One Step at a Time.

Hi again!

So, now it’s Monday and I’ve been sorta weight-bearing for 4 days. Right after the appointment on Thursday, I started putting weight on the leg. Not a lot, just enough to start waking up the foot again. I wanted the muscles and foot and all that jazz to start loosening up again. During the day on Thursday I walked around work on both crutches, weight-bearing maybe 40-50% on the leg. At home on Thursday, I spent about an hour on one crutch, then I lost the crutches altogether and hobbled around (don’t yell at me!). The hip actually felt pretty good, mostly just stiff and almost felt “full.” Friday I walked around a bit on the leg for short distances…then when we had to leave the house I went back on the crutches. By Friday night, I was walking almost completely normally with minimal feeling in the joint (in a good way). Basically, the biggest problems I’m having are muscle fatigue and nerve burning and tingling. By Saturday, I started to feel guilty about racing to get off the crutches. I started to go a bit easier on my leg.

Sunday, I had to do a bit of walking and I decided to use my cane instead of my crutches (bad bad bad!). I thought everything was fine and it generally was…except by the afternoon, I started to feel my hip “slipping” a little bit when I would move my body over the joint. It’s okay and feels fine if I don’t take a complete step up and over, but if I try to do take a full stride it sometimes feels like it slips at the end of my stride. I know that’s a vague description, but it feels like something is slipping around in there. I can’t think it’s because of me coming off the crutches so quickly because I had absolutely no joint pain or discomfort at all. I will say that Sunday was the first day that I was actually taking full steps on it…so it would obviously be the first time I would feel anything. I was babying it up until that point. 

I guess I would be silly to think that everything would be perfectly fine right off the bat. So, the moral of the story is I’m back on the crutches. I still walk around a LITTLE BIT without them…but for the most part I’m back on the crutches and walking with about half weight bearing. I have PT tonight, so I’ll talk to Tom about it when I go. I’m certain he’s going to scream at me for walking on it…but I obviously didn’t mean any harm! It just felt fine, so I figured…why not?!

Other than that, I wanted to tell you a little more about the appointment last Thursday. Dr. S really only had to see me for a few minutes. He moved the leg around a bit, checked the range of motion, the strength, etc. Then we talked a bit. He told me I could start gradually moving towards weight bearing, and that I could go full throttle at PT. Then he said he wanted to see me in 6 weeks. Then I’ll see him 6 weeks after that and by that point I should be ready to stop PT and regular appointments! I brought up my wretched fear of needing surgery on the left side, so he looked at my x-rays again. He said structurally speaking the pelvis and hip socket are A-okay on that side and he wouldn’t touch them. He said he can’t guarantee I won’t need any kind of arthroscope, etc, but in terms of PAO, I’m all done! Wooohooooo!

The last thing I wanted to post about was about the silly CPM machine I had. A hip chick friend who reads here had questions about it. So, I thought I would help a gal out.

Me CPM-ing it. I suggest listening to music or watching TV...because it is BORING.

First off, one of the things I need to explain is while I was in the hospital post-PAO, I had a whole staff of people taking care of me. It was CRAZY. I had my surgeon, a doctor who came to talk to me about my blood transfusions; I had a fellow, and two residents checking in on me regularly. Besides that, I had two physical therapists, a case worker, an occupational therapist and a social worker…and that’s besides the (FANTASTIC) nurses. 

Anyways, while in the hospital after my PAO, my social worker and occupational therapist helped set me up with all the things I would need when I was home. The wheelchair and the Continuous Passive Motion machine were two of the things we discussed. The CPM was delivered by a medical equipment company to my house the day after both surgeries. A friendly guy delivered it and taught me and my father-in-law how to use it. Thankfully, my father-in-law was listening because the guy was talking at about 10000000 miles an hour. Anyways, you basically strap in your operated leg in the cradle and set that puppy to go to whatever specifics your surgeon gives you. Your leg sits in the cradle and is moved up and back by this verrrryyy slow machine. Dr. S had me start at about 60 degrees after the PAO, but that was because I was restricted on how much I could bend my leg for a long time. I’m not sure if that’s a restriction for everyone who gets the surgery. For me, I was restricted from bending and pulling my leg towards me because Dr. S had to detach the major muscle group that runs down the front of the leg during surgery to get to the hip joint, and then re-attach it after surgery (the Rectus muscles). Anyways, I digress. After my second surgery, I was told to start using the CPM up to 90 degrees and work my way to 115 degrees. After the PAO surgery, I only had it for maybe a week before I was past the need to use it. For the arthroscopic surgery I kept it for a couple weeks until I could get started regularly at PT. The machine is clunky, and slow, and time consuming. I was instructed to use it for 2 hours a day, so I’d come home from work, eat dinner, and get right in the CPM. I can’t say one way or the other if it really helped…but it didn’t hurt me. I was pretty active (in terms of movement of the leg) after the arthroscope, so I don’t know if I really needed it so much. After the PAO, it was useful because I was too nervous to bend my leg much…so having the machine do it for me helped me avoid stiffness a little bit. 

So, that’s basically it for now. I’ll check back in after I’ve started PT for a bit!

Thanks all,

Talk soon,

D