One Week Post-Op

I am so used to being so busy that lying around in bed and in the recliner all day is boring the living day lights out of me. Seriously, I am not even one week out and I am bored of just sitting around. The past two days I have not taken any narcotics during the day so that I can have a clear head. It is worth it to me because I hate those stupid pills! But then, by the evening time, I am very much in pain, but that is when my family is home and I don't want to just sleep through the entire evening, so I just suck it up and take the pills at night. I can't tell you how thankful I am for the pills at night; it is like clockwork, four hours after I take two oxycodone, I am awake and need another one. I really can't imagine that I need them that badly at night, but the pain is definitely worse at night. So, I figure, why try to be a hero? So I take the pills and manage to get some sleep.

Sleeping through the night would be amazing. Like I mentioned, I get about four hours at a time. Which isn't bad. Some nights are better than others. Since I am in a hip brace, I think that I sleep better than if I didn't have one. Comparing my previous two surgeries, now that I am restricted to a very limited hip motion, I literally can't move, so I don't. This prevents me from being jolted from a sleep in pain every time I move during the night (this is what happened the previous two times). So I get more restful sleep and thus feel better. Also, I feel 'safe' in my brace. I thought that I would hate my brace, but I am actually thankful for it! (I never thought I'd say that!!!). The only bad thing about the brace (besides being bulky and hot) is that I can't move at night, which tends to throw specific muscles into spasm. My tibialis anterior and lower back were the muscles that freaked out last night. I actually had to have my Mum come and massage my tibialis anterior because it was so tight in spasm that I kept waking up.

The hip itself is definitely sore. Just last night it started to give me a sharp pain in my groin every time I increased my intra-abdominal pressure (ie laughing, coughing, sneezing). At first I thought "oh no, the two anchors that were placed in have come out!!" But I can't see how that would have happened since I have barely moved for days on end. Ah well, hopefully it is just part of the healing process.

So, overall, it is not that bad. I mean, it sucks to spend the entire summer inside on a recliner in a brace on crutches. But, I will do everything in my power to get this surgery to work so I can stave off reconstructive surgery for as long as possible; if not forever. I have been praying that this surgery works and could use all the prayers in the world for this surgery to be successful. So, if you read this, and do say a prayer - THANKS!!!! :)

5 Days Post Op

Today marks 5 days since my surgery. I did not take any pain meds all day (except for my massive dose of ibuprofen, but the true purpose of the ibuprofen is not just pain relief). I only take oxycodone at night to help me sleep. Honestly, I do hurt more since I don't take anything, but I have a clear head; it is worth it to me.

My mum washed my hair today for the first time since the surgery day; it was glorious! Ahh.

I took my bandages off and re-did them myself yesterday. I have three hip scope incisions that are pretty close together and none of them penetrate any glute muscles or the rectus femoris, which alleviates much of the post-op muscular pain.

I am currently lying on my stomach on a bed trying to stretch out the hip flexors. It takes a few minutes to relax but it is well worth the effort because this will make the hip flexors less tight and thus less pain.

All in all, I am doing fine. I just wish I knew that all of this will be worth something. I may not get any relief or it may bring relief that I've waited 5 years for! The suspense is killing me. Last night I even dreamt about seeing a different doctor about my hip because the surgery didn't work. I think I may be a bit stressed over it. One thing is, that all of the pain pre-op proved to be an indication of what was inside the hip. Glad it wasn't all in my head! phew.

All Washed Up

Today my Mum washed me all up whilst lying in the reclining chair. It felt absolutely amazing! I don't dare try to get into the shower at this point, but washing up and shaving really can make a girl feel better. I even got my nails painted!! I still have grimy hair, but that'll have to wait a couple of days before we try to wash it using a hose outside whilst sitting in a lawn chair - should be fun.

I have not needed the same amount of medication that I used during my previous surgeries. They gave me oxycodone that is half the dose and I am only using half of the prescribed dose right now. I am pretty impressed. And, my last pill was this morning at 4:00am - I have only had my indomethacin today (to prevent heterotrophic calcification as well as the added benefit of some pain relief). I didn't have any pain until we washed me up. Taking off and putting on the TED hose really can place a stress on the hip.

I also had to look at my incisions today. I just couldn't handle it anymore and had to know what was there. I have three incisions on the anterior portion of my thigh. They are a bit bigger than my previous scope sites and have two stitches in each. I will take pictures in a couple of days because I was forced by my Mum to tape all the dressings back on ASAP.

Everybody seems so uptight about the incisions. I stupidly told my parents that I could take out my own stitches which would save a trip to the family doctor here at home. Well, they mentioned this to the doctor and his nurse and now I HAVE to go to my family doctor because they want a fax from my doctor saying that he took out the stitches and did a wound assessment. I don't think that anybody trusts me now!

