Post Surgery: 5 Weeks + 5 Days / 9 Days UIRTW

I guess the good news about yesterday is that I was busy enough to miss my daily update. But my original plan was to ditch the daily updates around the time the crutches were supposed to be going away, so we are in bonus material anyway. :)

Anyway, compared to the day before, yesterday was sort of a let-down. My daughter starts school on Monday, so I took her to buy school supplies. This is the longest I've ever waited to buy supplies, but there is not really a way to push a shopping cart on crutches, and this definitely required a shopping cart. This was my first real shopping escapade since surgery, and unfortunately it just about killed me. Okay, so not literally, but by the end, I was quite literally leaning on the shopping cart and using it as a walker. We had to go to a second store to buy black and white composition books, and I had to use a crutch. And I don't mean I had to bring it just as back up; I really had to use it. Ugh, so disheartening, especially considering the shopping trip itself was just over an hour, which is how long my classes are. After we got her school supplies, I took her out to lunch. By the time we got home, I was so exhausted that I lay down on the futon and had to sleep for two hours. Needless to say, I'm feeling slightly panicked about the upcoming semester, even with my reduced teaching load.

The good news is that after the nap, I felt much better and was able to do a little bit of work in my garden. The tough part about the garden is that although I should be able to squat down now - I no longer have restrictions on my thigh flexion - the swelling in my leg still makes that impossible. In fact, trying to squat down is what made me notice the swelling in the first place, which eventually led to the discovery of the blood clot. Although I think the swelling is improving, it's still pretty significant. So if I want to work in the garden or get anything off the floor, my hamstrings get a good stretching. Good thing I'm very flexible. :)

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!

Post Surgery: 4 Weeks + 1 Day

The highlights of today:

• I took my daughter to get a back-to-school hair cut, and I also got a hair cut. For the first time in a long time, I got bangs cut. I haven't had bangs in a long time, but I decided I needed a change. Here is why: the reason I haven't had bangs in long time is because I've always felt that bangs make me look a lot younger. Apparently I already look young for my age, and back in my bang days, I was actually asked for ID to buy a can of spray paint when I was in my 30s. (In California, you have to be 18 to buy spray paint, as I learned.) I know I must officially be old now, because I actually feel a compelling need to look and feel younger. Since I started my current job, I've acquired a massive amount of gray hair (which my old hairdresser affectionately referred to as 'hair bling'). Somehow all this gray hair plus having hip surgery before my 40th birthday has made me feel a little uneasy. I'm not ready to be a gray-haired old lady with a limp. 
• So yesterday, while I was picking up a refill for my pain medication, I bought some hair dye as well. I mean, what the heck? I have never dyed my hair before, aside from one brief dabble with henna when I was in college, which did nothing because, hello, my hair is black as black can be. But my current mental state is telling me that the gray hair has to go. Like I said before, I'm not ready to be a gray-haired old lady with a limp. And since it is a real possibility that I will be a lady with a limp or a crutch (or both) once school starts, I should at least have a cute hair cut and no gray hair? I don't know. Whatever.
• I made up my mind a while ago that I needed a hair cut, and had imagined this as my getting off crutches reward. But, it couldn't wait. While I am 'allowed' to walk as much as I can, retraining my body to walk again is going to take longer than I had hoped, no matter how well my physical therapist tells me I'm doing. I get my hair cut at the mall, which is somewhat of a trek (at least, more than 3-4 feet, lol), so I used a crutch. Just one, though. Progress!
• I bought a cane. I can't believe I'm even admitting to this; canes definitely fit into the same category as raised toilet seats in my mind. And because my daughter was with me, I bought a ridiculous zebra cover for it, because having a cane when you look like you are 20-something isn't attention-grabbing enough. LOL. However, the cane is really to use around the house. The thing is that I'm finding that there is a big difference between walking with even one crutch and walking totally crutch free. I feel like I need something in between. When I was at PT, I had to do all my walking in front of a mirror to make sure I had good posture and wasn't limping, but it's harder to do that when you're trying to navigate through a house. Without a crutch, it's really hard for me to have good posture and not limp. Not because of pain, but because of muscle weakness, and because either the surgery or being on crutches so long has really thrown off my sense of balance. And since limping is something that I'm not allowed to do, I feel like I need some sort of aid to help me not limp that is not a major as a crutch. So there you go.
• This does sort of bring me to another worry. You always hear people say, 'Well so and so is totally using this as a crutch.' I feel sort of alarmed right about now that I'm not having a little easier time walking, and I'm worried I'm using my crutch (literally) as a... crutch (figuratively). I know I am only one day past my official 100% weight bearing date, but I am feeling anxious about how tentative I feel on two legs with no support. I feel like if I just suck it up and force myself to walk around with no walking aids, my body will remember how to walk, yet at the same time, I don't want to overdo it. As my PT said, the one thing I really don't want is any pain. It is just hard to find that balance between pushing yourself enough and pushing yourself too hard.
• I'm sure I'll figure it out, though, one way or another. :)

Post Surgery: 4 Weeks!

Today was the big day I've been thinking about before I even had this surgery. I have to say, it was somewhat anti-climatic, but at least my PT had prepared me for the fact that it would be, so that I knew that I couldn't just jump out of bed and start walking. In fact, I feel like I've been on crutches for so long that I was sort of scared to walk without them, so I waited for PT to even try. I guess I needed some moral support.

I started PT by riding a stationary bike for six minutes, which made me realize just how out of shape I am. At first it felt awesome, and I was riding sort of fast, but after about three minutes I realized I needed to save some leg strength for the rest of the session. Next I worked on walking forward and backward with one crutch, trying not to put too much weight on the crutch, but just using it for balance as needed. Wow. My balance felt waaaaay off, although the PT told me I was doing 'great' and that I was going to 'make this easy.' This was encouraging, although it felt far from easy. To be honest, I was kind of surprised by how weird it felt to walk. But the most exciting thing is that it didn't hurt my hip at all. And I mean at all. My left hip still hurts, but held its own, and I still have pain down my right leg, but it is manageable, and to walk and not have pain in my right hip is so amazing I can't even put it in words.

After my walking exercise, I did a bunch of standing exercises - marching in place, shifting weight from one side to another, and kicking my legs around. All of this felt pretty much fine, although my legs were shaking the whole time because they are so weak it's sort of alarming. I cannot believe how much strength I've lost in my legs (both legs!) after just four weeks of 50% weight bearing. I've been able to stand ever since I could do so without pain, so I was never even totally non-weight bearing. I guess it's because in addition to the crutches, I've been lying around and sitting around a lot more than normal.

After my standing exercises, the PT asked me if I was up for more, and I said I was, so I went and did a couple of balancing exercises and then worked on conquering the stairs. Let me just say that stairs are going to be, hands down, the hardest part of this recovery. There are so. many. stairs. in my life. Even the aide working with me commented how she had noticed that the ABC College campus was soooo hilly and had so many stairs. I worked on going up and down a 4-inch stair (apparently standard stairs are 8 inches) forward and backward and sideways, and it was... work. I was holding onto the rail for dear life most of the time. LOL.

However, overall it went well and was as good as I could have realistically hoped for, even if not stellar ( = an unreasonable expectation). My PT was very pleased and kept repeating that this was really good for my first day of full weight bearing considering the type of surgery I had. I'm sure he tells everyone that no matter what, but whatever. LOL. Like I said, moral support never hurts. He told me to try walking without crutches around my house, and that I can do this as long as I am not in pain and/or limping. If I feel pain (in my right hip) or start to limp, I have to stop, because neither of these are okay at this point.

So... I've walked around a little, and I still feel no pain, which is awesome. However, it is sooooo hard to not limp. My right side is so incredibly weak it feels as if my right leg weighs 100 pounds. And I'm not allowed to drag my leg around. Needless to say, this limits my current walking radius to, oh, 3 or 4 feet. LOL. BUT, I am trying not to freak out about this. One day at a time. One day at a time. And that said, I did wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen (including sweeping! for the first time in forever!) tonight, completely without crutches. Of course our kitchen is pretty teeny and has an island in the middle of it, so you are never more than an arm's length away from something to lean on, but still. It felt good. And now, I'm off to take a shower without having to lean on the shower chair to get in. I'm just going to step right in and enjoy the warm water. :)

Post Surgery: 3 Weeks + 6 Days

So... tomorrow is the day I've been anticipating since the day I decided to have this surgery - the day when it is okay for me to start trying to walk without crutches! I've still been feeling mild to moderate pain/discomfort in both of my hips, but I'm trying really hard to overcome that, or at least get a point where it is ignorable, because I need, need, NEED to be walking well by next Wednesday. (Okay, so it's really more like want, want, WANT, but still.) The other day at PT, my therapist was telling me not to worry, and said, 'You'll be fine. You might have to bring one crutch with you and use it as needed, but that's not a big deal.' I think I gave him A Look, which caused him to say, 'Oh. Would you rather not have to do that?' Yeah. I'd really rather not. It's sort of a big deal to me.

