The road to recovery
It’s now been five and a half months since I had a hip operation.
If you believed all that film and television has taught us, you’d probably imagine that I’ve fully recovered by now, and whilst I might not be running marathons, I’m living a more active lifestyle? If only!
My recovery should be anywhere between 6 to 12 months, and as I approach the 6 month mark, I’m nervous as hell.
Having the operation itself is a walk in the park compared to the recovery stages.
The procedure I had removed extra bone that had grown on the head of the femur/thigh bone, which had developed as my body tried to cope with a condition called retroversion of the hips. This means my whole femur is twisted at a different angle to the ‘normal’.
I am and continue to be fascinated by the human body in general, but it made a bit of a faux pas, because in doing so, it meant that this extra piece of bone would attempt to distroy the inside of my hip sockets whenever I walked, sat down or literally thought about moving, giving me an additional condition called femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). To make matters worse, the bone grew in an unusual spot, right at the front.
Yes, it’s as pleasant as it sounds and unfortunately affects both hips.
I’ve had a lot of surgery in my 35 years of existence, and I’m familiar with how hard post-op recovery is. I like to call it the ‘pothole covered road of recovery’, and there are five familiar stages each time I’ve gone through it.
Stage One: Hours after surgery you’re drugged up, sleepy and emotional that it’s all over. You’ve most likely been counting down the days to surgery with the same anticipation as you would if you’re about to go on holiday (yes, really!)
Stage Two: This is when you’re home at last, pleased to be in your own bed but the reality of where you’ll be stuck for the next two months sinks in.
Stage Three: Your dressings have been removed, you’re attending physio and quite frankly pleased to be out the house, even if it is just at the doctors (again yep, really!!)
Stage Four: Now this is the stage I least ‘enjoy’. The pain medication is reduced, the physio is increased and the everyday activities are attempted. I’m not talking going out with friends, I’m talking showering yourself, getting dressed and generally not needing someone to wipe your arse for you.
Stage Five: The final and by far the hardest stage. You’re back at work, getting back in the ‘routine’ but likely to still be experiencing pain. But what’s worse now, everyone around you expects you to be ‘better’.
I am at the moment, I’m at stage five. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss the first few stages, but you realise how much easier life was when you didn’t have to move, you could just throw drugs down your neck and forget the outside world existed.
When I’m having my other hip done, I’ll miss stage five and it’s independance, but right now I need to concentrate on getting strong enough for my post-op hip.
I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass for the 8 years I’ve been in and out of surgery now, more so to my right leg.
This means that the usual squats, lunges or pretty much any activity that involves ‘load bearing’, my knee screams like a petulant infant having a tantrum.
I’ve always done the physio I’ve been given, or at least given it a good go, but I know my wonderful physio is running out of ideas to strengthen my quad, so I’ve rented a £160 bit of kit to help fire some electrodes into it. Essentially the lazy workout out equipment my inner sloth is loving.
I really hope it works, especially because that price only covers 6 weeks. What happened to the days when I’d blow that money on a shopping trip?! I think that was stage minus 97, right?!
If you believed all that film and television has taught us, you’d probably imagine that I’ve fully recovered by now, and whilst I might not be running marathons, I’m living a more active lifestyle? If only!
My recovery should be anywhere between 6 to 12 months, and as I approach the 6 month mark, I’m nervous as hell.
Having the operation itself is a walk in the park compared to the recovery stages.
The procedure I had removed extra bone that had grown on the head of the femur/thigh bone, which had developed as my body tried to cope with a condition called retroversion of the hips. This means my whole femur is twisted at a different angle to the ‘normal’.
I am and continue to be fascinated by the human body in general, but it made a bit of a faux pas, because in doing so, it meant that this extra piece of bone would attempt to distroy the inside of my hip sockets whenever I walked, sat down or literally thought about moving, giving me an additional condition called femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). To make matters worse, the bone grew in an unusual spot, right at the front.
Yes, it’s as pleasant as it sounds and unfortunately affects both hips.
I’ve had a lot of surgery in my 35 years of existence, and I’m familiar with how hard post-op recovery is. I like to call it the ‘pothole covered road of recovery’, and there are five familiar stages each time I’ve gone through it.
Stage One: Hours after surgery you’re drugged up, sleepy and emotional that it’s all over. You’ve most likely been counting down the days to surgery with the same anticipation as you would if you’re about to go on holiday (yes, really!)
Stage Two: This is when you’re home at last, pleased to be in your own bed but the reality of where you’ll be stuck for the next two months sinks in.
Stage Three: Your dressings have been removed, you’re attending physio and quite frankly pleased to be out the house, even if it is just at the doctors (again yep, really!!)
Stage Four: Now this is the stage I least ‘enjoy’. The pain medication is reduced, the physio is increased and the everyday activities are attempted. I’m not talking going out with friends, I’m talking showering yourself, getting dressed and generally not needing someone to wipe your arse for you.
Stage Five: The final and by far the hardest stage. You’re back at work, getting back in the ‘routine’ but likely to still be experiencing pain. But what’s worse now, everyone around you expects you to be ‘better’.
I am at the moment, I’m at stage five. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss the first few stages, but you realise how much easier life was when you didn’t have to move, you could just throw drugs down your neck and forget the outside world existed.
When I’m having my other hip done, I’ll miss stage five and it’s independance, but right now I need to concentrate on getting strong enough for my post-op hip.
I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass for the 8 years I’ve been in and out of surgery now, more so to my right leg.
This means that the usual squats, lunges or pretty much any activity that involves ‘load bearing’, my knee screams like a petulant infant having a tantrum.
I’ve always done the physio I’ve been given, or at least given it a good go, but I know my wonderful physio is running out of ideas to strengthen my quad, so I’ve rented a £160 bit of kit to help fire some electrodes into it. Essentially the lazy workout out equipment my inner sloth is loving.
I really hope it works, especially because that price only covers 6 weeks. What happened to the days when I’d blow that money on a shopping trip?! I think that was stage minus 97, right?!
Comments
Post a Comment