Back With a Capital Vengence!

Hip surgery numero tres tomorrow. Ran around the block to make sure hip still hurt. Hip still hurts, like really hurts. Can't wait to get tomorrow behind me and focus on the healing!

Ummm... so, I hope the worst is behind me. This surgery sucked!!! Hip is fine, but I CLEARLY cannot handle my drugs! Nothing but ice and ibuprofen from here on out!  

Surgery went well last Thursday and my surgeon said that this hip looked way better than the other had, which is good news. Although this does puzzle me a little since this hip hurt way worse than the other and was way more limiting. I guess what I have learned from all these stupid hip surgeries is that none of this makes any sense. 

Official word is I only needed a femoroplasty (about 5.5 mm of bone removed from my femoral head to eliminate CAM impingment) and a capsular repair (tightening of the iliofemoral ligament to reduce the chance of hip insability that plagued me after the FAI repair I had on the other side). No acetabuloplasty (fix for pincer-type impingment), labral repair, or iliopsoas tendon release which was all done in the left hip in December of 2011. This recovery should be easy peasy!  

Back home and officially on the ups and ups-ies! I've already maxed out my CPM machine and am anxious to start physical therapy (not for 8 more days, grrrr). No nasty pain killers since Tuesday night and the pain is nearly nonexistent with ibuprofen and my ice machine.

I would not have made it through another stupid surgery without my crazy FRB-er friends. Thanks to Fritz for being there during my surgery and keeping my ice machine fully loaded and the Lortabs coming the first night. Thanks to Andrea for talking me through my anti-nausea patch removal hallucinating stupor, for force feeds, and for letting Frank do laps around her living room even though she hates her :) Thanks to Jake for providing endless running banter and STOKE and I am especially thankful to Allie for yet again providing me with booze-laden gelato. I have the best friends!

So I have been doing a lot of thinking since well... I am pretty much glued to my CPM machine and have had an awful lot of emotions surfacing some positive, but mostly not so positive. I keep thinking who the hell returns to running after THREE hip surgeries? For some reason two seemed doable, but this third one is just super annoying.

But then I started goggling running after hip surgeries and I am surprised on the number of people running after total hip replacements, there is even one guy that has run a few 50Ks and attempting a hundred next month only 7 months after a replacement. So my takeaway message... who returns to running after THREE hip surgeries? Well there seems to be no reason I cannot, so I am happy to say that THIS GAL will be back running in about three months - yippy!

Went on a field trip this afternoon to the Uintahs since I thought getting out of the house would do my a world of good. I thought I could handle a couple hours in the car which I was almost able to do. The sun was out and the trees were pretty all covered in snow. I crutched around a bit in the snow with Teddy the dog :)

10 days out from hip scope number 3 and I would have to say I am feeling the best after this one. Maybe it is because of all my experience with this or maybe it is because they forgot to fix anything when they were in there, it seriously feels like I could walk!

I would be going back to work tomorrow if I was following the same plan as the last two surgeries, but I am taking the whole week off. Going to milk this one as long as I can :)

Only complaints are with my ankle (from traction probably), tight calf, and low back (from sitting on my bum). I just want to be able to stretch things! The hip only has a dull ache, which I swear would go away if I could stetch... I am sleeping fine and often and keeping entertained. I like Snap Chats :)

10 minutes of arm dumbbell things and 5 minutes of crutching up the street followed by 15 minutes of sunning myself, what a lovely day! Tried to be up and about more today and so far so good.

AM: 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, leg circles, baby leg lifts with spider band, and heel slides. So happy to start PT and get things moving!!! Rated my pain as zero this morning. Started driving on Wednesday and the brake is getting progressively easier to press. Freedom is nice, just as long as I don't have to drive too far.

PM: Went to my FIRST Jazz game and our seats were so close to the players I got sweat on, THANKS JoshE! Crutched a ton of stairs and a few blocks and did my circles, leg lifts, and heel slides when I got home.

If there are any size 9/medium men out there, iRunFar is going crazy with giveaways.