I know that my body is going to set its own schedule for recovery, and I am at the mercy of my traumatized nerves and muscles and tendons, but I have yet to read a study that showed that positive thinking ever hurt a person's recovery. So I am thinking positive, positive, and more positive thoughts. I know I can do this.

Anyway, I thought that since I'm going to start the process of saying goodbye to my crutches, I should say something nice to them, so here it is: http://39andhip.blogspot.com/p/a-tribute-to-crutches.html.

Post Surgery: 3 Weeks + 4 Days

I missed my daily update again yesterday, but there wasn't much news on the hip front. It was Thursday all over again, minus the physical therapy. I've been doing a lot of heat and ice and anything and everything, including hydrocodone. Also, my husband got back on Thursday night, so I hope my hips can get some R&R before Monday because all I can say is that I better be walking by the end of next week.

Post Surgery: 3 Weeks + 2 Days

As I predicted, this week is dragging on veeeeerrrry slooooowly. I keep getting excited for PT tomorrow because I keep thinking that this is my come-off-crutches PT session, then I have to remind myself that I am still in Week 3, and it's not until the PT after my PT tomorrow that we get to have a Ditch The Crutches party.

By the way, my therapist has no idea about my party plans, and somehow I'm guessing he's not the partying type. The other day, he had me do a balancing exercise and acted sort of surprised when I could do it. I mean, not totally; hopefully he wasn't having me do an exercise he really didn't think I could do, but he told me to hold it 'for as long as I could.' Ten minutes later, I was like, DUDE, I'M STILL HERE, do I really have to hold this for as long as I can?! (Okay, so it probably wasn't ten minutes, maybe more like four or five, but still!) He made some remark about my sense of balance, so I told him that the exercise reminded me of the Bongo board my best friend had in college that we used to mess around on for fun. I mentioned that it was not normally super challenging, but that it got more difficult as the evening progressed and more drinks went down the gullet. He did not even crack a smile at the mention of the drinks.

But just to show you how dedicated I am to this blog ;-), I went through my old photos, because I was certain I had a picture of me on the Bongo board, and I think that blogs are far more interesting when they have pictures in them. I did have a picture - in fact, I'm pretty sure that the photo is the reason I even recall the Bongo board after all of these years - but unfortunately whoever took the picture had apparently imbibed a bit, so I was cut off from the feet down. I took the liberty of drawing in the rest in Photoshop. :)

Speaking of imbibing, if you are American, you are probably thinking that I am a huge alcoholic right about now. In fairness, I should warn you that it's likely that a lot of my entries will include alcohol in them, ha ha. I really don't think I'm an alcoholic, but I am part French, and my French grandmother saw wine as an essential part of meals, and alcohol as an essential part of life in general (which I'm sure was exacerbated by her life circumstances, which I would expand upon if this weren't a blog dedicated to my hip :)). I have spent a fair amount of time in France and in Europe and have found that they have a very different attitude about drinking there. This more relaxed attitude toward alcohol is one part of my French heritage that really works for me. During the summers when I was in college, I worked in a deli, and my boss had a poster in his office that said, 'Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.' That pretty much sums it up for me.

Anyway.

It was very cold today - it rained all day and the high was 60 degrees. I had to break my 'no hip flexion past 90 degrees' restriction to put on socks. (Seriously, how do people who have this surgery during the winter do it? How do you put on socks without flexing your hip past 90 degrees or doing external rotation?!) Also, today is Wednesday, which is farmers market day. I went with my parents, as usual. I should mention that I live in place with a ridiculously short growing season, and I don't know how anyone can make an actual living growing things here, but never mind that, this is a blog about my hip. ;-) The point, however, is that the farmers market is pretty small, so it's not that hard to get to know the vendors if you frequent it.

Today, a woman who runs one of the local farms, finally asked me, 'What happened to you?!' It was sort of funny considering that this is the third week I've been to the farmers market on crutches, and last week, when it was also raining (even though I live in a place that gets no more than 15 inches of rain per year, it never fails to rain on the afternoon of the farmers market), she commented on how dedicated I was to be out in the rain on crutches, and offered to let me stand under the tent in the vendors' space, yet never inquired, 'What happened to you?!' I guess after three weeks she just couldn't stand it anymore, and had to say something, ha ha. So today, in response to her inquiry, I told her that I'd had hip surgery, which was of course met with the usual, 'But you're so young!' I've found that a lot of people think that hip surgery = hip replacement, so I told her that I just had some torn cartilage fixed, and left it at that. Then she said that her husband (a firefighter/farmer who is much older than I am) had recently had a torn labrum in his hip fixed, and I said yes (!) that's actually what I had done, too. We had a brief conversation about having the cartilage repaired as opposed to removed, and it turns out that both her husband and I had the same surgeon (which is not that surprising considering this is not a surgery that tons of orthopedists know how to do). The woman proceeded to tell me how life-changing this surgery had been for her husband, and how happy they both were that he had had it, and how great the surgeon was, and on and on and on. She did mention that the recovery was a little long and rough at times, but in the end it had been worth it. Then in the midst of the conversation, her husband actually came sauntering up with a friend, and we mentioned that we had just been talking about him, and he confirmed his happiness and said how amazing it was to be totally pain free. Plus I made a note of noticing that he was walking totally normally, so that made me feel really good. :) I don't know how long ago he had his surgery, but as I've mentioned, my surgeon is very young, so I can't imagine that his surgery was that long ago! Regardless, it was a good to have a positive, unpaid and impromptu testimonial from a living, breathing, former patient of my doctor that This Is Worth It.

Also, as my mom said, this was the most loquacious that this woman has ever been, despite the fact that my mom has been buying things from her farm for years. After my conversation with her about hip surgery, she then started talking to my mom about farm stuff and whatnot. I guess it just took me on crutches to open this whole dialogue.

The interesting thing is that every time I open Facebook, I feel like one of my friends has shared an article about 'what not to say to someone who...' Someone who recently had a divorce. Someone who is a single mom. Someone whose child has a chronic illness. Someone who has lost a child. Someone who has had a miscarriage. Someone who is adopted. Someone who is overweight. Someone who is underweight. Someone who cuts. Someone who has an undiagnosed condition. Someone whose child has an undiagnosed condition. Someone who had this happen, someone who had that happen, someone who... is alive. OMG do not offend! Just do not say anything!! Every time I read these things, I think Uh-oh, I know someone who recently had X, Y, or Z, and I recently said A, B, and C to them, they must haaaaate me!! OMG, I am a hooooorrrrible person!! I have enough trouble coming up with things to say to people, and all these rules sort of freak me out. And I'm not trying to be flippant about these situations; I always try to say the right thing, or at least the best thing I can think of. But if we all knew the right thing to say for every moment, we'd all have jobs designing cards for Hallmark, lol. To use a personal example, my daughter has a chromosomal abnormality that no one seems to know anything about. I don't know exactly what I think about this, and even the geneticist we met with who discovered the anomaly told us she wasn't sure what say. My daughter is, for the most part, fairly normal, so this isn't a topic that comes up frequently. If it does, however, the last thing I want is for people to feel like they can't say anything because they read some article about '10 things not to say to people with kids who have abnormal chromosomes.' Seriously, just bring it on. Even if you say something stupid, I know you're trying. And I'll tell you if you're being stupid.

Of course, due to my recent circumstances, I've been reading a lot about being on crutches, and inevitably, I stumbled across a site about things you should not say to people on crutches (http://www.livinglifeoncrutches.com/crutch-talk-etiquette/). While I don't mean to belittle the plight of people who are permanent crutch users, and I understand how annoying it must be to be constantly answer questions about their situation, I think it's natural for people to be curious and inquire. I guess what I think is that you should never assume the worst of someone who is trying to make a conversation with you. S/he may be annoying, but that doesn't mean s/he doesn't have good intentions. And this really isn't just about crutch conversations, it's about a lot more than that. For instance, my brother and his wife lost their baby at 25 weeks in utero, which was awful, awful, awful. My sister-in-law had to go in and be induced and deliver a dead baby in a place with a bunch of happy new moms; I seriously can't imagine what that was like. What do you say in a situation like that? There are no words. But ultimately, I think saying nothing is worse that saying something, even if that something violates someone's '10 things you should never say' list. Because ever since my brother's tragedy, everyone has been too afraid to say anything, lest they say the wrong thing, and now we barely talk.

