Had one of my last PT sessions today. I'm kinda sad...I really like Lindsay...as a PT and person. She's super nice and easy to talk to. She's an amazing PT. I'm so impressed that she immediately saw my issues with my tight hip flexors. And glutes. My clams have never been so effective! I'll definitely come see her when I fly back for my follow-ups with Dr.Nho!
She said I'm on schedule for my rehab. That my ROM is great. I've seen such a difference when doing quadruped rocking between week one and now. I still have pinching on flexion, but she said it's due to my psoas and is nothing to worry about. Just have to keep an eye on it. We might evaluate my gait with one crutch when I see her at my last appointment on Monday. Not sure I'll feel comfortable as my leg feels so weak, but we shall see! She massaged my incisions and one of them is super painful...don't really know what's up with that. Really hope it'll be better once the stitches are taken out on Tuesday. She also worked on my left non-op hip today. It's been so painful the past few days :( Hoping it's just the compensatory effect and not because of the tear that's present on my left side. If I need surgery on that side as well, I'm going to have to sell a kidney or two. One can function without both kidneys, right? Any idea how much are kidneys worth nowadays? In terms of exercises, today I was able to ditch TA and glute isometrics. She added this fun, life-changing exercise. LOL. When she showed it to me, I was like "Um? That's it? Is there something else to it? No? Oh. Ok." Haha. Funny when I compare this to the high intensity trainings I used to do a year ago. Baby steps.
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Wow, it's weird how time goes by fast...yet slow at the same time. Today was such a boring day, another day stuck inside. Felt pretty depressed at one point. But then I realized...surgery was exactly two weeks ago. Already!?! In exactly one week, I will be back home. It's funny...I'm excited but sad at the same time. Even though being stuck inside sucks...it feels nice to be able to focus only on my recovery. Soon I will be back to my life back home. I'm really excited to be back in my own environment...my own bed (even though the bed here is pretty comfy!). I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and family. It's only been 3 weeks and I miss them! So how is it post-op two weeks?
- I'm finally sleeping! Not the best sleep, but sleep! I'm taking a break from the booties. I decided to sleep on my stomach and on my side. I'm able to get through the night with these two positions. Halleluja! - I'm almost completely off pain killers. Tylenol is pretty useless...so if I have mild pain I try to tough it out. If I'm miserable, I'll resort to one Norco, and it definitely helps. - Still on two crutches. My leg feels so weak. My quads have melted. Hopefully it'll come back as fast as it went away. But I'm not worried, nor am I in a hurry. If I need to be on two crutches for 4,5,6...8 weeks...I'll do what I have to do. No skipping steps. Slow and steady wins the race! - My steri-strips are slowly peeling off..I just want to pull on them! Call me weird but I'm curious to see what my incisions look like. Just a few more days until I get my stitches out. - My bruise is healing! - I ordered Crutcheze on Amazon and I'm super excited to get them. Yes, that's how wild my life is right now. I'm excited about purple padding for my crutches. I'M GETTING THEM TOMORROW! hahah. Aight...it's getting late, goodnight! xo Quiet day at the Guesthouse today. PT exercises, CPM machine, PT exercises...CPM machine lol. So happy to be staying at the IMD Guesthouse. It's a non-profit organization that offers low-cost housing for patients coming from out of town. We have a one bedroom apartment with kitchen, so we're able to cook meals instead of ordering food all the time. It's even wheelchair accessible, so the shower has railings...which is great when you have one leg that's as strong as a spaghetti noodle. The staff incredibly nice. Today they had teenagers from a local high school come volunteer all morning long. I dropped by the community room when they were wrapping up...it was so awesome to see these teens working together. They baked all these goodies to brighten the day of people go need it (a lot of the guests are unfortunately cancer patients). They packed goodie bags and wrote encouragement notes. So sweet. Literally! When I was there, I had the pleasure of meeting a man from San Francisco. He has cancer and is going through a clinical trial here in Chicago so he stays at the Guesthouse three weeks at a time. He asked where I'm from and then laughed when I said "eh?"
Hip wise it's been a tough day. Hip flexors are still pretty mad. Laying on my back is painful, laying on my stomach is painful...I obviously can't stand all the time haha. My left hip gets irritated so damn quickly with all this weight bearing (and the fact I have a tear on that side too...) I'm looking forward to seeing Lindsay on Thursday. Ending this with an encouraging note by one of those students. G'night. xo Had PT at noon.Told Linsday that the past few days have been tougher. I've been having pinching on the front of my hip when walking, and have been unable to do those baby clams. She immediately suspected tight hip flexors...which was quickly confirmed the second she lightly pressed on my psoas!
