A year ago this past Thursday, August 17, 2017, I went under the knife to rid myself of the debilitating pain of osteoarthritis. That same day I entered the wholly unexplored country of recovering from hip surgery.
Just After the Surgery
View from the top of the bed: the operated leg set up against a bolster to prevent my foot from rolling out the the side. The slipper on my left foot is to help support my baby toe, dislocated when I banged my foot on my cane during physio.
Another view from the bed. I started feeling cooped up by about the sixth day after surgery.
Bruce called this the fortress of comfy-tude.
I started my physiotherapy immediately, and took three trips to Toronto rehab over the next four months to learn new physio tricks and monitor my progress.
I took the physio seriously and tried some other things on my own - most of which horrified my physiotherapist. I overdid it in the early stages, my mind not truly grasping, perhaps not even to this day, how massively destroyed my leg was.
Back to Work
By early October I was back at work but under orders to walk at all times with my cane. To amuse myself I played the game "where's my cane?"
I also discovered all the ways the rest of my body had gone to hell from weeks of inactivity.
It was mid-November when Bruce's mother took her turn for the worse. I was home alone taking the garbage to the curb. My left ankle, unused to being used much at all, turned just the tiniest bit on some uneven pavement and for the next five weeks I was a little bit lame in both legs.
But before that, close to the end of October, I wore heels for the first time since the arthritis had grown brutal. I still needed a cane to walk around.
In mid-December, I wore the same heels to Marna's funeral, but by then I didn't need the cane.
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| All the Clarke men assembled on a couch at the funeral parlour. |
The End of Pharmaceuticals
By the first week of January, 2017, I was off daily doses of pain killers for the first time in two years. By April, I was travelling easily - I'm in Ottawa in the shot below - but not 100%. My hip still seemed a bit balky. And it alarmed the security scanner at the airport.
Test Drives
We went to New York in May, my first post-surgery opportunity to really open it up and see how far she could go. We walked pre-arthritis distances - up to 10 kilometres - each day for three full days. And the hip felt fine.
The BC trip in July confirmed that I could hike on uneven ground as well as city pavement. As an added bonus, the trip to BC confirmed that my titanium implant no longer triggered the x-ray scanner at airport security.
One-Year Check Up
I'm seeing my orthopaedic surgeon - Dr. Mohamed - on Tuesday the 22nd of August. There are two things in particular I want to say to him.
First, he told me at my six month appointment in February that it was "common sense" that an artificial hip does not have as much range of motion as a natural hip. For this reason, orthopaedic surgeons fear their patients putting more than a 90 degree bend in their hips. But, it is also common sense that there is great variety in the range of movement in natural hips. So, I will demonstrate to him that a person with an artificial hip can put her palms flat on the floor while standing. I will also show him how I can crouch down and touch my chest to my thighs. That's one for the medical journals.
The other thing I will say to him is "thank you for helping me get my life back."
Thanks for reading!
Have a great week!
Karen