But whatever, why would you take the advice of a total stranger who, for all you know, is the weirdest, most socially awkward person ever, and who has a really weird relationship with her family? And never mind all that; this is a blog about my hip. :)

Post Surgery: 3 Weeks + 1 Day

Today is not the best hip day. My left hip (supposedly my good one) is really hurting, and my right hip has been aching on and off as well. I think a lot of it is because with my husband being gone + my brother visiting, I've been doing a lot more standing, cooking, trying to change diapers, and walking around on one crutch so I can carry things. Needless to say, considering my level of discomfort, I'm starting to feel slightly panicked about August 13th, which is when I have to start teaching again - from 8-5 for five days. I guess I was hoping this would be the week where I felt totally awesome and totally ready to Ditch The Crutches and be one of the folks who could basically just go cold turkey off crutches (like when the 'binky fairy' comes and takes away all of a kid's pacifiers). I'm not feeling like that is in the cards.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just having a bad day. The other contributing factor is that my niece spent the night with us last night. The good news is that the sleepover went great. The down side, for me, is that I let the girls sleep in my bed and I slept in my daughter's bed. Since my husband is out of town, this seemed to make more sense than trying to drag the futon mattress up from the basement or set up the futon in the family room (which, of course, I just recently folded back up after sleeping on it for two weeks). These are the types of things that you never even think twice about normally, but that become a huge burden on crutches. Unfortunately, my daughter's bed was soooo uncomfortable! (Note to self: she needs a new mattress!)

I also think cooking exacerbates things, as it can involve some awkward angles, heavy pots and pans, and sometimes pushing the limits of the '50% weight bearing' when there is something you just reeeeaaaalllly need and need quickly that is three steps away, and you don't feel like fetching your crutch just to get it. Last night, I made stuffed zucchini and pumpkin blossoms, which were at least quite tasty, so perhaps worth my pain. (My mom had to pick all the blossoms for me.) By the way, if you are into eating flowers, I put garlic, goat cheese, basil, olive oil, and quinoa into a blossom, tie them up with a chive, and fry them for two minutes per side. Tasty. :)

Tonight we are going out for dinner, and my brother is leaving tomorrow, so perhaps my hips can catch some R&R later this week. Back to the drive-thrus!

Post Surgery: Three Weeks!

Three weeks! Three weeks! = one week until my ditch the crutches date! Although, as the therapist told me today during PT, it's actually one week until I get to start weaning off the crutches. You know, in case I was envisioning waking up a week from today and throwing the crutches into the recycle bin, it's probably good to know that's not how it actually works.* LOL. However, I did actually make my PT appointments for next week today, to be sure that I could get in nice and early on Monday morning and start weaning ASAP. BecauseohmygodIamsoready.

* I'm never getting rid of these crutches. I wouldn't say I'm exactly superstitious, but I do believe in irony, and I figure the minute I ditch the crutches, I'll need crutches again. So why not keep them around, even if my reasoning fits into the 'insurance policy for crazy people' category? Heck, I've got a big basement.

A couple of notable things about today:

• I woke up to a very bizarre and agonizing condition, and that is that I had a cramp in both my calf and my shin at the same time. Seriously, that's a first. I frequently get cramps in my calf muscles, but I've never had a cramp in my shin before! And the fact that it was happening at the same time as a cramp in my calf sort of floored me in terms of WTF is going on and how am I going to deal with this?! (Plus it was 5:00 in the morning, so I wasn't exactly thinking clearly.) The only fortunate thing about this was that it was in my left leg (non-operated on side), which made it slightly easier to deal with than if it had been on my bad side. However, normally I get rid of calf cramps by hopping out of bed and stretching my calves out so they just can't cramp up; I basically get rid of them through brute force. This morning was a bizarre experience watching my foot move up and down as my gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior fought it out. Eventually I decided to try standing up to see if that would help. It didn't, and I almost fell over. The pain in my cramped up leg was horrible, yet I couldn't put too much weight on my right side, which, yeah, leads to almost falling over. LOL. I sat back down and noticed the rolling pin by the side of my bed. Ha ha ha, how often do you find a rolling pin by the side of your bed?! (See this entry for the story on the rolling pin: http://39andhip.blogspot.com/2014/07/post-surgery-2-weeks-5-days.html) I used it to roll the cramp out of my shin, then I stretched the cramp out of my calf. So... thank God for random, post-surgery muscle spasms that led me to have a rolling pin by the side of my bed?!
• I had a good PT session today, actually with a different person, because my regular guy was booked. I liked the new guy better, although he is actually not a PT, but a PT assistant, so I'm not sure how it works in terms of who gets what appointments and whatnot. Anyway, it was a little hard starting over at square one and explaining the pain in my left hip and knee and the random muscle spasms that have been afflicting my right leg since surgery and blah blah blah, but I did feel like the New Guy was more sensitive to all the pain I've been feeling all over my lower extremities since the surgery. My regular therapist is aware of the pain, but basically seems to think everything is copacetic as long as my right hip doesn't hurt. And while he may be right, I remain respectfully wary of this point of view. New Guy used the rolling pin on both hips and had me ice both sides, which actually really helped. I told him about my bizarre experience with simultaneous cramping in both my calf and my shin, and he told me he has only had a cramp ONCE IN HIS LIFE. I repeat: ONCE IN HIS LIFE!! Seriously, what planet does he come come from?!
• I mentioned in a previous post that my husband had to go out of town for work this week, and that my brother and his family are also in town. Well, because it is apparently not enough of a challenge to handle two kids on crutches sans husband, I let my daughter talk me into a sleepover with my niece, who is only five and has never done a sleepover before. (The two other times my daughter has had someone over for a sleepover for the first time, it ended with the first-time sleepover-er going home in the middle of the night.) I guess I let it get out of hand while the cousins were plotting simply because my brother is quite a control freak and I never thought he would let it happen. His girls wear gender-neutral clothing, can't play with dolls or drink lemonade, and usually have to go to bed at 4:30 PM when they visit (because 4:30 PM here is 6:30 PM where they live). It never ever occurred to me that his daughter would be allowed to spend the night in a pink bedroom with I don't even know how many dolls and go to bed way too late. (Admittedly, my kids often go to bed later than I'd prefer.) Yet the sleepover is happening. By some miracle, I actually had all the kids in bed with the lights out by 8:10 PM. It is now 9:34 PM and I have not heard any peeps. 
• I'm pretty tired and would love to go to bed. Unfortunately, when I clomp up the stairs on my crutches, it makes a lot of noise and I feel like I need to give the silence at least another hour before I disturb it.

Post Surgery: 2 Weeks + 6 Days

There is not a lot of news on the hip front today except that all throughout the day, I felt my leg pain trying to creep back. I only have two pain pills left, and I reeeeaaaaallly want to save them for when I'm, like, in agony, so instead I drank a gin and tonic late afternoon. ;-)

The sort of funny thing about the gin and tonic is that it wasn't as easy as it sounds. My husband decided he wanted a G&T, only we didn't have any gin, or tonic water, or limes, lol, so he asked me to go to the liquor store, because he was busy doing things around the house that I cannot do, like shoveling gravel out of the back of our truck onto our walkway. Normally I don't mind going to the liquor store, but helllloooo, it is not easy to go to the liquor store on crutches. It is not easy to go to any store on crutches, but it is somehow less embarrassing to go to a store on crutches and buy something at least semi-important, like guinea pig food, than it is to go to a store and buy something that is obviously not necessary, like gin and tonic water and limes. Somehow going to a liquor store on crutches makes me feel just one step removed from the people on crutches who sit outside the liquor store asking for money or liquor or both.

Furthermore, the neighborhood liquor store I've always gone to became somewhat of a turnoff to me when one of my former students, who failed my class, started working there sometime this summer. I realized this when I went into the store one day and the guy working the register said, 'Hey, don't you teach biology at ABC College?' I replied, 'Yes, I do.' He said, 'Yeah, I had you last semester!' Followed by, 'Maybe I'll have you again this semester!' Oh boy. I knew from our conversation then that he worked on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and made a mental note to go to the liquor store early in the week.

Thus, when my husband requested that I make a liquor run today (Sunday), I questioned whether I should go to another liquor store or just brave it out at our local store. On the one hand, if I went to a different store, no one would know me, so who cares if they think I'm some drugged out bag lady who just collected enough money from begging to buy a bottle of gin?! On the other hand, if you're shopping for stuff on crutches, the only way to pull this off is to put things in a bag as you shop, which makes it look like you're shoplifting. I decided that the chances of being accused of shoplifting were less at liquor store where they knew me, and decided to go there, even though I knew this meant possibly running into my former student in a really pathetic state. Crutches + buying liquor just doesn't seem like a person's most dignified moment.

Enjoying a hard-earned G&T! Better than hydrocodone!

