Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Week Eight: Optimism

Eight weeks post-op right hip, 14 months post-op left hip.

I am finally getting back into more normal routines.  I am doing pre-op exercise routine as far as able, and I am back to taking a day off a week from exercise.  That has helped immensely. Instead of merely getting through each day, I am starting to look ahead again.

I do still get tired out/worn out easily and if I do more one day, need to take the next more slowly.  I am sleeping 10-12 hours a night, 8-hour nights just are not enough.

PT says my op leg is getting stronger, walking is getting better!  Yay for progress! Still advancing time on elliptical and it is going well. I am up to 15 minutes and nearly a mile at a time and it feels great to be moving!  More lap swimming again, and that also still feels great! I am kicking with left leg for freestyle, no kicking at all for breaststroke. I am working a little at a time on increasing flutter kick with freestyle with right leg, but not pushing it yet.  I am swimming full number of laps I was swimming before surgery! I have to be super careful of shoulders, but as long as I am careful and am not swimming consecutive days, shoulders are handling being back to more swimming again. Pace is slower than before surgery, but between not kicking as much/strongly, and shoulders being irritated, not worried about pace at this point and working more on form and grateful for being able to swim at all. I am still walking in the pool to work on gait and endurance.  I can walk up to 45 minutes in the pool (maxing out here).

I was given an activity monitor a couple of weeks after surgery.  (I sort of wish I'd had it pre-op first hip as it would have been fascinating to watch as ability decreased pre-op first hip, became nearly non-existent after surgery, the slow increase with rehab, the decrease as second hip got worse, now slow increase again. It also would have been interesting to compare between recoveries.)  Anyway, when on crutches, to protect my shoulders in particular, I was intentionally trying to limit to less than 1,000 steps per day (pathetic goal, I know).  I was mostly successful, exceptions being PT days and pool days.  Once off crutches, not really trying to manipulate things, so much as let my body move more as able and tolerated.  Steps have been averaging around 5,000-6,000 a day.  However, I have reached over 10,000 steps in a day in the last week!  For someone who is goal-oriented, it can be hard not to try to reach certain goals and an activity monitor can make it even more tempting to push toward goals. However, the clinical researcher part of me finds it interesting to just observe what happens without trying to manipulate outcomes.

I did get in for dry needling early in the week.  Opted to target low back and left hip based on observed referral patterns and what I know of my body.  Sure enough, she found numerous tight areas to work on and left hip had more tension than right. She said she can also dry needle shoulders.  I see the orthopedic surgeon for my shoulders, so will see what he says about shoulders, if injection(s) or not, then go from there regarding needling or not.

Not sure how many are aware I am sensitive to latex but PTs are aware as regular therapy bands contain latex. I had latex-free bands from a clinic several years ago but these were wearing out and the next clinic I had been at did not have latex-free bands.  The new clinic I am at now has latex-free bands!  It is the little things. All bands shown below are latex-free.  The orange ones are the ones from several years ago.  The others are the new ones.

New latex-free bands!  No more rashes/reactions, no more worn-out bands breaking on me!

There are, of course, other things going on, but choosing to focus on what is going well.

Week 8 left hip last year.

Copyright © 2017 by Stef. All rights reserved.

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