14 Weeks: Report

No news is good news: things are still going well. What triggered this posting was my ~3 month followup with my surgeon. I'm walking basically normally (my doctor sees a slight limp but that might be just the way I walk, or my other hip acting up). I stopped therapy in early October as I found I needed the time to get fully back to work, plus I felt that I could do the exercises at home just as well (I spent about $80 to buy some of the key PT bits like ankle weights, "standing foam", and such). The weather has turned cold after a long and strange warm spell, so I'm off the road bike and on the trainer, back up to 17 to 18 mph an hour, getting close to where I used to be.

I feel the occasional twinge or tightness around the new joint, and I still get some soreness around my quadriceps, but that is fading. At times the joint will shudder a little, probably something to do with lubrication. And if I put the joint in tension, say by stretching out my leg, and then dragging back my heel, there's just a wee creepy feeling, almost like a suction (which it probably is, if you think about it). The doctor feels that is normal, and may diminish. Finally, I still feel a little weakness or lack of fine control if I relax my bent leg: it feels a little floppy. So, I'll keep up some of the PT exercises.

I'm sure anyone that has read this far is desperately wondering: what about the u-trou test? Passed! I can comfortably drag on boxers or socks while standing, with no risk or feeling I might go down in a heap. Such a milestone.

At this point, the one lingering outcome of all this year's hip fuss is that the 15 or so weeks of little or no exercise before and after the operation did bring up my weight by about 8 pounds from where I'd usually be at this season. With cold dark weather coming and just the trainer to ride, I'm a-feared that Thanksgiving could be scary unless I seriously start to put a sock in it. Of course, this could be due to middle-aged metabolism, not middle-aged hip.

My next scheduled doctor's appointment is next August (!). I've been cleared to do anything, with no restrictions. I'll probably not post much more to this blog, unless something particularly good or bad happens. Fact is, my right hip is clicking, twinging, and moaning, and my doctor says it really does look bad. So who knows, before August, I could be posting Middle-Aged Hip Returns: The Sequel of Symmetry.

Oh... the only other thing that's looming is my first air travel since surgery. Security will be fun. Maybe I'll post about that experience...