Sure enough, my former student was there. Although it was super awkward for me, I have to admit that he seems to be a nice enough guy, and he doesn't seem to hate me for failing him. (Seriously, he never came to class, which is why I didn't recognize him as one of my former students until he told me.) He seemed genuinely concerned about what was wrong with me and whether or not I was okay. LOL. Also, one of the higher ups, who has known me for much longer, and who has known my parents for, like, foreeeeever, seemed upset over my plight and followed me everywhere, insisting on carrying things for me. (I think this pressured me into buying the big $40 bottle of gin versus the $25 bottle.) Then, after I had paid for everything, he told my former student to carry everything out to the car for me, which was embarrassing because my car is, well, embarrassing!

All of this for one stinking gin and tonic!

Later in the evening, my brother and his family arrived from out of town. They are staying with my parents, so we went and had dinner with them at my parents' house. My parents only live three blocks away, but I drove, because three blocks is a really far distance to go on crutches, especially when you add busy streets and children into the mix. I felt really lame, though, because I can't remember the last time I ever drove to their house, or to any place three blocks away. To add to this, it started to pour after dinner, with lightning and thunder, to the extent that we kept waiting for a break because of how difficult it would be to get out to the car with the kids and me on crutches. Seriously? We live in a place that gets no more than 15 inches of rain a year, and 5 of them are predicted for the next two days?! Awesome.

The good news is that the G&T and the few glasses of wine I had tonight seem to have done the same job as the hydrocodone, so hopefully I won't have to take any tonight.

Post Surgery: 2 Weeks + 5 Days

The bad and the good...

The bad: I missed my daily update yesterday.

The good: This means I'm thinking of other things besides my hip.

The bad: Last night was the first time that it hit me that I am so over the crutches. Seriously, they have to go. I think the first week after surgery felt pretty slow, then the next (almost) two weeks just flew by, and now it seems like this last week is going to last forever. Enough already!

The good: I managed to get rid of my leg pain by taking half of a hydrocodone Friday evening and another half before bed. It didn't even really make me goofy, I slept great, and enjoyed a pain-free day yesterday. I also took my therapist's advice and had my husband use a rolling pin (literally - a rolling pin from our kitchen) on my leg. That helped a lot. Then I tried it on him and he loved it. It was nice to reciprocate seeing as how I've been constantly whining and asking him to massage the various parts of my body that have been spazzing out since the surgery.

The bad: I can feel the pain creeping back.

The good: At least I know how I can get rid of it.

The bad: I don't want to keep taking pain pills. I see this as a huge step backwards. It is like when my son was born. Despite being a month and a half early and weighing three and a half pounds, he did not need oxygen. He breathed fine on his own for over two weeks. However, a few days before he left the NICU, he suddenly needed to be on oxygen (which was a pain). The nurse explained that this was because he was eating better, only he couldn't eat well and breathe well all at once. So, we had to go backward to go forward. Maybe the fact that I'm getting around well and doing more and increasing my activity in PT is causing my leg pain, and I have to go backward to go forward.

The good: I feel like I'm in the home stretch of the hardest part of recovery.

Post Surgery: 1 Week + 6 Days

The highlight of the day was making the following discovery about the crutch bag that I ordered from crutcheze.com:

(Ohhhh, this changes everything! :))

Other than that, today was uneventful. It was hot, so we took the kids to the pool. I can't get into the pool, but I wanted to go just to hang out. As I mentioned earlier, I sort of miss the kids, especially my two-year-old. It has been hard to having him in daycare all day every day for the past few weeks. Unfortunately the pool was FREEZING, and even my son, who normally doesn't seem to notice things related to temperature, was cold. I was actually pretty comfy just sitting by the side of the pool with my legs in the water. Nevertheless, it seemed stupid to be at the pool with my daughter just lying by the side of the pool complaining how cold she was, so we ended up going back home and hanging out there.

Probably the biggest news of the day is that I decided that I'm done sleeping downstairs. I can now get up and down the stairs much better, and sleeping is going better than it was. Plus, it is sort of lonely downstairs with everyone else upstairs. The fact that I have had fierce insomnia has been keeping me from moving back into my bed, partly because I'm afraid I'll keep my husband awake and partly because I'm afraid he'll keep me awake. On the other hand, I've also gotten into a really unhealthy sleep cycle by sleeping separately because I've been staying up way too late. Normally I feel some sense of obligation to turn the light out if my husband is trying to sleep, but without him, I stay up forever. Also, knowing that I have plenty of down time during the day to take naps doesn't motivate me to get to bed at a decent hour, but that habit needs to stop because summer is winding down and before you know it, I'll be back to normal, and 'recovering from surgery' will no longer be a valid excuse for lying around all day. So moving back upstairs is my attempt to start easing back into normal, and part of that is re-establishing a normal bed time.

In hip news, my left hip is still hurting quite a bit, and I iced the hell out of it today. I'm going to talk to my PT about it tomorrow.

Post Surgery: 1 Week + 5 Days

Highlights:

• I noticed when I was taking my anti-inflammatory that it has a side of effect of possible dizziness or drowsiness. I wonder if this has anything to do with why I've been feeling sooooo tired. I know it's not psychological because I only noticed this possible side effect this morning, yet I feel like I have been complaining about being tired for, like, forever. I wonder how important it is for me to take an anti-inflammatory. Probably somewhat important is my guess.
• My left hip is hurting me to the point where I'm starting to get slightly alarmed. Only slightly, but still. This whole thing with my right hip started with minor, nagging pain as well. I DEFINITELY need to talk to my PT about it. I can't put my left hip in danger while rehabbing my right hip. In fact, I have an idea about what may have set my right hip off, and that is carrying my son around. As he got bigger and heavier, the extra weight really seemed to irritate my hip. When my hip was really bad, carrying him or even just trying to pick him up caused excruciating pain. I don't want my PT exercises to have the same effect as carrying around a 28-pound child. Considering I didn't tear my right labrum in a single, traumatic injury (at least not that I know of), I worry that my hip anatomy, combined with my fact that my left hip has the same history of activity as my right hip, might mean my left hip is a ticking time bomb. And trust me, I'm going to do everything I can to avoid going through all this again on the other side.
• My knee pain is getting to be really annoying. That is also something I need to talk to the PT about. When I get up from sitting down, my knee hurts so much I can't really put weight on it for about 30 seconds (which is longer than sounds; see my post about the 30-second cortisone injection). Fortunately, I don't have to because I am on crutches anyway, LOL. Nevertheless, it's mildly irritating, and I really don't feel like I've ever had this problem before. 
• Also, today is the first day since surgery that I've actually had significant pain in my right hip. Even though everything else has hurt, my hip has been fine until today. It is nothing extreme, just something worth noting.
• My wrists are really hurting from the crutches. Despite the extra padding, they feel bruised.

But enough with all that, I actually had a fun day. This afternoon, we took my daughter to the American Girl store, which is in a mall about an hour away. After the American Girl store, we went to the Lego store and the Body Shop, and then I sat down and rested while my husband took the kids to the Disney store. (I was pleasantly shocked that he managed to not buy anything, even in the absence of my disapproving glare.) I was reeaaallly tired and in a small amount of pain and huge amount of discomfort. Fortunately, I actually iced my left hip in the car on the way up, and I think that helped. After the brief mall adventure, we had a fairly early dinner and drove home. The trip was fun, but it really wore me out. The thing is that I would normally spend much more time with the kids over the summer, but now that they are in daycare/summer camp, I miss them. While I don't want to overdo things, I also don't want to miss out on all the Fun Stuff I normally would have done with them over the summer. And on the upside, while it's a pain in the ass going places on crutches, I've discovered that people tend to be a lot nicer to you. In fact, I have an important work meeting with the Chair of my department on Monday, and I hope the crutches can work some magic. :)

Post Surgery: 1 Week + 4 Days

It is funny, the first week after surgery seemed interminable, but this one has flown by. I'm almost halfway to walking again! At least I hope so. My hip still feels great. It is the other parts of me that are hurting. For example:

• The pain in my right leg returned last night, although it wasn't nearly as bad as it was on Tuesday.
• My left hip continues to be sore, which sort of worries me, but I'm trying not to think about it.
• Another thing I have noticed is that the way I have to sit now really hurts my knee, specifically the inside of my knee. I have sat with my legs crossed for as long as I can remember - see photo to the right. (This is me and my son on the airplane on the way back from vacation; who would have guessed that such a mundane photo would serve such a great purpose?) I know that sitting this way is not recommended, but obviously the recommended way of sitting (e.g.: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/files/wh6_uploads/wp_import/posture21.gif) doesn't work with my anatomy. Unfortunately, I can't sit in my usual way because of the no-flexion-past-90-degrees and no-external-rotation restrictions, so I'm stuck sitting normally. For once Dr. Google has absolutely no insight into why sitting with your legs uncrossed as opposed to crossed would cause pain.
• My back still hurts. I think this is due to the fact that I cannot stretch like I normally do. In fact, I think a lot of my pain is due to not stretching. Constant stretching is what normally keeps me in motion, and I can't do a lot of the stretches with all the limitations on my movement.

In other news:

• I was doing some PT exercises at home this evening. A lot of these involve putting full weight on my left side while exercising the right. In the interest of mild adventure and trying to not become too unbalanced, I decided to try exercising my left side while using my crutches so that not all my weight went onto my right hip. Um, epic fail. LOL. I very briefly had too much weight on my right side and I was sort of surprised by how much it hurt. This makes me worry a little bit about how the transition back to full weight bearing will go, but I'm trying not to think about it right now. Moral: Don't get too overzealous.
• I went upstairs and took a shower. It's getting a lot easier. I even came down the stairs standing up - albeit veeerrrrry sloooooowly. I had failure #3 as far as keeping my incisions dry, so I've pretty much given up on that. A little water in a wound isn't going to kill me. And anyway, I get my stitches out on Tuesday!

I went downtown this afternoon and met my mom for lunch. After lunch, we did a little shopping, and it felt good to get out. It's also getting much easier and less tiring for me to get around. The crutch pads I got are awesome and my armpits don't hurt at all. The only thing that hurts a little are the bases of my hands, but it's not too bad. I was SUPER TIRED when I got home, but I think a lot of it is because I was a lot more active today than I have been. Also, I had a glass of wine with lunch, and I swear it was the hugest three ounce glass of wine I've ever had before, which I'm sure didn't help my fatigue. But it's okay, it definitely helps keep my nerves and negative attitude in check. :)

Post Surgery: Day 3

Highlights:

• I still feel really good, although a little more sore and tired as I start doing more stuff.
• I changed the dressing over my stitches. 
• It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be, although the holes were bigger than I had imagined they would be considering my lack of pain. I think just seeing how big the holes were made me feel more pain, ha ha. 
• I also took a shower. My post-op instructions said not to shower for four days, which is sort of gross considering all the nasty stuff that's probably in a surgical center. I figured that including the day of surgery, this was sort of Day 4.
• I debated whether or not to change the dressing before or after the shower. Afterwards seemed more logical, but then when I saw how much dressing and bandaging they had put on, I thought there was no way I could cover all that up. (It's still not supposed to get wet.) Plus, I thought maybe I could scrub off some of the sticky stuff all over my leg in the shower. Unfortunately, the new dressing got totally soaked in the shower.
• Showering involved going upstairs to the only shower in the house that isn't associated with a bathtub. I debated which would be worse, going upstairs or trying to get into the bathtub downstairs. I decided on going upstairs, which turned out to be a good decision. Going UP was fine. Coming down I followed my doctor's suggestion and slid on my butt, and that was a little rough (on both my hip and my shorts), but I think my comfort in the shower made up for it. Confession: I used a shower chair. How embarrassing, I have now used a shower chair in my 30s. However, one of my friends made me feel better by telling me that in college, she and her friends sometimes used a shower chair when they were too hungover to stand in the shower. At least my situation seems a little more legitimate than that. :)
• The entire shower ordeal (including the dressing change), from start to finish, took about two hours! It is definitely a challenge for me to adjust to how long it takes me to do things. I am normally the type of person who is always in a hurry - sometimes for no particular reason other than that I'm high strung and impatient. In a way, being forced to slow down might be good for me.
• My arms are killing me. It's not just the crutches rubbing them, but also the fact that my arms are weak, and tire easily.

Post Surgery: Day 2

I was a little worried that after such a good day yesterday, pent up pain would unleash itself on me, but I woke up feeling really good. I have a small amount of pain/soreness, maybe a little worse than yesterday, but it was still very minimal, especially considering the last pain pill I took was almost 24 hours ago. I started trying to move my leg around, and that did hurt a little, but not significantly more than it did before the surgery.

I also FINALLY managed to get some sleep. I have trouble sleeping anyway, and usually toss and turn a lot. Knowing that I will not be able to toss and turn is a mental block for me, ha ha. However, I discovered I could sleep on my good side, and that's a lot more comfortable than on my back, where it is basically impossible for me to keep my leg from flopping out into external rotation (which is another thing I'm not supposed to do). Apparently there are contraptions to prevent this from happening, but I guarantee I'd never be able to sleep like this: http://highschoolandhipsurgery.blogspot.com/2011/08/3-bs.html. Since my hip problem began to escalate, I've alternated between side and back sleeping. On the one hand, back sleeping makes me wake up less sore, but on the other hand, I sleep better on my side curled up (probably because that's how I had to lie/sleep on bed rest while pregnant, so I'm used to it). Now, if I stick a pillow between my legs and roll onto my left side, just like I did while on bed rest, it is pretty comfortable.

Other highlights of the day:

• The crutch pads and crutch bag I ordered yesterday came today, even though I didn't do a rush order or anything. So. Worth. It. If you should ever find yourself on crutches for more than, like, a week, I highly recommend crutcheze.com.
• My husband had an out-of-town meeting and had to leave the house early. I managed to get up, get myself dressed, get the kids dressed, get the kids breakfast, and get them out the door, all by 8:30 (at which point my dad came by to take them to daycare/summer camp). That did tire me out, so I lay back down after that, but then got up about half an hour later and actually did some work. I was feeling that good.
• I was stir crazy for most of the afternoon. I knew I must be feeling really good because I didn't want to sit and read or watch a DVD or do mindless Internet surfing or even take a nap. I ventured outside and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get down the stairs using the many 'how to navigate stairs on crutches' directions from Google. (I like this one, even though I don't have a broken ankle: http://www.upmc.com/patients-visitors/education/rehab/pages/stair-climbing-with-crutches.aspx). It really helped having full feeling in my leg. I was glad I didn't try to go outside yesterday when my leg was still numb and not really capable of moving on its own.
• I felt so good and so cabin feverish that I went to the farmers market with parents in the afternoon, mostly so I could have a drink. LOL. The farmers market is held at an old school that has now been converted into a brewery and a number of other hipsterish type places. (By the way, I have a bad hip, but I am not a hipster.) However, whenever I find myself kid-free on Wednesday afternoons, I like to go buy locally-grown veggies and have an afternoon dose of anti-anxiety medication :). I think my mom was surprised when I told her I was feeling well enough to go. That said, it was VERY TIRING, and instead of 'walking' back to the car, which was only a block away, my parents had to come and pick me up next to the food wagon at the entrance of the market. It felt really good to get out, though.
• Not surprisingly, my left hip (the good one) has started to hurt, to the extent that I actually got confused about which hip was the bad one when I was going down the stairs at the farmers market. (Admittedly, the drink probably didn't help. ;-)). After one step and lots of pain, I realized my mistake. It reminded me that I even though I feel good, I have a ways to go still.
• My doctor called me to check in. He gave me some more details about the surgery, since I'm sure I was more coherent than the last time he saw me. He said that the tear, although not big, was at the very top ('at 12 o'clock, for lack of a better description'), which can make the hip joint unstable. Although he saw no signs of arthritis, he did have to remove some bits of articular cartilage that had broken off, in addition to anchoring the labrum. Then he remarked that he had tested my hips while I was under (trying to imagine this is one part horrifying and two parts hilarious) and added, 'You are soooooo flexible!' Followed by, 'Were you a gymnast?' Indeed. Unfortunately, my stellar flexibility did not make up for my paralyzing fear of the Yurchenko vault.
• The doctor remembered that I had concerns about getting around my house and asked how that it was going. I told him I hadn't even tried the stairs yet and confessed to my fall. Fortunately, he didn't make a huge deal out of it, though he seemed upset I had ruined the DVD, ha ha. He also remembered I was teaching an 8-5 course in August and asked me to remind him of the exact date. When I told him August 13th, he reiterated that wouldn't be a problem and 'We'll get you off crutches and feeling fine by then.'
• I hope he's right. I've heard stories about people who felt 'wined and dined' by their surgeons, and then sort of abandoned once the surgery didn't turn out the way they had hoped. 
• I hope my story doesn't end that way.

