10,000 Steps

Well, I had a fantastic achievement for myself and my little hippy this weekend. I will preface this by saying that every day I wear a neat gadget called a Fitbit. It tracks the steps I take throughout the day, how many sets of stairs I climb, approximately how many calories I burn while going about my daily business, etc. Well, yesterday was my first day since before the surgery volunteering at the zoo. When I’m there for my shift, I do a lot of walking. This shift, because it was my first shift in a long time and many things have changed, I had to do a particularly large amount of walking (even for a “normal” person). We had new animals I needed to see, new exhibits opened, animals that had swapped areas, all sorts of new things. So, I walked around the whole zoo, in its entirety, TWICE. This included hills and steep areas, uneven ground, etc. It is something that I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do before…and I did it without missing a beat. 

What’s even more exciting is that my Fitbit told me that I walked over 10,000 steps yesterday, and I climbed 26 floors! That’s incredible! That’s the daily recommended value for a healthy lifestyle and I finally achieved it! I’ve never done that before! Granted, I’ve only had the thing since March and I’ve been gimpy the whole time, but still! That’s so exciting.

The most important thing about all of this? I have ZERO hip pain today, and I didn’t have any yesterday either. During the day, while doing all of that walking, I had some fatigue when I pushed myself…but no pain! None at all. Zip, zilch, NADA. And today? I feel GREAT! 

These past couple weeks it has really been apparent how effective the surgery was. I am so amazed, and grateful, and thankful that I have had such a successful journey so far. It makes it so abundantly clear how much pain I WAS in before the surgery…and how I was really just “dealing with it.” It’s one of those things that I think you can’t truly appreciate until you come out the other side. And now that I am 8 months post-op, and doing better than I ever have in my life: I am one happy hip chick.