Francine Left THA Meets Francine Left THA

Left THA means total hip replacement of the left hip. I had that in November 2006. Today, at my 50th high school reunion festivities, I ran into another woman from my high school class, also named Francine, who also had a left THA. We compared notes and both agreed that the surgery had been fabulous for us. Like me, she had been a yoga practitioner. Like me, she's back in yoga.

Her recovery was remarkable, she said. And she told me she had read my blog, but that it was no longer available. So it reminded me to update it so Google would take another look at it.

I went to the Bronx High School of Science, and this weekend I'm walking all over Manhattan with my customary sprightly gait. No problems.

On Balance

This is a bad pun.  I have, on balance, recovered from my hip replacement.  That means I can hike, walk the dogs, do yoga, take Pilates, and sleep without pain. I have not dislocated. I dance.

However, my balance has been seriously impacted by the surgery and the lack of a piriformis muscle, the weakening of glutes, the reliance on my right side, etc.  As a result, I am even worse at balancing on the left than I used to be, and I was never very good at it (probably because of the scoliosis).

So I think that's the next step in my recovery. I've gotten very "into" functional strength, with the help of Chip Weber, who was the final step in my physical therapy and the only one who gave me any real insight into strengthening and conditioning.  The roller exercises he made me do are still the ones that I depend on, although I now do them through a Fletcher-based Pilates studio.

This is probably TMI for most of you, but I want full functionality, and I will keep working to attain it :-)

Cleared for Yoga!

Dr. Whirlow cleared me to go to yoga! This is news so good that it immediately caused all my remaining aches and pains to vanish, which tells you how much of all this is psychological. When you think you're a patient, you feel sick. When you feel like you are in training, you feel like a strong athlete. Go figure.

I went to a yin class, where you hold the poses for a very long time. I asked the teacher to watch me to make sure I didn't internally rotate (the only real restriction), and she actually structured the entire class without internal rotations. The good teachers like to do that, because it makes them think, and the entire class can learn from it. However, by now I am pretty sure I know what's an internatl rotation.

Dr.Whirlow also gave me a little card to carry in my wallet saying I am her patient and I have a metal implantable device. Not that I've ever had any trouble making myself understood at the airport; you get wanded either way. I'm going to volunteer to be one of the people who try the new scanner, which I've sure will be much faster. They are testing one at Sky Harbor Airport right now.

I feel so much better.

She also told me that I had a 36" head on my replacement so it fit right and I would have very little chance of dislocating -- except with a lot of force. That's for the woman from Harvard who has been reading this before her own replacement. I hope yours went well. Now you start the tough part, climbing back to full functionality. But it can be done. I did it! I blogged it. I'm here to tell the tale.

Progress!

I have about twenty pages of exercises to do from the trainer. After a month of working with him personally once a week and doing the rest of the stuff completely three times a week and partially on other days (I also have a life) I am beginning to see some real progress.

The exercises range from curling the bottom of my feet to get my arches to develop, to things for making my ankles stronger, to lat pulldowns and stabilization exercises. I am amazed at how complex the act of walking truly is. I knew not many other animals did it, but still...

The good news is that Chip Weber, ths gaiting specialist, knows what he's talking about and I am really making progress. I've graduated from a limp to a trundle (or a waddle), and I can actually make that go away, too, if I concentrate.

This rehab has been harder than I thought, but still is working so I feel good about it.

Three months out (and still limping)

I am still stiff on the left side and limping. It has been three months. I don't have the patience to do much more rehab, although I've been doing the latest trainer's exercises every day. I've lost muscle mass, and therefore gained body fat was well as pounds. I'm beginning to lose my optimistic attitude. And I don't even have any complications.

The health care system still doesn't tell you the truth. Although Janet Whirlow tried, she can't compete with the minimally invasive procedure's rehab results. Well, I really don't know that, because I didn't have one. But there seems to be a lot of tissue healing still going on, and the fact that I still have pain when I get up from a seated position and have to force myself to walk without limping or leaning bums me out.

Amazing how long it takes to re-establish that glute, and how the other muscles compensate and cause you discomfort while they're doing so.

In the meantime, I'm also bummed because I have other medical issues: just had a squamous cell carcinoma removed from my nose and need to have a small skin graft tomorrow which will take up the entire afternoon; have been told by my eye doctor that I have cataracts on the way to needing treatment. One thing after the other. Growing old is, indeed, not for sissies.

I didn't really "get" this before, but tissue is still healing after three months. I just didn't know that until I saw Dr. Whirlow yesterday for my three month visit.

I'm not going to remember the technical terms, so I'm not even going to try, but Dr. Whirlow told me yesterday that the first new cells are the kind that let you bear some weight, and then those that let you go about your everyday activities. The last kind to form are the kind that help grow the new hip joint into the bone--bone cells. And if you go back to weightbearing exercise too quickly, you won't form those bone cells correctly, you will form fibrous tissue instead, which is weaker and deteriorates more quickly.

Okay, that's the best reason I know not to over-exercise. Finally, she gave me an explanation that gets through to me. It's not only about making the muscles stronger; it's about making the new bone grow properly around the joint.

No wonder they don't want you to give up the cane too quickly.

So I was right to give up physical therapy, where they were making me do exercises that hurt. Stepping up on a 6-inch step for 45 repetitions and shifting my weight completely over to that hip is probably not what I am ready to do yet in my body.

Ironically, this makes me feel better and not worse. Why am I still waddling? Because I have to grow the new bone; I can't just support myself on muscle, no matter how much I work to develop it. Didn't I just find that out before the surgery, when I went to all that physical therapy? At least now I'm waddling, rather than limping.

It's the rehab, stupid!!! I was focussing on the surgery.

I have released myself from physical therapy. I'm now working with a kinesthesiologist who also works on horses, and is helping me with my gait. He has given me, among other things, a foam roller to massage my ileotibial band, which tightens up when I talk.

That's it for a while...

I'm almost eight weeks out, and I'm pretty much back to my old life, give or take a little discomfort, a limp, and continuing physical therapy. Nothing that happens to me and my new hip is interesting; today I went to the gym and divided thirty minutes of cardio into ten minutes on the upper body ergometer, ten minutes on the bike, and ten minutes on the elliptical cross trainer. This is not the stuff that needs to be written about every day -- nor is the fact that every morning I march on the Biltmore golf course with the dogs to practice picking up my feet when I walk.

I'll come back to this blog when there's something worth reading. Off to the dog park.