So today is my one year surgery anniversary…its weird thinking that one year ago today I was sitting in St George’s hospital waiting for surgery. I remember being so scared about post op pain to the point of wanting to cancel surgery. My Mum said she would kill me if I did, thank God she didn’t let me as it has been worth all the pain of surgery (not that it was really that bad) to get to the point of where I am today.
This time last year I could hardly walk, sit, stand, sleep or do anything because my hip was so painful, I had no pain free flexion basically. I couldn’t reach my right foot and getting my socks and shoes on was a mission (I had to get someone else to cut my toe nails for me, luckily they hardly grew). I couldn’t play any sport or run or do so many things I still cant believe that several doctors didn’t seem to believe that something was wrong?!
Now I can walk with no pain, sleep (even starting to on my right side), run about a bit, putting on my socks and shoes is a breeze, I can even cut my own nails and 90 degrees of flexion is easy. I am swimming regularly, have played table tennis and badminton and have got back into dancing-yay! I have also just started attempting to wear something other than my trainers although it has to be something pretty special like an interview or a graduation dinner! My bike has even been dusted off and been for several walks (I don’t think I could say I went must faster than that but you have to start somewhere). All the pre-op pain was gone when I woke from surgery and the only time anything like it came back was when I fell down those stairs recently-I am happy to say it was short lived thank goodness. I get little tiny twinges of similar pain when I have my leg in flexion and internal rotation but I was told to expect that so I just make sure as much as possible that I don’t put myself in that position.

I was hoping I would be back to running and it’s a bit disappointing that I still cant deal with standing still for more than 2 seconds but then you cant have everything and I am still going around saying wow I can do…wow I can do…but I think these other issues are due to combinations of things (feet in particular) so I cant really blame my hip totally.

Something that is starting to concern me and I must bring it up when I go back to see my surgeon (I think I’m going back soon anyway…) is the continued tenderness and sensitivity around the incision site. I can just run my hand along it gently and it hurts so every time I bang it and trust me this is a lot, it hurts like hell, especially around where the greater trochanter is. I’m not sure this is normal and I would have thought that by now it would have got better and I had my screws out to deal with this so go figure. I have been in two minds to mention it to anybody at all as I feel so bad about it, I mean I don’t want to come across as ungrateful as I am so grateful its not funny but I think that maybe he has the right to know I am a little concerned about it. It’s certainly liveable and I wouldn’t switch pre-op pain with this for anything but I just want to know if there is still a chance it will get better over time.Even with this and the RSD symptoms, I am still totally happy with the surgical results and consider I am a 100% success as far as everything goes and as I said before, if it wasn’t for all the other complications I seem to have I think I would be better than I am right now-that’s pretty good now don’t you think!

1 comments:

Jess said...

Yeah! You go girl, what an achievement! Party party party :-)