Post Surgery: Day 1

Highlights:

• I woke up feeling really good. At least 'good' considering the circumstances.
• I regained complete feeling in my leg at some point in the early afternoon, but I still can't move my leg very well. Flexing my thigh hurts. I mostly find myself using my arms to pull on my leg when I need to move it.
• I took a pain pill in the morning, even though I wasn't in pain. However, since I didn't have full feeling in my leg, I was still a little scared about what would happen once the anesthetic wore off completely, and I wanted to be ahead of the game in terms of the pain cycle. The pain turned out not to be too bad. My hip is a little sore, but it doesn't hurt too much, plus the soreness feels like it is mostly from where the holes were poked in it. I'm supposed to ice the area, but the bandage on it is is so thick that ice doesn't do much. 
• I'm sort of surprised that I've been able to get up and about quite a bit. It felt so good to not lie around all day. However, by the end of the day, my arms were just as sore as my hip. Prior to surgery, I had read rave reviews online about crutch pads from a company called Crutcheze (www.crutcheze.com). However, they are little pricey, and surgery is also a little pricey, so I didn't buy them, because I'm cheap. Well, as it turns out, it took less than 24 hours of crutching around my house before I broke down and ordered the crutch pads. LOL. Plus, after looking at the site several times pre-surgery, their ads keep popping up everywhere I go online, as if I need reminding that my arms. are. killing. me.
• I also have forearm crutches from my dad from when he broke his ankle while hiking in France about a decade ago. Forearm crutches are standard in Europe, whereas in the U.S. they are more commonly used by people who are long-term or life-long crutch users. These are surely better for avoiding the underarm abrasion associated with underarm crutches, but I also feel like they are more work. I need to get my arms in better shape and regain a better sense of balance before I can think about moving to those. Also, I'll admit that the crutches from my dad are rather overstated in that the cuff and the grip are purple, and I'm just not that type of bring-attention-to-yourself-with-flaming-crutches type of person. (My poor dad; he wasn't thrilled about the purple, either, but it was the only pair of crutches the pharmacy had that would work for him, and apparently France is a totally Buy Your Own Crutches type of country.)
• Speaking of out-of-shape arms, I have limited experience on crutches - only two stints as a teenager due to sprained ankles, and neither lasted more than a few weeks. (By the way, this is pretty unheard of for a gymnast. I always prided myself as being the 'never injured' gymnast, but apparently I'm paying for it in adulthood.) One of my stints on crutches occurred as a result of me landing half on and half off a mat doing a vault during warm-ups at a competition. It was a state-qualifying meet, so I had to compete if I wanted to be guaranteed to go to the state championships. (You can submit a petition, but there is no guarantee with a petition.) Competing probably wasn't the best idea, although I think a lot of things that are 'not the best idea' happen when you are victory crazed (which is also 'not the best idea,' in my opinion). Anyway, I'm pretty sure there were only a few weeks between the state qualifying meet and the state championships themselves, which I did compete in, so I can't imagine I was on crutches for more than a few days. My other stint on crutches occurred due to another ankle sprain in the off-season, so I think I took more time out to actually let that one heal. What I do remember from that injury is that my underarms hurt so bad from the crutches that they were actually on the brink of bleeding from being rubbed raw. So this time around, I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was how sore my arms would be just from supporting my body weight and hauling my 39-year-old out of shape body around. I mean, when I was 14, I was a badass athlete, plus I weighed a lot less than I do now. And when you're an athlete and have an injury to a lower extremity, you get even more badass upper body strength because there's nothing else to do. So while the crutches hurt my underarms, my arms didn't hurt from the work they were doing. Oh how things change in 25 years.
• The upshot of the previous bullet point is that if you are planning on surgery, I'd suggest: A. Sucking up cost of the crutch pads and buying them in advance, and B. Getting your arms into shape ahead of time. Neither of which I did, but hey, as a teacher, I teach kids all the time about stuff I never got when I was a student, and I think my ignorance helps me be a better teacher.
• I contemplated going outside into the yard today because I already feel a little stir crazy. I normally spend the maximum amount of time possible outside, and being inside makes me nuts. However, as I mentioned earlier, there is no easy way out of our house. The front way out involves fairly normal stairs, but with no railing. The back way out involves scary stairs with a railing, but with a possible tumble down into the basement if you have a misstep, or as Tim Daggett would say, 'a balance check.' I decided to pass on going outside for one more day. I was still a little scared/scarred from yesterday's fall, and since I already have an intense fear of falling down stairs, I chickened out. I think that was actually a good decision, for once.
• I was pleased to discover that there is plenty I can do on crutches, and I am a lot more independent and less needy than I feared I would be. The main thing is leaving a lot (A LOT) more time to get things done, as well as planning out things that in an able-bodied state do not require planning. 
• Also, while kids may be a concern when considering surgery, they can also be a great help. My eight-year-old was great today getting me water and carrying plates. :)
• It's the little things that are the hardest to deal with right now. Like... it was actually pretty cold today. I didn't anticipate needing socks, so I didn't bring any downstairs, and there is no way I'm going upstairs for a while. My feet were cold all day, and by the afternoon I finally decided to put on the gross socks that I was given to wear during surgery. But... how are you supposed to put on socks when you can't bend at the hip more than 90 degrees? The answer you have to wait for your husband to do it for you. LOL.
• I was really tired all day, as I didn't sleep much the night before. I think finding a comfortable position to sleep in will be one of the biggest challenges of my recovery. Between not sleeping and the pain medications, I felt sort of weird all day despite feeling mostly really good. I decided to try not taking the pain medication. 
• Overall, I'm feeling so good it is hard to imagine that I'll need crutches for a whole month, but I'm trying to be a good patient and be compliant and not overdo things.

Surgery!

I was a complete ball of stress the night before the surgery and slept for MAYBE two hours. I would have been stressed anyway, but the fact that one of my daughter's classmate's moms died a few days earlier due to complications during routine surgery certainly didn't help my nerves. Of all the things I had been worried about prior to surgery, dying wasn't actually one of them. Logically, I know this sort of thing is extremely rare, but if you're the statistical outlier, it really doesn't matter how rare something is. My husband was apparently also a ball of stress and slept maybe two or three hours, two of which were in the morning when I was leaving. I actually felt more sorry for my husband than myself, as I figured my day was pretty much shot anyway, ha ha, so what did I need the sleep for?

My surgery was scheduled for 7:30 AM, and I needed to be at the surgical center by 6:30. My mom picked me up at 6:15; the plan was that she would take me to the surgery center and stay there until my husband got there after getting the kids up and dropping them off at daycare/summer camp. I told my mom she didn't need to stay - I mean, what did it matter to me, I was knocked out - but she insisted. As it turns out, my husband went back home and went to bed after dropping the kids off, and I was actually awake and ready to leave before he got there.

The surgery center was a pretty typical medical-type place. After checking in, I went to the preparatory area and was soooo nervous. My mom came with me, and I was happy to have her there, although my mom is extremely wary of all medical professionals (PTSD from years of draconian military hospitals, I think). I don't think she has been to a doctor since I became aware of such a thing as doctors, plus she's generally very outspoken and opinionated about everything, so I was sort of worried about what embarrassing thing she might come up with to say. Fortunately, the pre-op nurses were awesome and helped me relax a bit. One of them was asking me about my family history, which is always awkward, because I was adopted, so I don't have a family history that is relevant to medicine. However, it turns out the nurse was also adopted, so she and my mom swapped adoption stories while I sat there and shivered. Apparently it wasn't actually cold, I was just nervous.

The time leading up to surgery is pretty fuzzy; I remember talking to the anesthesiologist, who explained that in addition to knocking me out, he would be giving me a local anesthetic in my leg to help with the pain post-surgery. Then my doctor came in, and asked me how I was doing. I told him I was doing well, and that my hip had actually been feeling pretty good. LOL. He asked if I was sure I wanted to do this. I wonder what he would have said if I had said no! He then went on to reassure me that it was normal with this condition to have good days and bad days, but with the surgery the hope would be to put the bad days behind me. Then I vaguely remember him talking to my mom about her shoes (Chaco's) and mentioning that he also had a pair of them, and that they were better than Teva's because the velcro on Teva's wears out after a while, especially when you wear them in the water. So he got a pair of Chaco's about 15 years ago when he was in Boy Scouts, and still has them. Fortunately my mom did not share her opinions about Boy Scouts with the doctor, but she did use the opportunity to complain about how Chaco's used to be made locally but were now made in China.

The other thing I remember, which is actually pretty funny when I think about it, is that multiple people kept asking me to tell them what type of surgery I was having. You know how you hear horror stories about people going in for knee surgery and coming out with a double mastectomy, or the left limb getting operated on when it was the right limb with the problem, etc.? Well, I know they take this problem very seriously now, because even when I've just gone for X-rays or an MRI, I've needed an ID band, and about three different people have double checked what I'm having done. I figured the chances of a huge mistake occurring at a small surgical center were pretty slim, but nonetheless, right before surgery, the nurse asked me to confirm which hip was being operated on. I told her it was my right hip. She then pulled out a marker and wrote a big NO on my left hip and big YES on my right hip. As if that weren't enough, when the surgeon came in, he asked me to confirm that it was my right hip he was supposed to be working on, and when I did, he pulled out a marker and put his initials under the big YES on my hip. Seriously, that's sort of funny. Like it's a binding contract or something. My mom remarked that hopefully he could read; he chuckled and replied, 'Yes, yes, fortunately I can read.' (I know it's not the most important quality for a surgeon, but I'm always a sucker for people with a sense of humor.) I had heard stories about people marking their bodies up before surgery to point the way to the body part to be operated on, but I seriously thought those were just urban legend.

