I really want a bath!

I'm just not sure that it would be the best idea.  I don't have anyone here to help fish me out if I get stuck at the moment.  I'm not even sure if I could sit in it at the moment.  It's a bit shorter than I'd like - so it's probably not worth the hassle even if I could get out.

I saw one of these walk-in bath tubs in the TV guide when I was in the hospital and am dreaming about it right now. Amazon has them and they aren't cheap:  American Standard 2848.100.WRW 28-Inch by 48-Inch Walk-In Bath Whirlpool System, Right Side Drain, White


I think I could find a pretty awesome jacuzzi for that.  It's not really in the budget but I can dream!



I'm going to the pool tomorrow so that will have to do.  It's not the same though.

[Edit] I realised about 3 hours after I posted this that it was actually the 100th post of this blog.  The 100th post really should have been reserved for something insightful, thought provoking and just awesome.  Oh well...  Maybe for the 1000th post?  Maybe I can get one in a little earlier and make 250 the next big milestone!

Your Questions Answered!

If you've ever had a question that you wanted to ask, now is the time to ask it.  If I can get enough questions sent to me either as replies to my posts or by email, twitter (lmcia) or any other social media, I might make this a regular event.  There aren't any stupid questions.  I'll try to answer everything I get sent.

How high is the chair you have to sit on at work and how long are you sitting at any one time?
They are height adjustable chairs, so I make sure that I have them adjusted so that my feet sit flat on the floor.  I'm most comfortable when my hip angle is just a little bit less than ninety degrees.  I think this is habit after many years sitting this way so my body feels most comfortable in that position.

I should be getting up and walking around each hour and that would probably be about right when I am in the office as I get a little uncomfortable sitting in one position.  This could be the chairs in the office or  me, I'm not sure.

When I'm at home, I sit with my feet up in a recliner chair with my laptop so I sometimes sit for longer than an hour working away.  I usually have to get up for something every hour or so anyway.  Sometimes it's to get more papers to get some work done, other times it's for a drink or something to snack on.  Sometimes it's just to move around.

Do you have trouble walking after you have been sitting for a long time?
I do limp a little bit more when I first stand up.  It usually takes me a few steps to start to loosen up a bit. It's the same in the mornings.  The elliptical helps get me moving in the mornings.  It's a little bit of change to pre-op.  Too much movement used to be what slowed me down.  It's a positive change.  One I'm not quite sure I've come to terms with yet.

As a woman how did you cope with not getting your hair done for the 6 or 7 weeks :D no serious, I'm a fella and my hair looks like a mad scientist, I can't wait to get a hair cut!
Just before I went into hospital, I had a hair cut, colour, got my eyebrows waxed and tinted and I did ok for a little while.  I had to get my tweezers brought into the hospital as the eyebrows started to bug me before anything else did.  The next thing that bothered me was my legs.  I really should have waxed those too as shaving was out due to hip restrictions.  It was totally gross.  I wore long pants a lot.  The compression socks also helped hide my legs!

When I did get home, I had my hair cut at home.  Even before the op, my hairdresser came to my friend's house and we'd all go there to get our hair cut and coloured.  When I came home, the venue changed to mine, so I didn't have to go anywhere.

When you go to the grocery shopping I assume you need your crutch to get into the shop, how do you deal with the crutch/trolley situation?
In the beginning, I took the walker with me so that I could sit down if I needed it.  I did need to sit down a few times when I first went.  When I was going with the walker, I needed someone with me as I wasn't driving yet.  Even if I had been, I wouldn't have been able to get the walker in and out of the car on my own.  I'm really not sure how the older ladies and men overcome that issue.  It's quite an awkward size and shape to lift in. It might just be that it doesn't fit into our car really well that I have so much of an issue with it.

Now I'm walking a bit better I take my crutch and put it in the trolley.  I noticed another lady doing the same thing when I was there last.  She was a little older than me but it seems to be the common solution to this problem.  Putting pressure on the trolley instead of the cane helps to stop me limping.  Shopping is becoming a little easier as time progresses.


Thanks to Tony for the questions for today!  I look forward to getting more sent through to me!

