Turning point

[John C]

Hi Danny,
I think that its okay to accept the fact that our new joints may not be as perfect as the original, but I would not base your eventual recovery status on your recent misadventure. I was shakily back skiing at six months, but there are many things that I can do now that I could not do then. It took two years before I could skate on skis without it feeling strange and uncomfortable. I thought that I would never again be able to get air off small jumps, and now it is no problem. It was two years before I was comfortable even stepping down steep steps in ski boots, and now it is a non issue. I had pain when I first got back into tennis at one year, and would limp for a couple of days, and now that is a non issue. When I first got back on a windsurfer at one year, I could feel every little jar when going across choppy water, and could not even consider high jumps, and yesterday I launched some of my biggest jumps ever.
The point of all this is to encourage you not to accept restrictions to your final outcome this early in the process.
Let me share one last story. The ski season was about to start at exactly six months post surgery for me. I have been a professional skier most of my life, and I wanted to test my new hip out in privacy. So before the opening day, I hiked up the mountain carrying my skis. At the top, I put my skis on, pushed off, and started into my first turn on my new hip.... and nothing happened. I could not turn, and careened all the way across the run and into the trees. At that moment, things did not look good, but a few days later I made some easy runs on the beginner chair, and shortly after that I was skiing deep powder.
I told this story to another pro who was going back to skiing after having his hip done. He was sure that it would not happen to him, but after his first attempt at a turn, he thought that he may have to take his skis off and walk down the mountain. A year later, he is skiing as strong as ever.
You may or may not find some eventual restrictions, but please don't base too much on your first turns.

[Dannywayoflife]

Thanks everyone,
                        I am just again really mentally struggling with the fact that my mind is now more willing than ever but my body is just falling appart!
As i was saying to Anna today ive maintained patience and positivity for the last 2 years and now ive run out!

[hernanu]

Danny, around nine months, I started "running" on the treadmill. I actually walked three minutes and ran one, at a gentle clip for sixteen minutes. Despite my conservatism, I decided to do some leg presses after the treadmill. I got on the leg press machine, and in the middle of my workout, felt something tighten in my leg. I immediately got off the machine and left.

For the next three or four days, every time I bent over, I definitely felt my groin muscle complain loudly. It was a sweet little exercise to pick anything up from the floor. After that, I was fine, so went back to working out, then about a month later did it again. I can do this now, without a problem, but then my muscles just weren't up to it and took me down for a good four to five days each time. It is scary and depressing, but it is a setback, like the ones we've all dealt with.

I don't think what I did was anywhere near as stressful as what you dealt with (I've been in those as well), the running for a long stretch without any warmup, the stress at the end of it both mentally and physically take a toll and the adrenaline is flowing. If you dealt with other things physically as well, those also play into it.

I'm hopeful and believe it will clear up, but does show the need to still strengthen those pesky little hip muscles that provide us with all the stability. If the implant is correct, the architecture of your hip should not have changed, since it's in the same location and attitude as before. I believe it's muscle and ligament weakness that hindered you and hurts. Hopefully it clears up with ice and TLC, and you can go on.

[Spanielsal]

Oh Danny, John and Hern are right. Hang in there, it is such early days. Try some tlc for a week or two, keep a diary perhaps of the activity levels, ability and pain. Thinking of you x

[Dan L]

Dan,

Really sorry to hear pal, take it easy and let it heal.  I can truly empathize with the feelings of never getting back to normal, having had some hiccups along the way as well, really natural given the slow but steady process of healing amoung people who normally want to go faster.

Hopefully having done no damage to the appliance, and being relatively so early in your recovery, there is every expectation what all the other folks further out in time have reported will be your experience as well.   The active and smart hippys around here, yourself included, seem to have mastered both the process and science of recovery from this, while being incredibly active, and virtually everything I have learned from them, has proven to be true.   That knowlege helps alot when when things go south.  Virtually all these stories include setbacks large and small, and eventual drastic improvements and return to normality.

Try to stay ahead of the pain, get good sleep if at all possible, and give yourself some room to heal a bit more too.  As much as I never really believed the whole "power of positive thinking" schtick, in the past nearly 10 months, it has made a real difference after 2 BHR's.  Maybe not what you want to hear right now, but it has helped me alot.

PS if you are walking alot on hard surfaces, with any kind of a heeled shoe, I found that changing to a flat work like (walking) shoe made a huge difference when walking downtown streets, night and day difference immediately.  If you did 10 miles on shoes that are not optimal, and ran on top of that, I could definitely see where you'd be miserable.

Best regards,

Dan

[rbt2011]

Danny,

Keep your head up brother.  Temporary setback is all it is.  Try not to dwell on one negative when you have hundreds of positives that you are overlooking.

Everyone here cares about you and is pulling for you.  You'll be in our thoughts and prayers.  Be patient and forgot about everything having anything to do with your hip for a week or so.  You are a strong man and you WILL get back to where you were.  One run dosent mean jack squat.  Especially, your first run in 2 years.

Rob

If you find yourself in hell, keep going.
-Churchhill