On August 17th, 11 days after surgery, I visited the surgeon's office and got the great news that a new X-ray showed everything looks good. The implant looks like a mushroom: I can't wait to deal with TSA at U.S. airports. As my left hip was involved, I was given the green light to drive (one of our cars, the Prius, is an automatic, so the left leg just has to cope with the parking-brake pedal).
Free to drive, I switched over to outpatient physical therapy, planning to go about 3 times per week. It's good to get some exercise and begin to push the leg with concrete goals like cycling and stair-climbing in mind. By about the 22nd, I was mostly getting around using just one crutch for a little support. On the 22nd, at PT I actually rode an exercise bike for about 2 miles worth of spinning.
Here's a timeline of how things progressed for me:
Day 0 - surgery; up in recliner
Day 1 - cathether out, first PT session, walking with some weight-bearing and two crutches; quadriceps stiff
Day 2 - PT twice, antibiotic IV done; some swelling in leg
Day 3 - discharged to home
Day 4 to 6 - quadriceps sore; swelling in leg; evening fever and some depression; just occasional Tylenol and one nightime Vicodin for pain. Took short crutch-assisted walks in neighborhood (maybe 500' total),
Day 7 to 9 - more energy, more flexiblity
Day 11 - visit doctor, ok to drive
Day 13 - maximum likelihood of blood-clot problems is two weeks after surgery; so far so good
Day 13 to 15 - start outpatient PT; participate in off-campus retreat for new program I am running
Day 16 - go back to work for a half-day; able to walk down stairs leg-over-leg
Day 17 - full day at work, several meetings
Day 18 - start this blog, discover that I can walk up stairs, ride 20 minutes on wind trainer (low resistance spin).
Day 19 - basically off all pain meds, including Tylenol. Am just taking 325 mg of Aspirin twice a day as pain killer. Back on wind trainer again, and am walking shorter distance around house without any crutches.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment