D-day quickly approaching

[bosoxgordon]

Hello everyone,

I'm laying in bed at home after sleeping off some of the pain killers and I thought I'd give everyone an update. My pain levels and stiffness are definitely worse today. I suspect this is a combination of the two hour drive home and the pain killers Dr. Gross injects into the surgical sight wearing off. I'm curious to see if others have experinced this increase in pain before thing started to get better.

Having never done this before it's hard for me to compare the outpatient option to the inpatient option. I imagine that in the hospital you would have more help getting in and out of bed. I've found that getting into bed on my own is just about impossible right now. My wife has to lift my leg as I swing it onto the bed.

These are just early impressions but I think the main difference with the outpatient option is that you better be prepared to be more independent earlier. Yesterday I felt pretty good about getting about the hotel room but today the pain and fatigue is catching up with me and it's hard to get myself out moving a little.  As Juno mentioned going to the bathroom to urintate is much easier for us guys since we can stand, I'm not sure if I would want to try that if I had to sit every time.

When I left the surgical center I had all the post-operative instructions and a large bag of drugs to keep track of. That can be tough to keep track of when your head is cloudy from the pain meds. It absolutely nessecary to have a good helper with you. We have a three year old son and there is no way my wife could have helped me and kept track of him. I had a good friend come with me instead and fortunately he was able to track all the drugs and doses. Also as part of the outpatient program I have to measure my urine output for the first two days post-op. This is very important and they said if I didn't have any urine output for 12 hours I needed to go to the ER. Fortunately I've been drinking lots of water and I'm good in that department. Unfortunately like many out here have shared, I'm still waiting on my bowls to wake up again. Hopefully lots of water and fiber will help that soon. I have my precious raised toilet seat waiting for me. LOL I really felt old ordering that thing on amazon a few weeks ago. Another accessory I would recommend in one of those suction cup hand holds for the shower. It just sticks to the smooth surface of the shower and is a great help here at home and even in the hotel. If you do the outpatient option I would definitely recommend it. My wife picked one up at Lowes for $15 and I am very glad to have it. You just want to be sure it is securely fastened before you put any weight on it.

Anyway, here I am at home about 36 hours post-op hoping I'll feel better soon and be able to run and play with my son soon. Any advise or experience some of you veteran hippies can share with me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all the support and advise. I'm constantly hoping that Lee Webb is right with her optimism about this device.

[Juno]

Scott,

Glad you're home. You will feel better being in your own bed and home. I do recall the pain being worse before it got better. Day 2-4 were the worse and it got better from there.  One thing that I struggled with for about 10 days was muscle spasms -- especially in my calves. It never happened during the day, but at night when I was trying to sleep it was like the muscles would just start twitching. Just know it is normal and it does eventually stop. Also, sleeping sucks for the first few weeks -- I found it hard to find a comfortable position. Do the best you can.

My recommendations are to elevate, ice, drink lots of water, take your meds, eat as healthy as possible and do your phase one exercises. Walk, but don't push it. Try not to over do as you will feel it when if you do. You will feel all sorts of strange twinges -- your muscles, tendons and ligaments were all pulled, strained and manipulated. It takes several weeks for everything to feel semi-normal. Try not to worry too much -- you will be amazed at the progress you will make between week 3 and week 6!

[obxpelican]

Ice, keep it cold, elevation (if you are swollen) but don't lay around too much, get up when you can as soon as you can, listen to your body though.

Also, keep up on the pain meds, don't let it get ahead of you.

Your body has gone through a lot of trauma, it takes a couple of days for the pain to subside.


Chuck

Hello everyone,

I'm laying in bed at home after sleeping off some of the pain killers and I thought I'd give everyone an update. My pain levels and stiffness are definitely worse today. I suspect this is a combination of the two hour drive home and the pain killers Dr. Gross injects into the surgical sight wearing off. I'm curious to see if others have experinced this increase in pain before thing started to get better.

Having never done this before it's hard for me to compare the outpatient option to the inpatient option. I imagine that in the hospital you would have more help getting in and out of bed. I've found that getting into bed on my own is just about impossible right now. My wife has to lift my leg as I swing it onto the bed.