That's about the last thing I remember clearly; eventually, the anesthesiologist came in and told me that he was going to give me something to help me calm down and then that was it. When I woke up, I heard two nurses talking, and I'm still not sure if I dreamed this, but they were having this really bizarre conversation about how young I looked and how they could not believe that I was 39. I guess that's fitting considering I still can't believe my surgeon is old enough to actually be a surgeon, but in reality he can't be THAT much younger than I am. Anyway, maybe I was hallucinating all of it. However, shortly thereafter, I remember coming to full consciousness and being in agonizing pain. It wasn't my hip, but my back. I'm pretty sure that as I woke up, I tried to scream, only I couldn't because my throat was incredibly sore, and only after a bunch of fluids could I actually even talk at all. I must have had a freaky look on my face, though, because the nurses acted sort of panicky. (Then again, maybe it was because they realized I had heard them TALKING ABOUT ME and my baby face). At some point, the doctor came in and told me the surgery had gone well, and that he was able to fix me up relatively quickly. (Hopefully in this haste he didn't leave any of his tools inside of me; I've heard that happens, too.) There were no surprises, and he was able to fix the tear by... doing something with a pin or something. I was sort like, eh, whatever. He said he would call me the next day, and I was like, eh, whatever.

Due to my extreme back pain, I ended up leaving the recovery room sooner than I should have, in my humble opinion. But, I was sooo uncomfortable lying down the nurses decided I should go into the 'sit up' room. I was much more comfortable sitting up, but the nurse in the sit up room was sort of annoying and, quite frankly, sort of stupid, and I think I actually ended up going home a few hours earlier than I should have.

I was still in a semi-delirious state in the sit-up room, while listening to the nurse go on about how the Indians had natural medicine from plants (this reminds me of the Geico commercials: yes, everyone knows that, dear), and how the Indians had wiped out the white men with their diseases (even in a state of delirium, I was pretty sure it was the other way around - smallpox, anyone?). However, I just smiled and nodded my head and drank my water (or was it 7 Up? Ginger ale?). I let my mom set the record straight; it's her specialty. But... what was my mom still doing there? And where was my husband?? I was so confused! Eventually someone asked me if I thought my husband was coming soon, and I asked what time it was. It was only 10:00ish! Since we were counting on a three-hour surgery, my husband and I had figured that between the surgery and the recovery time, it would be around 12:30 before I'd be ready to leave. However, the surgery only took an hour. (I should get a discount for how little time it took.) I finally called him around 10:30 and was like, Come pick me up, please! I suppose my mom could have taken me home, but her car fits into the teeny sports car category, which would have been really hard for me to get into and would have required flexing my hip more than 90 degrees. Plus, I was really goofy at that point and had no feeling in my right leg, and that's just not the sort of thing my mom deals with well.

Eventually my husband arrived and took me home. I mentioned before there is no easy way into our house, and especially when you are half comatose and can't really move one of your legs. My husband decided it would be easiest to get me into the house through the front. I was seriously so drowsy I didn't think I could get out of the car, nor did I really want to. I wasn't in any pain, it was the residual effects of the general anesthesia. I'm sure I was being totally unhelpful, so my husband decided to go borrow my mother-in-law's wheelchair. (My mother-in-law is 80 and has severe arthritis and lives in a cottage in our back yard.) I know I must have been out of it because I would have normally objected to this, especially in such a public location as our front yard, only I didn't argue. After he wheeled me up the front walk, somehow I managed to use the crutches to get up the stairs of the front porch and into the family room, where I got onto the futon and went to sleep.

Preparing for Surgery

I think it's probably good that I 'rushed' into surgery. For one, it gave me very little time to freak out about it. I also had a lot to do before the surgery and not much time to do it in, so that allowed me to focus and not look back. Unfortunately, my hip actually felt pretty good the week leading up to surgery, which did lead me to question my decision on a daily basis.

The biggest thing for me was childcare. I took my son out of daycare for the summer because I wasn't teaching during the summer, and saw no reason to keep him in. We made the difficult decision to put him back in because I really didn't see a way I was going to be able to be able to care for him adequately by myself. My husband helps a lot, of course, but he works. My parents also live in town and help a lot, but they also work. My eight-year-old can be helpful at times, but not so much at others, plus she doesn't know how to change diapers. I felt putting my son back into daycare was the best way to be sure he would be taken care of during my recovery. The university also has a summer camp for school-aged children that my daughter absolutely loves (it's pretty fabulous), and since my son was going to be going back to daycare, she begged me to enroll her in the summer camp. We settled on three days a week for her. This was not only a difficult decision emotionally, but also financially. However, I figured that if I am going to this, I wanted to do it right. In the long run, I'd rather fork out a few thousand dollars for childcare and have my kids happy and well taken care of than try to be superwoman and do it all myself and risk the outcome of my surgery in the process. I feel lucky to be in a situation where hiring help was an option.

* * * * *

An additional pre-surgery project was making the house more doable for someone with hip surgery. All of the bedrooms in our house are upstairs, and not just upstairs, but up a crazy set of stairs. I decided that I would sleep downstairs in the family room until... well, until whenever. Until I'm okay going up and down our stairs. We have a futon that guests sleep on, and I decided I'd sleep there so I didn't have the added stress of the stairs. To make the room suitable for at least a few weeks, we had to rearrange a bunch of furniture. I also brought at least a week's worth of essential items (e.g., clothes, toiletries, etc.) downstairs so I wouldn't have to worry about going upstairs until I felt like it.

I think one of the best ways to prepare for surgery is to consider the limitations you'll have after surgery. For hip arthroscopy, the major considerations are the crutches and the limited hip flexion (which means you can't squat down or bend over). I walked around the house and considered all of the things that required squatting and bending over. I tried to move all the really important items that required squatting or bending over to access to a place where, well, they did not require squatting or bending over to access. I also sucked up my pride and invested in a grabber thingy, which I previously would have thought was only for old folks. (In fact, my mother-in-law has one, and I make fun of her for it, which just goes to show that karma is a bitch.) However, the woman in the medical supply store was happy to point out to me that kids love them, too, and the photo on the packaging showed people of all ages enjoying the benefits of the grabber, including the folks who pick up trash on the side of the highway (i.e., convicted felons).

This brings me to another point. Unlike a lot of other surgeries, I think most people consider hip surgery to be something that only old folks have to have. I've had numerous people comment on how I am 'way too young' to be having hip problems, and I'll confess that I feel the same way. When it was my knee that was giving me trouble, it sucked, but no one seemed to think I was 'way too young' to be having knee problems. If you are young or youngish (I like to think of myself as at least youngish) and having hip problems, there is a certain amount of pride that you have to just suck up if you want to make your life easier. Things like grabber thingies (do these even have a real name?), raised toilet seats, and shower chairs may seem like something you only knew about from your grandparents' home, but can really make your recovery a lot easier. This is not to say that it is any easier having hip problems when you are older, just that if you go into a medical supply store and buy a raised toilet seat in your 30s, you'll get a lot more looks than you would if you were 70. You just have to get over it. I'll admit that I resisted the raised toilet seat, even though my husband wanted to buy one for me. I refused, but there are times when I regret it.

As for the crutches, the last time I was on crutches I was in 9th grade. I hopped into the doctor's office with a severely sprained ankle and left with a cast and crutches. I don't know what became of those crutches, but I'm guessing we just gave them back to the doctor when I was done with them. That was in 1989. Apparently a lot of places are now BYOC (Bring Your Own Crutches), which I am glad I was alerted to prior to surgery. I got a lot of pre-surgery phone calls, mostly requiring me to pre-pay for the surgery (in case I changed my mind?), and somehow in one of these calls, it came up that I needed crutches. I mean, obviously I knew I was going to be on crutches, but it hadn't occurred to me this wasn't part of the surgery package. LOL. The woman did mention they had crutches at the surgery center, but then added, 'But you're better off getting them on your own,' which probably means they probably charge you $1,000 for them. She also said the best thing would be to borrow them from a friend (because I have so many friends who keep crutches in their basements) so I could practice using them ahead of time and figure out how I'm going to navigate through my house. Although I didn't necessarily feel like I needed practice or that I wanted to spend any extra time on crutches than was absolutely essential, this was actually good advice, especially if you have never been on crutches before, or have not spent a lot of time around people on crutches.

FYI, here is a web site about surviving on crutches that I found useful:
The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Life on Crutches (Happily)

By the way, I highly recommend thrift stores for buying crutches. Sometimes the crutches will require a little TLC, but they often sell them at a fraction of what they cost new, and will usually suffice, depending on how long you're going to need them. I think it's also good to know that in a lot of cases, you're responsible for your own crutches. If it's not made clear to you in advance, you should ask.

