Almost 7 weeks!

It has been a busy few weeks in Canberra! I have spent most of my time at physio, in the pool, in the gym or at the volleyball courts, and I am loving being so busy! I have about 40 minutes of daily exercises in physio – mostly basic movements to get the muscles working again. I have 3 sessions in the pool a week where I am doing a lot of movement and range of motion work, plus a bit of loading through the right hip. So far in the gym I am just doing upper body exercises, but I hope to soon work towards getting some of the muscle back in my legs! I have even started doing some static setting reps on the volleyball court, and even though its a long way from playing, it is great to be touching the volleyball again.

My hips have been feeling pretty good through all of this as well. My right is still a bit sore generally, and I get tightness and pain through the front of my hip pretty regularly, but massage and some acupuncture helps. I have been building up the weight bearing over the last few weeks and I feel like I am close to ditching the crutches. I can now put 100% weight through my right leg in the step-on, step-off exercise with no pain, and when I walk I have tried to put as much weight through my right as possible with no dramas. Now I’m just waiting on the go-ahead from the doc and then I can hopefully ditch the crutches forever! Both hips crack and pop a fair bit, but it is rarely painful on the right and never is on the left. Most put it down to the psoas moving over a bit of bone, which is harmless – so as long as that’s what it is I’m happy! The scar on my left hasn’t changed too much really, but that is fine by me. My right side looks great apart from one little spot right at the bottom where I think there is some leftover stitch right at the bottom of the scar. It has sealed over, but I don’t think the skin is as strong at that point because of the stitch just below the skin. For now it’s okay but I’ve just gotta keep an eye on it. 

Right (almost 7 weeks):

 

Left (17 weeks):

I’m hoping that once I start walking unaided it will start to quickly feel normal again, and I will start to gain more strength and balance through the right hip. From there I guess it will be step by step progression through walking, running, jumping and then volleyball! It is still a long way away, but I see the loss of crutches as a big step towards getting back on the court and getting back to a mostly normal life. 

5 weeks + Canberra

It has been a busy and testing week for my hips. I have now relocated to Canberra to start the next part of the rehab process, and the packing, travelling and settling in has put a fair bit of strain on both my left and right legs. After a day of walking I felt fairly tight and sore through the front and back of both hips, but since it feels like a muscle pain/fatigue I’m not so worried. Hopefully the extra activity is helping to build up some strength in all the surrounding muscles!

I have started to put a bit of weight through my right leg, and it’s coping well. Even though it is only 50% weight, it feels fine and I think it will be ready to test with more weight fairly soon. The scar has healed pretty well, and is looking a bit thinner than my left, although I assume as I start to move more and more the skin will continue to stretch.

The plan from now is to start pool this week, start some daily exercises to get the surrounding muscles working, and start upper body exercises tomorrow. It’s really exciting and fun to be back at the AIS and moving towards firstly walking again, but then getting back into the athletes life.

Day 11

Well here it is…the end result of 14 hours on the operating table and 4 months of pain and discomfort. These are my new hips!

You can see the kind of shadows on the left side where the bone has regrown to fill those gaps. Doc says thats perfect – I was kind of expecting it to be a bit more defined, but if he is happy then I’m happy!

The travel day went smoothly, and I was actually pretty comfortable the whole time. We even managed to do a little bit of Ikea shopping once we got into Adelaide. Apart from that everything has been going well. Pain is under control with just the panadol, and with my experiences from last time I am getting around okay. Now for the waiting game…hurry up and grow some bone!

Week 1

As it comes time to leave Melbourne, I am now starting to see more differences between my experiences with left and right PAO. Today I haven’t needed to take anything more than panadol, even though I went out for lunch and to see the surgeon. I have slept through the night the last few nights – something that I wasn’t able to do for some time after my left PAO. In general, my pain levels are lower and it is easier to get comfortable either in bed or on the couch. Walking around on the crutches is still pretty painful and uncomfortable but it’s one of the only things that doesn’t feel overly different to last time. I’m not sure if these differences are because they moved the bone less in the right side, or if it is more that I am just used to being in pain, but either way I’m not complaining!

My surgeon only had good things to say when I went to see him today. He was happy with how the PAO on the right looked, and was happy to say that the PAO on my left had fully healed. He said that the amount of growth that I had was not usually seen until later in the recovery process….good news! He was also surprised that I was doing so well at only a week post-op. I left his office still with the plan of being back to volleyball within 6 months. Can’t ask for much more than that!

I have the scans now, but we’re having troubles getting a good photo of them. As soon as I do I’ll post it because it is worth a look!

Day 3

Unfortunately the dream run of low pain had to end yesterday. I’m not sure what it was that was keeping my pain levels down because I wasn’t using the ketamine that much, but whatever it was decided to pretty much give up yesterday. My pain levels were higher and I was finding it more difficult to get comfortable. I did manage to stand and walk a little with the walking frame, and then have a shower later on, but it wasn’t pleasant. The PCA came out in the morning as well – which mean’t I wasn’t in as much control of my pain killers. It’s much the same story today after not getting much sleep last night. I’m not very comfortable and basically just waiting for the pain levels to subside. In the meantime I just have to keep up with the pain killers!

Other than that there isn’t too much to report – it is much the same as last time. It is pretty painful in the sitting position, so I am laying for most of the time and not moving a whole lot. The pain I got when coughing last time isn’t quite as severe this time around which I guess is because they haven’t moved the bone around as much. I have the x-ray and CT scan tomorrow and am due for discharge on Saturday if all goes well.

I am looking forward to seeing the x-rays thats for sure. Not only do I want to see what my new hips look like, but I want to see the bone growth on the left side. I still struggle to believe that bone can grow between the huge gaps that were in my left side, but I guess I will see it soon enough!

