Two Weeks Post-Surgery: Movement

I am more mobile than last week in the sense that I am more confident on my crutches. Other than that there is not a significant amount of progress. I am in good shape for crutching -- prior to the surgery I did a lot of step-ups onto high platforms, squats, lat pulldowns, rows, triceps dips and other "crutch muscles" exercises, so I actually have not felt much difficulty crutching due to fatigue/weakness of any of the supporting muscles. (That said, I don't do much crutching other than around the house for necessary tasks only.) The real difficulty is with the muscles that were affected by the surgery in my right leg, as I describe below in the bit about the stairs.

I'm concerned sometimes that I accidentally put too much weight on the bad leg, or that I create too sharp an angle at the hip by leaning forward in a chair, for example. I left the hospital with instructions to keep the angle between my torso and thigh between 80 and 30 degrees (with 0 being flat out as when you stand up straight or lie down flat on the floor, and 90 being your knee brought up so your thigh is perpendicular to your body). So my concern is that I might accidentally push the hip a bit too far with weight-bearing or the angle, since I'm protected by the painkillers.

Or I might just fall on my face, like I did yesterday. I was waking up from a nap, and clearly not really fully awake or coordinated. As I got up from the couch and reached for my crutches, I lost my balance and fell forward. I caught myself mostly with other limbs, but I did land moderately hard on the floor with my right (op-side) knee, jarring my operated hip. It hurt right away (even through the painkillers) and of course I instantly panicked that I had done some sort of significant damage to my hip or hindered the recovery in some way. It feels OK today so maybe I am not made of porcelain. But lesson learned: wake up, THEN stand up.

I know I'm being a bit overly cautious, but I just really want to be very careful and treat my hip as properly as possible during this healing time, especially when it is so early and everything is so loosey-goosey in there; I feel like the slightest mistake (like clumsily falling) might cause some small setback or damage that would prevent the joint from healing as strongly and solidly as possible. I'm afraid that pushing oneself too hard and pushing the boundaries of healing too soon could create microscopic weaknesses in the healed joint that over time could cause pain, problems, and potentially more surgery. I want to heal this hip once, well, and for GOOD. (And then do the same thing to the other one.)

My current movement project is going down stairs -- as we know last week's breakthrough was sliding my right (op) foot forward using the hip flexor/upper quad when taking a step forward with my crutches. Going down steps is a slight variation on that, as I put the crutches on the lower step, place my right (op) foot on the lower step, then (with all my weight on the crutches) bring my left (non-op) foot down to the lower step where my crutches and other foot are. So the additional difficulty here is that rather than just sliding my right (op) foot forward, I also have to use muscles around my hip to support the entire weight of my right leg while the right foot is in mid-air over the lower step before I place it into position.

Previously I had either cheated by slithering my foot over the edge of the stair and down onto the lower stair (i.e. never losing contact with the ground) or having someone place my right foot on the lower stair with each step. But by now my hip flexor/upper quad muscles are strong enough for me to place my own foot on the stair below (sans slithering or assistance) for several steps in a row. This morning I made it down almost all of the 13 stairs down from the upstairs, so that was a pretty good achievement.

I still need help getting into and out of the shower (there is a high lip that I need help getting over with crutches, plus there are zero handholds to grab on to for support), but I can shower myself using my shower chair. Although a shower feels fantastic, the entire undressing/getting in/not falling off the shower chair/getting out/drying myself with all weight on left foot/redressing process is sometimes an exhausting ordeal, so the glee can be somewhat tempered.

I have been fine with using a normal toilet since I got home. I think this is due to my pre-surgery leg workouts -- my left leg has been doing quite well at lifting my entire body weight from various seated positions even when there is not really enough support for me to use my arms to assist.

Similarly I never got myself a leg-lifter to position my leg; I just grab it by the knee and move it around with my arms. To make small adjustments to the position of my lower leg I have been using an excellent trick I read in someone else's blog -- slip the non-operated side's foot under the ankle of the operated-side leg and use the good foot to adjust the position of the lower leg on the operated side.

I am perfectly comfortable sitting in an armchair with an ottoman for hours. I can sit in an armchair without an ottoman for a while as well, as long as I can slouch a bit. Dining room and kitchen table chairs are less comfortable, mostly because they involve eating (i.e. leaning over the table) and that causes greater-than-80-degree hip angle problems. I solve the angle problem by sitting on the edge of the chair and angling my thigh down towards the floor, with my foot under my chair. But as you can probably imagine, that is not all that comfortable for long periods of time either, so I prefer the armchair route.

The leg-under-the-chair solution is also helpful for getting up from armless chairs or other seating positions where there is not a lot of support nearby for using my arms to help me stand up. With my right leg under the chair and my right knee pointing 45 degrees towards the floor, I can lean forward to use my body weight to help me stand up using just my left leg, without creating an overly acute hip angle from leaning forward.

There has not been much progress in sleeping positions. As last week, I can sleep on my back (with two pillows under my right leg) or on my left side (with two pillows between my knees and one between my ankles) for long periods during the night. I can switch between these positions by myself, although it is not something I can do in a state of half-sleep, so I do still wake up several times per night to make these switches. Last night I must have been dreaming something topsy-turvy because I woke up in the midst of an attempt to turn on to my right (op) side to sleep. I did complete the turn, figuring I might as well try lying on the operated side, but that experiment lasted about one second, as it hurt immediately and not insignificantly.

Although I can't move all that much, my spirits are still high. I'm in a good mood most of the time, and I'm never bored. I have so much to read (books, magazines, newspapers, blogs) and so much to watch (Netflix! Hulu!) that the days pass quickly. I've also started to log back in to work this week, but so far I've just been responding to two weeks of emails and trying to get my inbox back in order.