Things I can and can't do

Things that I can do, that are getting easier but are still difficult:

• Reaching down to pick up anything off the floor.  It all depends on the height of the item.  Paper is still out.  So is the lid for the butter that always seems to land face down.  It seems like I drop a lot more things than I used to or is it just that I notice it more?
• Lifting my legs in and out of the car.  Still feels like it should belong to part of a workout.
• Holding my legs in the air....  Why would anyone need to do this?  The only reason that I can think of is because it is on a list of exercises to do.  I can't really think of how this might fit into day to day life on a G rated blog!
• Getting socks on.  Requires the use of the reacher still.  Once the toes are in though, it is heaps easier to get them over my heels.
• Getting up of a low seat.  I am still using the toilet seat raiser in the toilet at home, not because I have to, more because it's still a pain to get up and down, especially at night when I'm half asleep.  Given that I am out a fair bit now and using regular height toilets quite frequently, I'm not in a huge hurry to get rid of it completely.
• Getting to the pool from the car park...  this still feels like a really big walk.  I've been using two crutches but tomorrow, I think I'm going to have a crack at using the cane.  I'll keep the crutches in the car, where they have been for the last couple of weeks, just in case I need them.  
• Getting onto the elliptical.  That step up still seems huge. The step to get into the ladies toilets at work is still a bigger effort...  a much bigger but required effort!
• Putting on pants.  For the benefit of others this is something that I practice every day!
• Working all day.  I'm getting closer to doing that but I'm still capping out at about 6 hours before I'm totally wrecked.  
• Carrying things.  I still ask for my coffee to be in a takeaway cup when I'm at work as I couldn't carry a cup on a saucer up the stairs to the office.  I am limited to using one hand when I walking outside of the house as I rely on a crutch or cane.  At home, I will walk short distances without and can use both hands to carry light items.

Things that I can't do yet that I'm looking forward to:

• Use the step ladder at the pool.  I couldn't do that pre-op so it's a good range tester
• Wear shoes with laces and tie them myself.  Again, no go pre-op.
• Walking long distances without pain and mobility aids.  By long distance, I mean an entire morning or afternoon shopping without a cane or crutch.  
• Walking without a limp and without a mobility aid

I can't think of too much else to add to the list at the moment.  If anyone has any ideas of day to day activities that I really should comment on, please let me know!

Elliptical update

After spending twenty minutes on the elliptical yesterday, I woke up this morning with sore muscles.  Without any excruciating hip pain that I would have associated with about twenty minutes of any kind of activity pre-op.  It is pretty amazing.  If I managed to survive for 20 minutes doing that type of activity, I would have needed extra meds before bed, would have suffered with little sleep and probably would have still been limping and in pain today.

I stepped up pretty quickly from the 15 minutes that I did on Monday.  I was probably feeling a little bit over confident after smashing the 90 degree mark and it's gone ok.  I'm a little tired today and won't finish up with that many minutes today but tomorrow I plan to do 20 again.  I figure if I stick to that for a couple of days and get my body used to that activity, I should be able to add another 4 or 5 minutes pretty soon.

I can see!

I picked up my new glasses today, so I am writing my first post wearing them.  It's amazing how crisp the fonts look.  I didn't realise how fuzzy things were getting.  I'm hoping that they also fix the persistent headache that I have had since last week.

It's strange to put on glasses for the first time and sit in front of the computer.  I liken my eyeballs to the little bit inside a camera that controls the autofocus, zooming in and out until the image is clear.  It doesn't take too long for them to bring everything into sharp and clear it is just an odd sensation.  I'm sure I'll get used to them pretty quickly.

More than 90 Degrees!

Today my right hip flexion got to a passive range of 93 degrees.  This is a large jump up from where I was last week and over the magic 90 degree mark that I have been aiming for.  The left is still below, at 80-something degrees (I was so focused on the 90 number, I can't remember the other one) but thats ok.  There was still improvement on the right side and it would have still been an improvement that I would have been happy with, especially with the plateau of last weeks measurements.

I was so excited that I wanted to jump...  I didn't!  I'll save it for the pool on Friday.