Psoas massage was TOUGH but powered through it. My hip flexors are so cool that they barely react to normal surface massaging. They prefer multi-plane massaging, meaning I have the chance to have my points massaged while doing ROM exercises. Ouchhhhhh. We modified the clams so that my legs are aligned with my hips and shoulders. I was still struggling, as it created a sharp pain in my glutes. She explained that since they're so weak, they tire very quickly, which then has them go in spasm. And then the clams are pretty ineffective. So she worked through the trigger points and tada! Able to do mah clams. We then worked on my gait, which clearly was a large contributor to my tight hip flexors. I had a tendency to shorten my gait (did this before surgery as it would avoid my hip from catching)...so she showed me how to fully walk through the stride, extending - within limits - the hip. I can tell this will make a huge difference! Good news is she told me all of this is completely normal at this point, and not to worry. We'll keep a close eye on the hip flexors as we don't want this going into tendonitis. Bridges were added to my program today...c'mon glutes, get workin'! The past few days have been a bit tougher. Physically and mentally. The first few days post-op aren't so bad as I was following a strict schedule of anti-pain meds. But 3-4 days later, it's suggested to slowly wean off the hard stuff and gravitate towards Tylenol. Since the hip is healing everyday, it allows me to move around a little more. Moving more = more hip irritation, and this under weaker medication. Today I went back on Norco (Hydrocodone + Tylenol) and it really helped. Mentally, the whole being stuck inside with limited mobility has been hard. The hyperactive in me is not used to this. The independant in me has trouble being OK with asking for help for basically everything. I'm so grateful Oli is here with me, and that he's the person I'm relying on. But I can't wait to be able to do more stuff on my own...like putting on my underwear! Good thing is I know this recovery is full of ups and downs, so things will get better. One day at a time!
In other news, my ginormous bruise is slowly healing. Clearly, blood thinners + the fact I'm not moving much aren't helping speed up the process. Oh well...I guess it's pretty badass! What do you think? Arg. Still didn't have a good night sleep. IN 9 DAYS. First, it was the booties from hell (as pictured here). I swear, they're directly sent from Satan himself. I tried doing it the right way, both feet in. That didn't work. So I took my non-op leg out. Sleeping kept sucking. I then tried sleeping in the brace instead...but then woke up super sore because of the strap around the waist. So yesterday when Lindsay said I could sleep on my stomach, I almost threw a dance party! Last night, I slept on my tummy. It was very important that my feet dangle at the end of the bed to avoid bringing my hip in external rotation. But then I woke up on my back and it completely freaked me out that I had moved...I don't want to screw anything up! I kept waking up every two seconds. So back to booties it is. Fingers crossed I make it through the night! Today I had to get out of the apartment. I've been dealing with a serious case of cabin fever. So it's with anti-inflammatories/pain killers in hand and brace on hip that we called a cab to bring us downtown to Midwestern Hospital. I picked up the report from my consult with Dr.Stover. I then took the challenge to walk 10 minutes to Portillo's. It's clearly the furthest distance I've done since surgery. I told Oli that if I felt too tired or in pain, we'd simply grab another cab. Slowly but surely, we made it all the way to hot dog heaven! Walking with crutches is quite the workout...I deserved this meal, right? Several people highly recommended their chocolate cake and WHOA. Definitely worth the walk! And there you have it, I'm one week post-op! Can't believe how time flies. In one week, I've seen the following progress: - I'm able to get in/out of bed with barely any pain - I started the CPM machine at 70 degrees flexion/30 degrees extension and I'm now at 95 flexion/0 extension - the swelling has gone down considerably - my ginormous bruise went from deep red to purple to a weird greenish yellow - went from taking two pain killers every 4 hours to one every 8 hours - I started with 3 pt exercises and am now at 8 - I'm ABLE TO POOP. For those who've had surgery and have been on painkillers, you know this is a huge victory hahah Today we walked around the block so I could get some fresh air, but it seems like it was too much. I'm exhausted and the pain really flared up, so much that I had to go back to two norcos. Ah the ups and downs of hip arthroscopy. The weather in Chicago has been BEAUTIFUL! Wish I could take more advantage of it. Tomorrow is Oli's birthday and if I'm feeling good enough we're going to take a taxi downtown. My recovery room nurse, my pt and my surgeon's PA said that I have to go to Portillo's. It'll be my first time out of this district since surgery. It's so weird, we're located in the IMD...the Illinois Medical District. So there's like 20 hospitals. I'm not even joking. Every corner has a different one. That's all there is! I don't really get it. The background sound of our daily life is ambulance sirens. Haha.
