On the pelvis, a reamer is used to clean out the socket and a plastic and metal replacement fitted. The new ball and socket are then snapped together.
Even the physical therapist I’d earlier seen called the surgery major and “brutal.”
But there I was, just like all the people who encouraged me to do the operation, ready to join them and the close to 400,000 annually requesting the optional surgery in the United States. Hip replacements have more than doubled since 2000, according to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. In the same period, knee replacements have grown even faster, from 274,467 in the year 2000 to 680,886 by 2014.
My surgery went well, so the surgeon declared the morning after, despite a bout of nausea from my reaction to the anesthesia. The good doctor promised things would get better. They did by the end of my second day. But since I lived alone I had to go to a care facility for help over the next week.
The care was good, the food appalling and my male suite mate, with whom I shared a bathroom, weighed 600 pounds. Nurses said he was immobile, in bed, but I found him one morning sitting on the throne in his hospital gown. Startling to us both.
I finally got home where relatives came to briefly help and then home health for several weeks since I couldn’t drive at first. Slowly I made progress, only to learn the tendon on one muscle had been injured somehow and that required more home health and down time to recover.
A walker and then a cane, raised toilet seat and dressing implements like a reacher and a plastic thing to slide socks on became part of my life. Invasive things like showering with the help of an aide, someone I never knew before. People poking and prodding, measuring my blood pressure, teaching me again how to walk, even how to roll in bed from one side to the other.
This walk in the park was unlike any park I’d ever been to. Maybe it was because before I’d had such good fortune to not have to have surgeries.
The worst part of it all was the four walls. Never had living alone seemed so lonely. Makes for a long day, especially when you go to bed early and get up at 5 a.m. for some ungodly reason.
A type “a” person, I found it really hard to sit around, to let my body hold sway. For the first time in my life, I had to give of body and soul more room to the body. I couldn’t just take it for granted. And I had to coach my mind, to not shoot my blood pressure up, to just accept.
Liberation with the expected end to home health, like I said, was delayed by two weeks by my setback with that one muscle tendon. But I finally made it though the tendon still has some healing to go. No more home health and a clearance by the surgeon to fully resume normal activities.
But I still have to be careful. I have successfully reached the point, after three months, where my new parts are “sealed,” which I was told meant my bones have healed around them.
I move forward with precaution. Before any dental procedure, I must take antibiotics, just in case, to prevent any possibility of infection. Your body doesn’t fight infection on parts that aren’t natural. The ball on my new device can shatter. I am grateful to have restored mobility. Aware of my limitations. I can’t overdo like I might have before. I cannot fall.
A lesson in humility. A lesson in patience. A lesson in listening to the needs of my body. I still take along my cane just in case. My other hip may someday soon need replacement. One doctor said it was close to bone on bone. I can feel it. But for now, I cannot think that way. Instead, I move forward just glad modern day medicine has made it possible for me to stroll around largely pain free in this kind of “new park.”
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