Today was a good day for the elliptical as well.  I've stepped up to 15 minutes from my previous 12.  I completed this in two sessions and I think that I could probably even go a third session but I want to wake up in the morning first and see how I feel.  I am using level 2 on the ramp and resistance for most of the time.  I figure that I can get to 30 minutes and then I can increase the resistance and ramp throughout the period and maybe even use some of the proper programmes rather than manual settings.

Hip Flexion Ranges

I realised something on Friday at hydro that I forgot to mention.  I have been a bit hard on myself about my hip flexion ranges and how slowly they are moving now.  On Friday, I tried to get out of the pool using the step ladder, which I knew I couldn't but I wanted to try anyway.  I was about an inch off.  I remembered that a few weeks before I went into surgery, we had to use the outside pool and it doesn't have a ramp.  Reese had to help me get out of the pool because I couldn't do it then.   This is good news to me.

It will be interesting to see if I'm still on that plateau or whether the ranges have increased again.  I'll try again each week to see if I'm any closer to that bottom step.  I'll have to figure out the range next time so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm aiming towards.

Shopping Marathon

I followed up hydro today with a pretty big shopping trip. I am looking for a birthday gift for an eight year old girl and having trouble finding something cool and appropriate.  I started in the city but the two stores that I wanted to go to weren't there anymore.  A lot has happened in the few months that I have been out of action.  This was my first trip into the city since the op and I was pretty confident going in that I could handle the crowds.  There were people everywhere and I was almost run over by various people swarming in all different directions without really looking what was right in front of them.  There was also a man in a wheelchair who seemed to target me in his sights at a fair distance.  I moved in front of a sign to get out of the way and he cleared it and me by about two centimetres.  I felt like I was moving against the traffic most of the time I was there and spent a fair bit of time standing still as to brace myself in case the person barrelling in my direction makes contact.  They seemed to move out of the way  at the last second after figuring out that the person that they were walking towards that was making their way quite slowly with crutches wasn't going to be the one to walk around.  I wasn't intentionally trying to get in other people's way and I tried to stick close to walls and railings as to avoid that situation but it didn't help.

I survived the city and having not found anything in the stores near where I was parked, I decided that I needed a break from walking and decided to head out.  By the time I got on the freeway, I figured that I still had enough energy to hit one section of Garden City.  I had about as much luck there and went home without anything.  It wasn't really a marathon by most people's standards but it was for me.  I am quite pleased by how my body handled that amount of walking.  My lower back is a little bit tight, as are my calf muscles but aside from that everything feels pretty good.  I don't think that I will continue to get lower back tightness once I'm no longer using crutches.

The day wasn't a complete write off.  I did get to go to MBF to finalise my claim for the anaesthesiologist, so at least something is checked of the to do list today.

Unplanned events

This week has been a little all over the place.   It kind of started to go off the rails on Tuesday and I haven't really gotten back on top of things.   That was the day that brought with it a series of unusual and unwanted visual effects in front of my eyes.  It was kind of like there was a filter in front of my eyes causing blurry sections and flashing lights that lasted for about half an hour.  My head hurt but not to what I would expect a migraine to be so I wasn't too sure what the problem was.  My husband was a little more concerned than I was and shuffled me off to the doctors to make sure that it wasn't a post-op complication.

After a full debrief to make sure there wasn't anything seriously wrong, the doctor believed that they were migraine like symptoms even though there was no incapacitating headache with them.  I also received a pretty stern lecture about how serious this type of thing can be if accompanied by other symptoms like numbness or tingling.  I promised that I would get myself to hospital if that happened.  He also requested that I get my eyes tested and a retinal photographs taken to make sure that all is good with my eyes.

The earliest that I could be seen by the optometrist was today.  I received a phone call this morning saying that they were sick and the next earliest was Monday.  I wasn't particularly keen on waiting that long as the mild headache that started on Tuesday is still there and driving me crazy.  I wanted someone else to look and see to make sure there wasn't anything else going.

After just about every test possible and a check of my previous results, my retinas are healthy looking, there are no clots in the blood vessels, it's simply a case of needing glasses for reading 'sometimes'.  The right eye needs a slight prescription (or had a slight prescription, I'm not really sure on the terminology with eyes) and apparently is mild enough to compensate unless I am fatigued or stressed.  Fatigue is pretty well part of my life at the moment so it looks like I need a bit of help now rather than in another couple of years time.  So I need glasses.  Well one eye needs a 'glass' but they generally come in pairs these days.  I'm not sure a monocle would suit my look.

