11 weeks and trying to walk

OMG! Work and school has me so busy right now. I've had students at school for the last week and a half. I love my new students and what I am able to do to help them this year. However, long days at work and physical therapy has been tiring. I have 3 more PT sessions left and I go back to see Dr. Scheid next Wednesday. I am walking with only a cane now. Several places I go I will leave the cane at home or in the car. I don't use anything when I am home to walk. I'm hoping by next week I can lose the cane altogether. My biggest struggle is losing the limp and continued knee pain. Most of the PT exercises really irritate my knee cap a lot, but I need to do them to build the muscles back up. I plan on bringing up the continued knee pain at my appointment next week and also the weakness in my right hip. Whenever I alternate and do my PT exercises on my right side, that hip doesn't seem as strong as my post-op left hip. I just don't want to deal with anymore surgeries at this point! Hopefully I will remember to update after my appointment next week.

9 weeks & PT

I have finally started physical therapy! I had my first session on Monday and it was pretty painful. She had to check all my ROM and teach me the home exercises that I can do. Then I did the home exercises Tuesday and Wednesday morning. I go back for another session tonight. Most of the exercises are working to try to get me to lift my leg from the hip. This is causing me to have a very angry hip that will yell at me at random times through the day. I am seeing progress though! I feel more normal, I can stand on my left leg in the shower and to repeat exercises with my right leg. I also went up and down the steps normally at work yesterday, but only once to be safe. I actually did it without even thinking about it! I will be having PT twice a week until September 1st and my next follow up with Dr. Scheid is August 31st. School starts next week so my updates are going to become few and far between. Oh! And I am still rocking one crutch. I am hoping next week I can ditch it completely or just start using a cane.

8 weeks post op!

Wow! Eight weeks, that's like almost two months now. I've been using one crutch since my doctor's appointment and it is EXHAUSTING. I had to pull out my knee brace to help stabilize my left knee while walking on it. My whole leg just feels tired all the time now and I especially feel it in my knee and shin. When I do a little walking around the house without the crutch I noticed that I start getting lower back pain too. This week I have been at a conference at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, TN. If you've ever been here or seen pictures you understand how gigantic it is. And I have been walking around this place everyday (after having a 5 hour drive down here) on one crutch. I can't believe all the freaking staircases too! Up one set, down two more, up another, and then finally to your class. There are elevators, but they are so hard to locate. And with all this walking my feet have been KILLING me. Only one more day of it though....Next Monday (Aug. 8th) I start physical therapy. I'm going to a new place this time around that is on my way home from my new job. That way I can go right after work. It's through the Community hospital system in Indianapolis, so I am hoping it is a pretty good set up. I will try to remember to update next week after my first session.

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.