Today wasn't the best day. As I told Oli, I "felt trapped".
Even though I've been through this process a year ago with my first hip surgery, it doesn't make things easier second time around. Everyday, I have to spend 4 hours in a CPM machine. 2-3 hours laying on my stomach. Several hours strapped to an ice machine. 40 minutes of physiotherapy by my husband. 40 minutes of physiotherapy exercises on my own. When I'm not doing those, I must wear a hip brace. I need my crutches to get from point A to point B. I'm still so early post-op that I can't walk for too long (i.e 5 minutes lol) without being in pain and feeling exhausted. I'm not complaining though. I'm 100% invested. I will do every single instruction given by my surgeon. I'm just having a day where doing all these things are harder to accomplish. And that's when I'm so grateful to have Olivier in my life. He's supported me from the very start - 4 years ago when this whole hip ordeal started. He supported me when I decided to move forward with surgery in the US. Ever since we arrived in Chicago, he's been attentive to my every need. He's the first person to hold my hand when I woke up scared and confused from surgery. He gets up every night to help me in the recliner. He puts my socks, my underwear, my pants on every morning. He gave me about 40 glasses of water the first few days when I was so dehydrated due to the pain meds...not once did he complain! So today after I told him that I felt trapped, he suggested we go out get some fresh air. It's with my incredible fast pace (ha ha) that we walked around the corner. We didn't get too far before my hip starting aching...but it was just enough to change my mind and make me feel good. So happy we took this cheesy selfie. We returned to our room, I took two Norco's and Oli ordered Lou Malnati's pizza. I could not have a better partner in crime :) Woke up at 1am feeling super uncomfortable and in pain. Took two Norco's and decided to go sleep in the recliner. Had PT with Lindsay at noon. She told me that my gait has improved since Friday. Hurray! We added two new exercises to my routine: - Supine pelvic tilt - Quadruped with arm raise She said we're probably going to add bridges by the end of this week. Slowly progressing! My thigh is so incredibly swollen today. Everything feels super tight. Plus I'm also dealing with numbness around my incisions, inner and outer thigh. Lindsay explained the swelling and traction during surgery would be to blame and that it should get better as the swelling dies down. But there's a chance for it to stay for the next few weeks. Boo-urns. Last thing I need is nerve problems. There's also a rainbow pooping unicorn party on my thigh, as pictured below. This wins largest bruise of my entire existence. Luckily it doesn't hurt as bad as it looks! Ah! My bruises are finally healing. I had a giant one on my hand due to the IV line. Swelling in my thigh has gone down considerably but not completely just yet. I spent half of my day on the ice machine, so hopefully that helped! I'm struggling to get all the PT done. Right now, I still have to do one hour of CPM, 30 minutes of tummy time, one set of exercises plus one set of those done by Oli. And it's 8pm!
I'm only on day 4 and I'm already having a case of cabin fever. I'm such a hyperactive person that it's so hard for me to spend an entire day trapped inside. I needed a little fresh air, so I decided to go out for a mini-walk from the entrance on Damond St to the entrance on Polk St. A normal person would do this in 1 minute. It took me 20 minutes lol. I really wanted to get the joint moving a bit...it's been feeling super tight today. I had my brace and made sure to use the crutches correctly. Op-leg forward w/ crutches, then good leg. Op-leg forward w/ crutches, then good leg. Halfway through, I realized my quest was a little too ambitious for someone who's had hip surgery only a few days ago. I felt super tired and achy. Live and learn they say, live and learn. Tomorrow I have PT at noon, so that'll get me out of the apartment. Yay! |
AuthorMy name is Marie-Christine. I'm 34 years old and live in Montreal, QC, Canada. I have had two failed hip scopes on my right hip to do undiagnosed hip dysplasia. My amazing surgeon, who is in Quebec City, performed periacetabular osteotomy in November 2017. He also did one left hip scope (non dysplastic) in February 2017. Archives
May 2018
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