Follow up with doctor

I had my follow up with the doctor today and it went great! I'm allowed to go down to one crutch now or about 3 weeks. Then after that I can use a cane. I can start PT for my hip and knee now to get my muscle strength back. I'm ready to not have to lift my leg with my hands! I got to see my hip x-ray and the coverage looks great. I have another follow up in 5 weeks which will be at about 12 weeks post op (3 months). Overall I'm feeling pretty good and glad recovery is going as well as it can!

7 weeks and back to work!

I have had a pretty crazy week since I last posted. I went to an Indian's game on Friday and did a lot of crutching in the heat. Saturday I had to ride to Nashville, IN and back. The ride down wasn't too bad, but I started to have pain on the way back. It's only about an hour ride, but the car was very uncomfortable. Sunday I went to car show and had to sit out in the heat all morning. I think it would be more bearable if it wasn't so hot out. On Sunday I was crutching over my dog and I walked with only one crutch on accident and it worked just fine! I started work yesterday and I was one crutching here and there, and limping along the edge of things with no crutches. Then last night I had to take a half a pain pill because my hip hurt pretty bad. So today I made sure I used both crutches as much as possible. I FINALLY have my next follow up appointment Thursday morning. I'm ready to see my x-ray and know how well surgery really went. I am ready for PT to start and to start walking!!

Oh and I just want to vent about the stupid wheelchair company and stupid Lighthouse Academies. I have been calling Cobra insurance since July 12th because the dates are wrong on when my insurance ended with Lighthouse Academies. Cobra contacted Lighthouse to try to fix the dates and they are still waiting to hear back. I have been calling Apria Healthcare that I rented a wheelchair from to try to get them to pick it up since July 14th and they FINALLY called me back today to schedule the pick up. But I was in a meeting at work so the phone tag begins.

I will try to update again this Thursday after I go to the doctor.

6 weeks

Does anyone know how I can set fire to metal crutches? I'm at the point where I am really over needing crutches and I just want to set them on fire when I'm done with this ordeal. However, I have met some milestones over the last week. I went over to visit another hip sister, Ashley, on Friday and was able to get in and out of the pool by myself with her instruction. I also crutched all over the place at the Broad Ripple brewfest on Saturday. We parked at about 2:40 pm and I crutched about 2-3 blocks to the line. Then slowly moved up in line for about 40 minutes when the thing opened at 3:00 pm. Once we were in it felt like I covered several miles and I ended up sitting maybe an hour total. We left at about 7:15 and I had to crutch ALL the way across the park and the 2-3 blocks to the vehicle. My shoulders and armpits and hands and everything hurt so bad Sunday and Monday. I also have started shifting a little more weight onto my leg sometimes. I've been "walking" on the crutches instead of hopping and the only pain I feel is a slight twinge in my knee here and there. I am also DONE with Norco. Yesterday and today the only pills I have taken are Tylenol and only 4 per day.
New adventures coming this week: the next two afternoons I am going to go help out at work in the office since I'm not able to go out to neighborhoods to recruit students, Friday night is an Indian's game downtown, car show at the fair Sunday, and Monday is my first official day of work!

5 weeks post-op!

I've made it to the five week mark!! This was the week that my doctor originally said I would be able to put weight on my leg. However, when I went in for my 2 week check up, he said to come back in 4 weeks. But since I am in between jobs and trying to avoid paying for Cobra, I scheduled my appointment 5 weeks after my first appointment. He told me that I couldn't put weight on it until I go back to see him and get an x-ray. So I'm trying to be good, but I have shifted some weight on my leg around the house and it can handle it. But I have to wait till July 28th before I "officially" put weight on my leg. ; ) Over the last week I finally got passed my nausea and I'm back to eating normally. I've also gone from taking Norco 5s to breaking them in half. I take about a pill and a half throughout one day. I'm also able to wait until I eat breakfast before I take any meds, because I just don't need it right away. I finished my last Lovenox shot on Friday too! This past weekend was VERY busy (wedding Friday night, little Nashville trip Saturday, Suds & BWW Saturday night, pool party all day Sunday) and I didn't exhaust myself doing it all.

I am having some new issues. I'm having a lot of pain under my scar when I stretch my leg out. My scar also feels really dry which might be from all the sun I got on Sunday. I keep putting lotion on it. When I try to imitate walking, I end up with a lot of pain in my knee.

My next major challenge will be in less than two weeks when I start my new teaching job. The first week is at school with no kids. I don't go in till 9:30, so that will be nice. Then the 2nd week we will be traveling to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference. Five hours in a minivan does not sound exciting or comfortable at all. Then I will have one more week at school without kids and the kids start August 16th. The month of August will hopefully be easy on me since we will dismiss at 2:30 instead of the normal time of 5. I'm really glad I made this job change because I get to start later, have more time without kids, and ease into long days. Especially since I'll be doing PT in August too.

Here is my scar at 5 weeks.

Week 4

I've made it 4 weeks post op from my LPAO! Thursday will be exactly one month from when I went under the knife. I've stepped down from taking Norco 10s and am now taking Norco 5s. Unfortunately I'm having to take them almost every 4 hours and I'm starting to have some sleepless nights without my giant pain pills. I also started having nausea over the weekend. On Sunday I ate a fried egg sandwich at 9am and then didn't have anything else to eat until 7pm that night because I was so nauseous. That is way different from how I had been. I had a healthy appetite before then. Last night I tried to take 2 tylenol PM in place of my Norco to see if I could sleep better and it didn't make a difference. I still laid in bed for 2 hours before I fell asleep and was wide awake at 6am. So this morning I called the doctor's office to request something to control the nausea. Hopefully that will help me some. I have a headache right now from not eating right and the tylenol PM hangover I always get.

I have made some progress in movement. I am sleeping on my good side a lot more often. Also, this morning I was able to roll onto my stomach and sleep for about an hour, but I had to put a small pillow under my bad hip to support it. I've been out and about more hanging out with friends. I still can only sit on a hard chair for about 2 hours before I have to move. Sometimes this is frustrating for my husband because he wants to stay somewhere longer, but I'm ready to go. I hope to drive a little bit in the next week. We have another wedding coming up on Friday and I will probably not use my wheel chair at this one. But I will probably use my wheelchair Saturday when we go to little Nashville because it is hard to park close to where you are going.

Scar Picture at 4 weeks (you can see where they scoped too)

Skinny little leg

I just wanted to put up a picture of the muscle atrophy in my left thigh. It was already weak before surgery and now it is teeny tiny.