Email Me

Email me

Monday, August 22, 2011

Must. Take. It. Easy.

Seriously, I have to take my own advice and take it easy. This past week and a half has been incredibly busy and now I am paying for it and feel like I have gone three weeks backward. To summarize what I have done this past two weeks is: traveled to Niagara Falls, walked around there for a good 8 hours on crutches, drove back home, drove to school (11 hours drive), hung out with friends, drove to neighbouring cities to do things, drove another 4 hour (one way) to visit my brother. Needless to say, way too much sitting and standing makes for an unhappy hip.

This is fairly foolish of myself since my hip and I are standing on thin ice as it is but, I had figured that I have to live and after 5.5 weeks of lying around doing nothing I was up for the challenge. Now, I am paying for my lack of self control in limiting my activities. Seriously, I should have known better.

I am 6 weeks and 5 days post op today and here is an idea of the things I can and cannot do:

Can do:
shower and have a bath
walk unaided
not take any narcotics at all (day or night)
go up and down stairs unaided
wear normal shorts
dress myself (some modifications necessary still)
shave my legs (again modifications necessary)
drive

Can't do:
put socks and shoes
bend past 90*
make it through the day without a medication (Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, Muscle relaxants)
walk without a limp
bend over at all
do stairs one at a time
paint toe nails
walk more than a block
make it through one minute without thinking of my hip
move in bed without waking up

As far as pain levels go, I think that I am still worse than before my surgery. Not only do I have the nagging groin pain still (2/10 on a pain scale) but I also have the muscular pain (and spasms) that go along with having surgery. Plus, my hip feels inflamed and I am still very swollen (I have developed a pooch of swelling on my butt/hip area that looks like a half of a baseball has been placed under the skin)....lovely. Also, the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve was moved during surgery so it has lead to a patch of hypersensitivity on my lateral thigh.

I apologize for being so negative, but I have not found any improvement at all and am hoping that this surgery was not all for not. I realize that I have to have another surgery to really get fixed, but it is hard to keep a positive attitude towards recovery when you aren't expecting a full recovery. After putting that into words, I really realize how negative I sound. Man! But, there IS a chance that this surgery could help my pain levels. I guess I'll have to pour my energy into rehabbing properly so that I can make the most out of my current hip situation. The PT quest begins today at 3pm :)

No comments:

Post a Comment