Post Surgery: 4 Weeks + 2 Days / One Week UIRTW

On Monday, I had a glass of wine with a dear family friend, who used to have a high-up position in administration at my school but is now retired. We talked about life stuff and job stuff and other stuff, but mostly job stuff. She gave me some good perspective on some job concerns I have, but never mind that; that is material for my other blog. The point is perspective. At several points in my life, I've had heart-to-hearts with Wise People, who have told me to take a step back and look at the big picture. So with that said, in the Big Picture of my hip, things really are going great. Nagging pain in my left hip and ridiculous consistent pain down the back of my right leg aside, I feel pretty good. Almost all of my anxiety is centered around having to start teaching in a week, which even in the absence of hip surgery would be causing me anxiety. And of course my overall mood affects my ability to deal with pain and the anxiety that comes with that pain and so on and so forth.

But to put things in perspective, I have really come a long way in the past month. In reading old entries, I was mostly focused on little things, simply because I didn't have to be thinking about big things, like my job. Now I have to be thinking about those things. I'm concerned with things such as how will my hip hold up when I have to teach from 8-5 for five days? What will my pain be like? What will it be like if I have to teach on crutches? And if it comes down to that, will I actually suck up my pride and do it or will I be stupid and push through the pain and jeopardize my whole recovery just because crutches don't jive with my teaching persona? These are the things that keep me awake at night.

In the interest of big picture perspective and positivity, I wanted to reflect on a few things that gave me a lot of trouble post-surgery but are now no longer a problem, or at least getting better.

• It took me a while to settle into physical therapy and feel good about it. But I'm now in a good place as far as PT goes. I feel like PT is playing a very positive role in my recovery, which is what I had hoped for.
• Post-surgery, I had a lot of pain in my right knee when I sat. That pain is gone now. I do still stretch my quads out as my PT showed me how to do, and maybe that is what made the pain go away, or maybe it really was just one of those post-surgery freak-outs your body has that resolves with time. I think I've just read too many horror stories on the Internet about how people have been promised their pain will go away eventually, then it never does, which just drives home the point that you must proceed with caution on the Internet. Not that there is anything wrong with reading things on the Internet, I just think Internet blogs are inherently biased toward people who have negative versus positive experiences. Positive experiences, by nature, provide less material to blog about.
• The pain in my right leg, although persistent and annoying, is nothing like it was at its worst a few weeks ago. I still feel this low-level squeezing pain in my hamstrings and especially my calf muscles, but it is nothing like the all-out muscle spasms I used to have. Also, I have not taken a pain pill in few days. I am ditching the pain pills.
• The fact that my knee pain went away with time gives me hope that my leg pain will also go away, given a little more time. My left hip is a different story, but I can't think about that right now.
• Right after surgery, I had a lot trouble sleeping and getting into regular sleep pattern. That's over now. My sleep problems are now no worse than they were pre-surgery.
• A few weeks ago, it seems as if I was tired all the time. I now feel like my energy levels are pretty normal. And I am doing a lot more than I was before. I'm pretty much in a normal routine now.

In more specific news, today was a good day. Around the house, I would say that I was able to get around free of any walking aids for 70% of the time. Of note:

• I rarely use two crutches anymore, except on stairs. (Damn those stairs.)
• When I wake up and am groggy, it takes me a while to 'find my legs.' No way I can jump out of bed and walk crutch-free. I need a crutch first thing in the morning.
• I need a crutch to go long distances ('long' being more than 10 feet, lol). Now, this is apparently sort of weird territory, and fortunately there are many blogs out there to make me realize I'm not a freak. The thing is that I can actually walk pretty well now, for a while. The problem is that I don't know what 'a while' is, as there are many factors that go into this, including but not limited to: Is the distance flat or hilly? Are stairs involved? Are children involved? Is carrying things involved? What time of day is it - i.e., what was my energy level to begin with? And so on. And I don't want to start off thinking, wow, I feel great, and then get stuck realizing, whoa, I really pushed it too hard, now I'm stuck three blocks from where I need to be and I can't walk without passing out. So my crutch comes with me for security if I have to go more than, like, 30 feet. And I use it, even if I don't really need it, because apparently if you don't use it, people will think you are faking it. Admittedly, it does look sort of weird if you are just walking along carrying a crutch.
• On this topic, I read a post by That Crazy Crippled Chick that was extremely interesting. Now, I am not in any way trying to compare myself to Crazy Crippled Chick; we have completely different circumstances. But the take home message is applicable many situations, and that is that it is that things are often more complicated than they appear. Also, in reading blogs by people who have had hip surgery, it can be difficult because sometimes you need crutches and sometimes you don't and people just can't deal with this back-and-forth. In their minds, you either need crutches or you don't. So if you are using a crutch, you should appear to be in extreme pain or leaning heavily on your crutch, or both.
• It is Wednesday today, so I went to the farmers market. This was the first time since my surgery that I just walked (with one crutch) from where my dad parked to the market, and then back again. Again, I wasn't SURE I needed the crutch, but better safe than sorry.
• I feel like I am improving logarithmically. I feel 10x better today than yesterday and hope that I feel 10x better tomorrow. I was initially a little discouraged by how totally weird it was to try to walk on Monday, especially since I had already prepared myself for the fact that it was going to weird. For it to be weird on top of the weirdness I had already prepared for was sort of a bummer.
• However, now that I am past that weirdness, I feel... good. The only thing really holding me back right now is my left hip pain and my right leg pain. Fortunately, those pain levels are manageable, and I am holding on to the thought that just like my knee pain, those, too, will resolve. 
• Sooner would be better than later. 

Now that I have started the process of coming off crutches, I feel like I'm no longer counting the days post-surgery, but rather, I'm in a countdown until I have to start teaching. I've decided to name this countdown UIRTW ( = Until I Return To Work). This is one week UIRTW. Yikes!! I repeat, YIKES!