Looking back, I'm wondering whether subconsciously this is part of the reason that I haven't started reading again.  Maybe eye discomfort that I wasn't really aware of above everything else that was going on led to me avoiding reading as much.  I don't know.  All I know is that my head hurts and I really did think that I was finished breaking down for a little while.  I hope that's the last for a little while yet.  They should arrive within a week.

Tomorrow morning is hydro and then I think I'm going to have a nap during the day.  I'm just tired.  It happens.

Guarding my thoughts

Today I didn't make it into the office.

I made it as far as Physio and to one of the venues to pick up invoices and then I went home to start work on them.  I wasn't up to going in today.  I'm not sure if it was the thought of the chair and table that I am using until the person using my desk full time moves into their new office or whether it was inevitable questions explaining how the work I was doing actually fits into the grand scheme of the businesses' future plans that kept me away.  Perhaps it was a combination of both.  

I started off the day with a headache and it didn't really ease until later this afternoon.  My range measurements didn't improve this week either, so not only was there pain there was also general grumpiness and a little despair at the plateau that I've reached.

I've been thinking a lot about that plateau today and have started wondering whether I ever had greater hip flexion than that.  I'm currently at a passive range of eighty degrees but I'm not sure when it was ever better than that.  Maybe it hasn't been since I was a child.  In that case, it's going to take a hell of a lot more than three months worth of stretching to bring it back.  I guess because the abduction range came back immediately, I expected the rest to follow suit pretty quickly.  Under the guise of pain, there were a few tears at Physio today.  You can kind of get away with it when you have your head in the hole and it you are involuntarily jumping each time the pain is sharp.  It probably helps that I'm a girl too.  A little more socially acceptable.   Not that anyone would say anything negative, I'm sure that they would be a great support, it's more that I don't really want to share some of these thoughts.  Not until they've been processed and I can decide how I want to deal with them.  The crazy thing is that is probably the place where how I'm feeling would be understood the best.  

I think the abundance of people who ask but don't want to really know have made me a little more guarded about discussing it especially when I am having a bit of a tough day.  I read a blog a while ago about a girl that had a total hip and wrote a blog.  She stopped blogging when someone made a comment about how that was all she ever spoke about.  It feels like that is where people are at now with me but they just haven't said it yet.  The thing is that this thing is still the central point in my life at the moment.  My whole world revolves around my rehabilitation and the distance there is still to go.  I don't have the energy for too much more than that.  It might seem like I'm projecting that all is good but this doesn't mean that I'm ready to take on anything more than I am right now.  As it stands, I think that I might have too much and I'm not making enough time for all my exercises, that somehow I should be doing more of them.  I worry that this could be part of the reason that I've hit the plateau.  These are just more things that people don't want to know.

I don't know why I thought that this would be any different than talking about the arthritis.  I didn't talk about that too often because those who haven't dealt with it before don't understand living with a chronic condition.  This is an extension of that.  Just because I want to talk about this massive change in my life, doesn't mean that others aren't sick of hearing about it.  I'm thankful for those that have been through this process and those spoonies that can understand.  Even when I have finished rehab and life is better than it has ever been, I'll probably still want to talk about them.  I guess I'm going to have to find some new people to talk to.  Ones that are interested in resurfacing, replacements and MOM joints.  I guess there will always be a place for me at Surface Hippy.  I'll also be able to blog.  People can choose to read or not.  If they don't, well they don't need to hear my hip talk and the important changes that are going on in my life. 

In an attempt to feel like I have achieved something today, I've increased the time on the elliptical today to nine and a half minutes and 500 metres.  I'm not sure how that will treat me tomorrow but I really needed to increase and improve something today.  I feel ok so far so hopefully it will be ok.  If I'm doing well tomorrow, I might try to add another minute and a half.  

Aside from exercise and Physio, I had a little bit of work to do today, though nothing was time critical.  It was more getting a bit of a start on the work that needs to be done this week.  Tomorrow is the time critical day which I already have a good start on.  As for the rest of the week, I guess I will work out as it progresses.