This is surprisingly easy compared to my last two hip scopes. I have one less scope site which might make a huge difference. Also, I didn't have too much done. Apparently when my current surgeon got into my hip joint he got so mad at my previous surgeon that he thought he couldn't operate on me and was going to close up. But he said he took a look around and evaluated the rest of the hip and found some things that he could fix. He was able to anchor down a part of the labrum with two anchors and shave down some bone on the acetabulum for the pincer impingement and some of the bone on the femur side for residual CAM impingement. Apparently my surgeon did a perfect job on one part of the femoral neck, but on two other areas he didn't do it properly. One area he shaved down way to much bone in the wrong place and another area he didn't shave enough bone away. He also debrided too much labrum off and now the majority of my labrum is the consistency of a cooked spaghetti noodle - which is not conducive to suturing together; it just broke apart when he tried to fix it.

So now the waiting game begins. If my pain was coming from the areas that this current surgeon fixed, then I should get relief. But if my pain is coming from the areas of the labrum that were not fixable, then I will have to be referred to another doctor who can rebuild my labrum from my IT band. This means another surgery which would entail me traveling across the country to get done because only a handful of surgeons do this labral reconstruction. So, I am in a similar situation to where I was before my surgery - but with a chance that my pain can get better. I am going to pray every evening that my pain is alleviated by this surgery. All prayers are appreciated! :)

I suppose that I can't worry about this too much since I could have my pain relief from the little he did inside the hip. I don't want to borrow stress! So, I'll continue to focus on getting better and see what happens and what the Lord has in store for me and my hips!

Home!

After two days of traveling, I am FINALLY home! My parents drove me three hours on the day of surgery, 5 hours the next day and 3 hours today. Every day was fine traveling except for today. In the three hours today we had to stop 10 times. Three times in three exits because I decided that I had to puke in the car and we had to settle that problem. Other than that, it was alright. We stopped every hour to stretch and my Mum and I got really good at hobbling into handicap washrooms along the highway! lol

I am now in a hip brace and surprisingly not in too much pain. I am so happy that it is over! I will give more details about my surgery tomorrow or when I am less drugged, but things looked worse in the hip than he had anticipated and he hopes that what little he was able to fix was what was giving me the pain. There is still a lot of pathology in the hip that he couldn't fix; so if I still have pain in 6 weeks, then he will refer me to yet another OS for a labral reconstruction. Which would be yet another surgery. I certainly hope this isn't the case. I will post more details later when things are less fuzzy for me :)

OMG

Seriously!??!!??!!

So tomorrow is my surgery and I have started my period today. Honestly, this will be my third hip surgery and the second time I have had to have my period right before the surgery. It is more annoying than anything because of bad timing. I know that the staff at the hospital deal with this regularly, but I really was hoping to avoid the hassle. Ah, but no such luck.

Sigh.

I am getting kinda nervous today. I have checked into our hotel room and will spend my last day of mobility shopping and running some errands. My parents and I will go out for a nice dinner tonight for my 'last meal' lol

Still, I am kinda irked.

P.S. sorry if this is TMI; just had to get it off my back :P

So This is How It Goes

I can hardly believe that it is only four full days until my third hip arthroscopy. On Thursday of this upcoming week, I will be able to have my hip fixed (hopefully forever!). Last week I wrote the first step of my medical board examinations which was a horrible beast and I am happy to get that out of my life. Whilst studying for this exam I had to sit for so long, that my hip detested it every single waking moment. To say the least, this extended sitting, made my hip life miserable.

Since the day-long study sessions are over, I get to move around more and, ha, go figure, my hip feels better. This always happens before surgery. It makes me doubt that I really need it. I know that I can't live and the pain from all this last semester is still vivid in my mind, but the brain has a fascinating way of playing games with the body and pain levels. This (feeling better right before the surgery) happened both previous surgeries, so I am not too alarmed, but gosh, it is annoying. Perhaps it is simply a manifestation of the normal human nature to not want surgery and to not want the pain that goes with it.

On another note, I woke up this morning with a terribly painful piriformis muscles as well as my SI joint hurts when I extend my lumbar region. I barely did anything yesterday except for read.....oh.....that might be it....I sat in one of those lawn chairs that fold up into a bag. They are pretty low and I am not used to sitting in one. Man, if that made me sore, I am seriously 26 going on 90 years of age!!

Less than a week

Well, we have less than a week before the big day. I have been awaiting my hip surgery for a couple of months now and, although I am super nervous, I am so relieved that it is almost here and I can get it done and out of my life. Hopefully this will be the last hip surgery for me in a real long time; if not forever. (Mind you, I can't see never having problems again when I am older since I've had so much to do on both sides) but hey, if I can get several years/decades with functioning hips; I am all up for it.

I am off all NSAIDs now (which sucks) but I am coping alright. Also, I have had my pre-op physical and a finger prick to check my hemoglobin. The pre-op blood work is a far cry from last year. The surgeon ordered a PT, PTT, INR, chem profile, hemoglobin, hct, chest xray, EKG, etc. Phew! This time around - finger prick for hemoglobin. I think that is more suitable since I am otherwise healthy and not on any medications.

So, I am just waiting around, doing things with friends, etc., etc. until next week. My parents come down on Tuesday and then we are going to stay in a hotel until my surgery. My parents are going to be such a help. They are traveling across the country for my surgery and then are going to help bring me back home to their place where I can convalesce. It will be nice to have so much help post-op. Lord knows it is not fun!