* * * * *

Other pre-surgery things were just little projects here and there that I knew I would not be able to do after the surgery, such as cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, the hall closet, taking things into the basement, etc. Since I'm a terrible procrastinator, I wouldn't have actually done a lot of these projects if I hadn't had this impending deadline. So in a way some of this has been good.

Another thing I did for myself was buy a nice lounge chair to recover in, which has turned out to be totally unnecessary. Fortunately, my dad admired the chair, so guess what he is getting for his birthday. Finally, I threw a pre-surgery/4th of July party, which was on a Friday. My surgery was scheduled for the following Monday, so fortunately I had two days to detox. :)

Surgery Consult and Decision Making

On 6/27, I went to see the orthopedist for a surgery consult. Of course, the first thing I asked him about was the recovery time, and he told me that I would need to be on crutches for a month. One month! That's a long time. It's a long time no matter what, but it's a really long time considering I have a two-year-old who isn't potty trained, can't dress himself, live in an almost 100-year-old house with insane stairs, etc., etc., etc. I really didn't think I could do that, so I sort of got hung up on that aspect of the recovery and decided against the surgery right then and there. (I later reconsidered, obviously.) Unfortunately, because of the crutches hang up, I didn't really use the rest of the appointment to ask other useful questions that would have helped guide my decision-making. After a few days of going back and forth in my mind, I e-mailed the surgeon a bunch of questions and he ended up calling me back and going over them with me on the phone.

Some considerations:

1. Interestingly, while the one month on crutches thing seemed very long, the rest of the recovery didn't seem as grim as I had imagined. I asked the doctor if I had surgery, theoretically, within the next few weeks, if I could be off crutches and completely ambulatory by August 13th. I am teaching a one-week course, a semester's worth of material in five days, starting on 8/13. This course meets 8-5 for five days, and is physically tiring for me even when I'm not recovering from surgery. However, it is worth noting that I did teach this class when I was 33 weeks pregnant, which is probably just as bad as teaching it one month after hip surgery. (Then again, my son was born right after I finished, six weeks early, so maybe it wasn't the best idea.)

The doctor said this was doable, as long as I would be able to take breaks. I also might not be able to walk around too much, but standing would be fine. I tend to walk around a lot when I lecture, but I can modify this. And I'm sure none of my students will cry if I give them more breaks than normal.

2. I asked how long it would be before I could drive. If you Google 'driving after hip arthroscopy,' you get a wide range of responses from 'once you're off pain meds' to 'once you're off crutches' to 'six weeks if it's your right hip' (which it is). While I eventually came to the conclusion that one month on crutches was doable, one month of not driving was really not doable for me at this point in my life. I live in a city with limited public transportation, and the nearest bus stops are three blocks away. This wouldn't normally be a big deal, but is a big deal on crutches and with kids in tow. Plus, you have to consider the distance you have to travel from where the bus drops you off to your final destination. (For example, it is a trek from where the bus drops you off at the university to the university daycare.) Not doable. I mean, I'm sure I could make it happen if I HAD to, but this is elective surgery we're talking about.

However, after a brief discussion about what type of car I drive, my doctor was in the 'once you're off pain meds' camp. Who needs pain meds anyway? LOL. The big consideration for driving is that you cannot flex your thigh past 90 degrees, so I guess this rules out things like fancy little sports cars. Fortunately for me, I drive a hand-me-down from my grandparents, which I inherited eight years ago, along with their cat.

3. Speaking of no flexion past 90 degrees, probably the biggest bummer of all of this is, for me, is not being able to garden. Gardening is my one big hobby, and I actually really enjoy weeding. There is something oddly satisfying about sitting in my garden, yanking out weeds, and feeding them to my chickens. (I'm somewhat of an urban homesteader.) I can go to my Happy Place in my garden.

Unfortunately, the doctor did say that gardening was pretty much out. I believe the exact words were: 'Uh, yeah, there's not going to be much gardening after the surgery.'

4. I asked if I would be able to ski by ski season. This is not totally necessary, but merited strong consideration. My daughter finally learned how to ski proficiently this last spring and my son will be old enough for ski school in the winter, and I was looking forward to skiing with my family this year. I wasn't willing to give up the rest of my summer PLUS winter recovering from surgery.

However, the doctor said skiing by ski season was totally doable, and that after three months there would basically be no restrictions on my activity. He said that he has gotten NHL players playing hockey again after three months. I assume that was in a previous lifetime considering he must be, like, 20 years old, lol, but nevertheless, I was happy to be put in the same category as NHL players. :)

5. I explained my concern over getting around my house on crutches. I live in a house that was built in 1920 and has a horrible stair case. Granted, I am a little phobic of stairs, perhaps overly so. However, between my knee that randomly gives out on me and a highly uncoordinated daughter who trips no fewer than ten times a day, the fear isn't totally irrational - and I have actually fallen down the stairs at a colleague/neighbor's house while holding my son, when he was an infant. (That was fun. Not.) The main problem with our stairs is that there is no rail, so all those instructions on the web about going down stairs on crutches don't apply. (FYI: This is a very useful site if you have normal stairs: http://www.upmc.com/patients-visitors/education/rehab/pages/stair-climbing-with-crutches.aspx.) Our house is also difficult to get into and out of. When we bought the house, the back entryway was almost a deal breaker for me because there is a real possibility that you can fall down the stairs into the basement if you aren't careful. Since I'm not planning to move anytime soon, the stairs will always be an issue. However, when you add a two-year-old into the mix, it makes the issue a little more difficult. I can't be going up and down the stairs all the time like I usually am, following my son from inside to outside and then back in, getting things for him, putting him down for his nap, changing his diaper, etc. (The diaper changing is another issue.)

The doctor asked if I would have to go upstairs to sleep -  i.e., was my bedroom upstairs? All the bedrooms are upstairs, although I can always sleep downstairs. He agreed that might be a good idea, but said if I had to go up the stairs, I might want to consider going up backwards and coming down on my butt (which is what I make my kids do; they call it thump thumping down). It wouldn't necessarily be easy, but it was doable. He also said he had done this surgery on other people with young children and they managed; that even after a few days it was likely I'd be feeling pretty good and would be able to get around pretty well. You just need to stay on crutches for so long to allow the cartilage time to heal properly.

So that was that.

* * * * *

After a lot (A LOT) of thinking and thinking and OVERTHINKING, I decided that the surgery was going to have to happen at some point. I can't live another 40+ years like this, and I do hope to live another 40+ years. I also hope that some of these future 40+ years are more active than the past year has been for me. Thus, I came to the conclusion that sooner would be better than later, just because if I'm miserable, and surgery can make things better, which I hope with all my heart it can (otherwise why would I do it?), then why should I wait? As one of the doctors told me, there is no 'good time' for surgery. 

The thing is that if I wanted to do the surgery this summer, it needed to happen soon if I was going to be ready to teach by 8/13. Considering it took me seven months from the time my pain started to actually see an orthopedist, that seemed rushed.

Other options:

• Have the surgery later and recover during school year. When I started this job, I was having trouble with my knee. I was worried I would need surgery and wouldn't be able to recover before the school year started. My brother told me not to worry, that students would feel sorry for me if I were on crutches, and be nicer. LOL. He recently had had surgery on his foot and interviewed for jobs on crutches and had gotten a job. (He is a federal prosecutor.)
• Have the surgery during the winter break. This would mean giving up the ski season, but at least not the end of summer.
• Have the surgery at the end of May next year. If I could do it early enough, that would leave most of the summer for at least semi-fun. Honestly, this would be my first choice, but I was worried about whether or not I could make it that long. I was soooo miserable the past year, and definitely felt I couldn't handle another year like the previous year. The cortisone shot made the pain much more manageable, and ideally I would have waited it out to see how long the effects lasted, but I didn't want to get to the beginning of the semester and find out the effects had worn off. Looking back, I think the chronic pain really took a toll on me. For one, it kept me from sleeping well, and I already have trouble sleeping, so I was basically crazy from lack of sleep. Ordinary pain relievers did nothing, and when I tried the more heavy duty stuff my PA prescribed for me, those made me crazy. (I almost had to cancel class one time because I felt so crazy.) I also stopped doing my favorite exercise, which is going on walks and walking to places as a mode of transportation, which made me crazy from feeling all gross and sedentary and put me in a bad mood for most of the semester.

So, I decided to go forward with the surgery ASAP. It was so unlike me to make a decision so quickly, but I felt like I was at a point where I couldn't go on the way I was. I also really liked the surgeon, and felt like he was competent and trustworthy (hopefully my instincts will turn out to be right), and that was an important factor, too. He was also available on 7/7/14, so I scheduled the surgery and did not look back.