Post Surgery: 3 Weeks + 3 Days

I'm having a terrible day. Both of my hips are hurting - my left more than my right. My husband thinks this is a good thing. When I talked to him on the phone last night, I told him my hip had hurt quite a bit all day. 'Which one?!' he asked, sounding alarmed. My left one, I told him. 'Oh, phew, well that's okay,' he declared. LOL. I mean I guess I sort of get where he is coming from. If my right hip were hurting that much, it would be sort of alarming in that I'd worry I had re-torn the cartilage or something. But still, it is annoying, especially considering how great I felt very early after the surgery. It's discouraging to be feeling worse now than three weeks ago. And the thing is that the pain is constant - it doesn't matter if I'm sitting, standing, lying down, bearing weight, not bearing weight or floating around in space weightless (ha ha). It also doesn't help that it rained all day today for the second day in a row, and rain puts me in a bad mood, and then my bad mood negatively affects my ability to deal with pain and discomfort. 

Super kudos to my physical therapist for dealing with me in a very compassionate and appropriate way today. I sort of love him for it. I didn't even try to hide my bad mood or act upbeat when I got to PT. The thing is that I have a teaching persona that I'm pretty good at putting on when I teach - I feel like I have to appear confident and put together and emotionally stable. (Even if I appear 'distant and hateful,' as one student described me, no one has ever figured out that I'm an emotional basket case with imposter syndrome.) When I go out in public, I tend to put on my teaching persona, because I'm very frequently running into current and former students (in liquor stores, in pet stores, in grocery stores, in restaurants, you name it), plus, like most people, I just don't want to look like a wreck in public. Putting on my teaching persona is just a habit. But today, I just didn't feel like it. Because I am not feeling confident or put together or emotionally stable. And as I was in the elevator heading up to PT trying to put on my teaching persona, it occurred to me that I don't have to do this. It is role reversal time. My PT is the one who had to wake up this morning and put on his PT persona. I, on the other hand, am on the other side of the desk so to speak. In this situation, I'm the one who is allowed to be unsure and unhappy and vulnerable. So I put myself out there and told him first thing that I had had a rough couple of days, that I was really starting to worry about my pain, and that I was freaking out. There, I said it. It just came out, just like that.

So, he told me not to freak out, then started reformulating his plan for the day. We didn't do any standing up exercises; we went over to the table and did some lying down exercises and a little bit of stretching. Then he asked me if it was okay if he tried some massage, which honestly, was the perfect thing right about then. The sort of funny thing is that he was a little timid about it, I guess because... you know, I'm female and he's male and hips are, well, sort of a sensitive area (not like a knee or shoulder), requiring his hands in my pants to access. LOL. He actually worked on both (!) sides, and it helped a little. The muscles are just soooo tight, though, which he commented on. Also, a lot of the pain on my left side is actually in my groin area, which I did NOT tell him about, ha ha. However, he worked on my psoas and iliotibial band and that did provide some relief. He suggested that I might want to try massage therapy; he said he had just finished working with another guy who had the same surgery who had found massage therapy to be very helpful. I definitely love the idea, I just have to see if it's a doable splurge financially. He also asked if I had tried heat rather than ice, which I hadn't. After the massage, he put heat on my right side, which actually felt good, so I'm going to try it on my left side tonight, assuming I can dig out a heating pad from... somewhere.

I also reminded him that Monday would be four weeks post-op - I can't let him forget that! He asked if I was coming in on Monday. I said yes, but did not volunteer that I had made the appointment last week to be sure I could get in in the morning and get this show on the road ASAP. (So far I've only been coming in in the afternoons.) I must have had my The Crutches Have To Go look on, because he gave me an overview of how the weaning was going to work, and said that it needed to be somewhat gradual, and I would need to be somewhat patient. Then he added, 'in case you were planning on getting up on Monday morning and going for a three-mile run.' Ha!

I think I really need to stay positive despite my current pain. The semester is quickly approaching, and the clock is ticking. Physiologically, things are what they are, but I feel like a positive attitude will make a big difference in how I feel going into the school year. And I had a really bad year last year, so I need this one to be better. I asked my doctor for a refill for pain medication, and I decided that I'm going to try taking half a pill at night to see if that can at least take the edge off some of my pain. After all, this isn't a competition to see who can handle the most pain without medication, like some women view giving birth. (If you've had a baby recently, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.) I need to be ready to do some kick-ass rehab next week, and I can't have pain getting in the way of it. To do this, I have to drop the Tough Girl act and stop seeing medication as going backwards. I keep telling myself I am going forward; I am going forward. I might not be able to see it right now, but I am.