A canadian asks: When can I play Ice Hockey again?

[paulmac]

    Four weeks ago tomorrow I had my left hip resurfaced. I am walking without a cane for several days now, and tell people that I was sore but had no pain during this process. Nothing more than Tylenol was needed. The only period of major discomfort was the evening of the operation when the physioterapists got me from the bed to chair and back again! Talking to one later she said that they are sometimes referred to as the physio-terrorists! I spent 3 nights in the hospital, one more night and they would have had to move me to a floor with a rubber room, boy what a hard place to try to sleep!
    It was only after the operation that I could even look around the web for a site like this, and a fine site it is. I will be able to ask the surgeon when I talk to him in 2 weeks just what hardware he used. I told a couple of people that they use a rack and pinion from a 1969 Ford Pinto!
    It is very interesting to read some of the posts on what activities people plan to get back to, at age 55 I don't plan to try any triathlons but I do know of a over 50 recreational ice hockey league I could play in. Has anyone out there after HR put the blades back on?
    The other question I have are there any volunteer fire fighters out there who have had HR and what duties do they do? I am with a rural fire dept that has a busy highway in our zone and know how heavy our gear is. Of course the most important tool is the brain so they are not in a hurry to get rid of a old dog like me!

From east coast Canada:
Thanks
Paulmac

[hernanu]

Hi Paulmac, I think there are several firefighters (both volunteer and career) that have posted here. The latest one is I believe Bradford, but there are several female firefighters in the 2008-2009 period. I'd get in touch with them or just search for their stories ("fire" in the search area).

Welcome to the site, congrats on the resurface. On the hockey, many posters do impact sports, and the law as handed down by my surgeon is no contact sports until at least a year has passed. Kind of a pain, but there it is (for me, YMMV).

[Tin Soldier]

Hernanu beat me to it.

Ask you surgeon.  I bet that they'll say 6 months, but probably a year.  I played a lot of soccer and did a fair amount in-line hockey longer ago, but I think the vertical impact (barring getting hip-checked), is going to be much less than soccer, because of the smoother motion on skates, but the side-to-side cutting could be a but much for fresh HR.  It seems to me skating, alone, would be a good exercise.  The potential to fall on a hip on ice or get knocked around by someone else, just seems too dicey, until you know you have solid bone growth and extra muscle strength, I'd stay away for a year.

Heavy lifting and all - ask your surgeon, I'm not a firefighter, but I would say with thoughtful movements and being conservative with weights and awkard items, I think you should be able to do that a lot sooner, maybe within a 2 or 4 months.  I was doing a bunch of heavy lifting working on my house at 3 months and I felt good.  My surgeon didn;t have any restrictions like that, but did recommend using my brain.  The back gets sore from poor lifting techniques due to poor ROM, but I hope to change that as I get more stretchy in the next year or so.

BTW - did I mention to ask your surgeon? :)