13 Weeks Post Op

I entirely missed my 12 week post due to being out of town and crazy busy with graduation. I suppose it is around this time that life starts to return back to being able to do normal things. It's a great thing! I am very VERY thankful to be completely off of crutches. That happened around 2 weeks ago. At 11 weeks I was able to make it through the entire day without crutches, but then a couple days after that I had to travel alone in an airport and I obviously couldn't do that without one crutch. It was basically brutal getting through an airport with a roller carry on and one crutch. I wouldn't recommend traveling alone yet. But I managed. And I was out of town for a week and only used my one crutch twice the entire 12th week: once the day after I traveled to go out to dinner and after my graduation ceremony because that invoked standing for two hours and walking a lot. That was my goal: to be able to walk across the stage at graduation without any crutches and without a limp and I totally did it! I remember being in my last appointment with my surgeon and he said that walking across stage without crutches would be a good goal, and I laughed saying that I would most certainly be off crutches before then. Little did I know how close I would come to actually needing them on graduation day.

All in all, my left hip is doing well. Realistically, I know it won't be pain free. After having 5 surgeries on it (4 of which were the wrong type and actually were just de-stabilizing my hip), and having the amount of arthritis in the hip, I have to expect some pain. But, having said this, I can't really feel a difference in this hip. It's hard to explain, but I feel like I'm now walking on top of my hip. It must be the feeling of stability? I'm not sure, but it does feel tremendously different than ever and I quite like it. I can absolutely feel a difference in, what I am assuming is this stability feeling people talk about, between my PAO'd hip and my non-PAO'd hip. In addition, I can now say I feel better than before my surgery (on my PAO'd side only). It is absolutely in sane to think that anybody could feel so much better after voluntarily having their pelvis broken with 5 cuts and screwed back together with 4 screws.  It was.a horrendous surgery, and it cussed me to experience pain like I've never experienced before, but I feel as if it was very much worth it (and I realize I am very early in the healing process, but I am confident it will only get better from here on out). And now, I desperately want my left hop PAO'd. Sounds crazy but not crazy.

At this point, there is very little I can't do because of my LPAO. And I moved into my own room upstairs earlier this week!!!!! :) That side still has adductor and hip flexor weakness, but I do exercises every day for these muscle groups: 3 sets of 10 adductor squeezes and 3 sets of 10 straight leg raises. I ride the bike for 10 minutes on days I do my full set of exercises (strengthening all of the muscles around the hip and core and balance exercises). I only do 10 minutes in the bike because the entire exercise set takes 1.5 hours to do everything properly. On odd days, I will ride the bike for 30 minutes and then do my adductor and hip flexor exercises as mentioned above, and then also stretch and do some balance work, all the while, letting pain be my guide. But the pain is mostly muscular at this point. I realize that I am not on my feet much these days so my left hip won't hurt as much. The true test will be when I start working in a month. A test for both hips.

I got my MRA CD in the mail this past week. I was gonna share a couple snap shots of the study, but I'm typing this on my iPad and, since it's new, I don't know how to add from my camera roll yet. Sigh. New technology :)

I see my surgeon in just over three weeks. I hope he is happy with the progress because I know I am. And I hope, even more, that he says let's do the RPAO in July! Fingers crossed.