Day 1

It is about 24 hours since I got out of surgery, and I am feeling pretty good! I have amazingly low levels of pain compared to when I had the PAO on my left. To give you an idea, for my left PAO I pressed my PCA for morphine around 400 times with about 150 successful doses in the first days after surgery (the others weren’t successful because a time lock out system only allows 1 dose every 5 minutes). On top of that, I was taking endone, panadol, tramadol and had 2 patches of some sort of pain killer, and was still in agony. As of right now, I have pressed my PCA 23 times for 20 successful doses, only have one patch and am taking panadol.

It has been a completely different experience. I can sit up, I can move my leg around a little bit and can generally function pretty well! It is completely incomparable! Until I actually spoke to my surgeon I was wondering if he had actually done the procedure at all! But he has done it, and all went well. This time I had two units of blood as well as 600ml of my own recycled blood. I don’t remember being in recovery or moving to my room, I just remember waking up slowly in my room and the rest of last night is a blur. I have compression stockings on, as well as a sort of leg sleeve that inflates and deflates over and over to keep the blood flowing in my legs. I think these have helped a lot because my feet and heels don’t feel sore at all. Right now I feel about as good as I did on day 4 or 5 last time!

In my PCA I have ketamine instead of morphine that I had last time. I think it definitely helps with pain, but it messes with my head a fair bit. Almost immediately after pressing the PCA I start to see double, and feel slow and uncoordinated. It also makes me so tired I almost can’t stay awake. I guess it will be good for when I want to go to sleep tonight! I have different dressings this time as well – I have the honeycomb type padding over both wounds, like I did for the scope. It’s good because I can see where the scar is going to be…and I think I will be pretty much symmetrical!

So right now I am pretty happy knowing that all of my major surgery has been finished, and all that is ahead is a lot of recovery and rehab. I’m relieved that it all went well, and that it’s now up to me to get my legs back to being as strong as possible.

Last one!

Well I’m finally back in Melbourne for the last operation, and I can’t wait. It has been a busy few days finishing off assignments, and searching for rental properties in Canberra, so it feels like the day has come up pretty quick. I have to fast from 8am, and be at the hospital at 1030am so hopefully I will go in sometime just after midday. This time I know to eat and drink as much as possible in the morning, but hopefully this time I won’t be waiting till 5pm to head up to surgery!

I still have that slightly uneasy feeling about how my right is progressing. It doesn’t feel that stable, and if I stand up straight I get some pain running down the front of the joint. It would have been interesting to be able to compare it to my left hip at the same stage. The good thing is that this time tomorrow I won’t be thinking about the pain from the scope – I will have something else to worry about!

So I will just enjoy the last few hours of semi-mobility in the morning before starting the whole recovery process again. Here we go!

Round 3 – Half way!

So again I am back in Melbourne, because tomorrow I am having the scope to clean out my right hip in preparation for the PAO in a few weeks. This is basically the halfway point of this whole ordeal – although I know there will be a lot of work to get back to full strength even after I have recovered from the surgery. 

I went to see my surgeon this morning just to have a chat about how everything was going with my left hip, and to discuss what he will be doing tomorrow on my right. He was really happy with how my left hip was progressing, and happy with the range of movement. It was slightly uncomfortable as he was twisting, pushing and pulling my hip in all different directions, but there wasn’t any sharp pain – already an improvement on what it was like before the PAO!

When he had a good look at the 3D CT of my right hip he actually found a few more things that need fixing. There is a little bone fragment in my right hip just like there was in my left, but in a slightly different position – thats why it can’t be seen on the x-ray. There is also a small lump on my femur that he needs to file down in case it gets in the way after the PAO. He will also fix the rim of the acetabulum and repair the labrum. Slightly more work than first anticipated! I guess the first time he looked at the scans he was just looking at the overall structure to see if the PAO was necessary, and now that he has actually had a good look at the scans he can see these other issues. 

I’m not nervous at all – I am just at the stage where I want to get it done and start the recovery process. If he was willing to do the PAO on Monday I would probably say yes! At least then I would have (hopefully) finished all the operations that I need and can start the final steps towards walking, running, jumping and then playing volleyball! I am the only one on the list tomorrow, so I should go into theatre close to the assigned time of 10am, and then hopefully be out in time to watch the grand final. Admission tomorrow is at 745am and fasting from midnight – here we go again! 

 

Therapy

Not a lot has changed in the last week or so. I am continuing with 50% weight bearing with no problems, and have some 100% weight bearing exercises that are going well. Almost every pool session I’m adding in new exercises and the hip is coping well!

I’m also doing three physio sessions with some soft tissue work through the front of my hip and my back, followed my acupuncture. I have been getting some tightness through the front of my hip and also pain in my lower back since starting the weight bearing but my amazing physio is sorting it out!

There has been a bit of a set back with the next operation as my surgeon will be heading to Singapore. I really don’t want to push it back any further so I’ve asked if he could fit in the scope before he goes – fingers crossed I will be heading to Melbourne sometime next week!

5000 views + scar update

5000 views. Who would have thought! Thank you so much to all who have supported me so far. It is amazing to know that so many people care and are interested in how it is all going. Half way there!!…well…almost. 🙂

The scar looks good but hasn’t changed much – it is still quite a dark purple and has some lumps of scar tissue underneath. Overall I’m happy with it though.

I feel really good after yesterday’s pool session. I have noticeably better range through the hip and especially in my hip flexor. Before it felt quite tight when walking and standing upright but I have noticed a substantial change after the hydrotherapy. Now I can’t wait to get in the pool again and hopefully see some more progress!! 🙂