wash with.  I say that its awful because its not like normal soap, it has no soap like qualities.  Its pink, makes you smell funny, and does not even suds like soap should.  I have to shower tonight and tomorrow morning with it as well (EWWW).

Our travel this trip was overall very smooth.  We were able to actually fly out of Houghton/Hancock airport yesterday on time, which I really did not think was going to happen, because we were getting some intense lake effect snow so the inbound flight from Chicago had been cancelled, but somehow, by the grace of God, they had just fixed a plane and we were still able to leave.  We got to Chicago on time, had dinner, walked around then boarded our flight to Denver.  Once in Denver we got our rental car and we were off to Vail.  We got in late last night, about 11 PM MST only to find that our condo we were renting was missing the key to get in.  So we decided to get a hotel room for the night until we could get a hold of the condo owner the next day, but ALL the hotels were booked, I mean, there was not a single room in all of Vail.  So we had to go to the next town over and stay in a hotel there.  We finally got to bed about 12:30 AM MST.  Luckily this morning we worked things out with the condo owner and were able to finally get into the condo and unpack.  I love this condo though, its really nice because it has 1 1/2 baths, which I know will come in handy after surgery.  The bed is huge and it has a nice fireplace.  So this afternoon me and my husband are just relaxing, watching some football.

So, tomorrows the big day!  In some ways I feel like it has not even really hit me yet, but in others I feel like its happening too fast!  Here's to new and improved hips!!!  See you all on the other side!

Almost there

Well, a week from today we fly back out to Colorado for surgery on the 21st.  I called last week and talked with Dr. Philippon's PA and he said that all tests have come back negative for any infection in my hip, which is what I, plus my husband and GP, already knew, but I understand why they wanted to make sure that there was no infection.  I am a little worried though because I was unable to get a hold of the surgery scheduler to confirm my surgery date and get a time, but I am assuming that will happen on Monday.  Of course, the more I think about going out there for surgery, the more nervous I get.  I want to be able to plan everything to the very end, but I know that I can't.  I have planned and booked as much as I can and now I just have to let the days tick by and wait.  So far it looks like the weather will be nice to fly, which is a blessing because living in the northern most part of Michigan, you just never know what the weather is going to do, especially in January.

So, not much to report on.  I have our condo booked as well as our flights, the only thing I still need to book is a car rental, which the last time we were there, it worked out better to just get a car when we got into Denver.  My pain has been steadily getting worse over the past few weeks.  Sleeping has become very difficult as well, which does not help things much.  Last night I only slept for about 4 hours before my hips just became too painful.  I am trying to calm my nerves by doing things around the house but I have a hard time balancing being able to do things around the house and not putting myself in a lot of pain :/

Overall, just nervous.  I would feel a lot better if I had gotten a phone call or email from the surgery scheduler to confirm my surgery, but I don't see why surgery would not be a go considering the PA told me that from his end it was.  Anyways, I will update again once we are in CO!

Sometimes

So sometimes you just need to do whats better for your mind than your body because as I have learned over the past few years, it seems like those two things do not always agree.  I went for a walk with my dog today, which is something that I have not done in at least a month.  We live in a beautiful area of northern Michigan and it has been very disappointing to be up here surrounded by amazing trails, wildlife, and Lake Superior, and not be able to enjoy any of it.  This past summer me and my husband went swimming a lot, which was fun and something that did not make my hip hurt too bad.  But obviously, summer turned to fall and fall to winter which means no more swimming in the lake, but left lots of time to enjoy the trails close to our home.  Unfortunately for me, it was around fall that my hips started acting up really bad again and I was unable to go for many walks.  Being cooped up in the house though has been hard.  Its difficult to want so bad to do things but know that if you do them you will pay the price and be in a lot of pain either during or after.

So today I went for a walk with the dog in the snow on the trails.  It was great to be out in the woods playing with my dog, who loves snow.  It was good for my mind too as I am about three weeks away from surgery and am beginning to get really nervous.  I am not so concerned about surgery itself, its just the uncertainty of it working and the hard recovery that comes afterwards.  I am trying to be as prepared as possible, but at the same time, there is only so much that you can do until its just time for surgery and what is will be.

I was also doing some research on antroverted femurs and how it effects people and found some articles that basically state that having this condition often makes your feet and knees point inward so making them point outward is very hard and causes stress on your hips.  Well, of course, when riding horses you are suppose to ride with your heels down and toes outward, putting as much of you calf as possible on the horses side for stability.  I don't wonder if 1) falling off a horse and landing on my hips when I was 16 caused some of these problems because I was young and still growing and 2) by always pushing my heels down and toes out that there was lots of stress on my hips, which did them no favors.  Its very frustrating not knowing exactly what caused all this to happen, so how do you know what to avoid in the future?  These are just some of my theories anyways.

So, really, nothing new, just some thoughts.  Hope everyone is well and pain free!  Its almost a new year, a time to turn the page and have a clean slate, right?

Lets try this again...

So, here we are, 3 weeks out from surgery (hopefully).  I had called Dr. Philippons office last week and talked with his PA about the femoral retroversion that I thought I had, but as it turns out, I don't actually have a retroversion,  I have an antroversion, which is what I described in my last post, I just got the name wrong.  I had called to get some reassurance that surgery, which is scheduled for January 21st, would actually happen this time as I don't have the money to fly back and forth from Colorado a lot.  But when I called I really did not get much reassurance at all.  I was told that my antroversion was at such an extreme angle that even after this surgery they believed that I would need to visit this doctor in CA to have this fixed.  He said that in the next year he sees me needing at least two surgeries to help with my hip problems.  Needless to say, this did not make me feel very good about my situation.  Luckily, I only have 3 more weeks until we fly out to CO for surgery, but I am getting really worried about the flights back home considering the flight from Chicago to Houghton (where I live) is in a really small plane and often gets cancelled.  I just hope that its not too overwhelming for my husband!

This conversation with the PA is really the first in a string of problems that happened last week with my family.  My sister is applying to vet school and got two rejection letters plus my parents, who are foster parents to three children found out 3 days before Christmas that they had to send the kids with their grandmother for Christmas.  It was devastating news for my family considering me and my husband traveled 8 hours to see the children and have Christmas with them and the rest of my family as well as my in-laws.

Overall, this Christmas 'vacation' was pretty much a bust.  My hips are very sore from sleeping on a pull out bed at my parents house for 8 days plus the 8 hour car ride there and back.  Then there was all this drama with the foster kids, it was just not the kind of holiday that you would normally plan on having with your family.

On the up side I got a new computer to play games on while recovering :)  Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas and a pain free New Year!