These are just early impressions but I think the main difference with the outpatient option is that you better be prepared to be more independent earlier. Yesterday I felt pretty good about getting about the hotel room but today the pain and fatigue is catching up with me and it's hard to get myself out moving a little.  As Juno mentioned going to the bathroom to urintate is much easier for us guys since we can stand, I'm not sure if I would want to try that if I had to sit every time.

When I left the surgical center I had all the post-operative instructions and a large bag of drugs to keep track of. That can be tough to keep track of when your head is cloudy from the pain meds. It absolutely nessecary to have a good helper with you. We have a three year old son and there is no way my wife could have helped me and kept track of him. I had a good friend come with me instead and fortunately he was able to track all the drugs and doses. Also as part of the outpatient program I have to measure my urine output for the first two days post-op. This is very important and they said if I didn't have any urine output for 12 hours I needed to go to the ER. Fortunately I've been drinking lots of water and I'm good in that department. Unfortunately like many out here have shared, I'm still waiting on my bowls to wake up again. Hopefully lots of water and fiber will help that soon. I have my precious raised toilet seat waiting for me. LOL I really felt old ordering that thing on amazon a few weeks ago. Another accessory I would recommend in one of those suction cup hand holds for the shower. It just sticks to the smooth surface of the shower and is a great help here at home and even in the hotel. If you do the outpatient option I would definitely recommend it. My wife picked one up at Lowes for $15 and I am very glad to have it. You just want to be sure it is securely fastened before you put any weight on it.

Anyway, here I am at home about 36 hours post-op hoping I'll feel better soon and be able to run and play with my son soon. Any advise or experience some of you veteran hippies can share with me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all the support and advise. I'm constantly hoping that Lee Webb is right with her optimism about this device.

[oldsoccerplayer]

Hi there,
the fact that you have some urine to measure means to me that your bladder has woken up. With me there was nothing to measure so if I had done the outpatient thing I'd have ended up in the ER.
For the meds I wrote either an "M" or an "N" on each of the bottles so I'd know which were Morning pills and which were Night. Are you icing? You don't mention that but if you aren't you definitely need to. That will help with pain and swelling. I think it was about 5 days post-op when my leg puffed up, which is scary even though the handout says to expect it. After that it turned all shades of red blue and purple all the way down to my ankle but (in my case, at least) wasn't painful.
I didn't even try to stand up in the shower for 2 or 3 weeks, I sat on a plastic chair and got help getting in and out for fear of slipping on a wet and soapy surface. For sleeping, I propped my leg up on a couple of pillows; keeping it elevated as much as possible should also help.
I think you're right about the pain. Once the anesthetic wears off it's more likely to hurt so take the pain meds as often as is allowed for at least the first week. After that maybe try to go without and see what happens but definitely take one at bedtime or when you start feeling it.
Easy for me to say with hindsight but it's important not to stress over things. Like other hippies report, I was worried about all sorts of things, most of which are now behind me, though I'd say I'm still a way off from a full recovery.
Keep us posted.

[bosoxgordon]

I am using the polar care ice machine. Seems like I'm having a hard time staying ahead of the pain tonight. I'm a little paranoid about over dosing but I may have to go with the max recommended tonight. The pain meds seem to give me the shivers and it causes some light spasms in my operative leg. Trying to find a comfortable position is tough. My eyes are heavy from the pain pills so I may try to get some shut eye. I have to admit I'm a bit surprised at how difficult the recovery is. Of course I'm only one day out from the surgery.  I'm looking forward to the upward trend starting. I've been trying to move around more but maybe it's best for me to lay low tonight and just elevate and ice.

[whyme]

Hi Scott,
It's very early days yet!
For me there was an increase in discomfort after the first couple of days, I think it's for a couple of reasons. First, anesthesia wears off and stronger meds (directly going to your blood stream) work better than pills. Second, you start moving (walking, sitting, early mobility exercises), and this upsets the incision and all the tissues that have been cut and twisted. But is good!
Yes, getting in and out of bed is tricky, for a few days I needed help to raise the leg into bed, I couldn't do it with the other leg holding and pushing underneath. And any little unexpected twist could cause some pain. Even when I was able to do it by myself, you need to move slowly and controlled for a good few weeks.
Swelling bumped up after 6 days (and it lasted for a couple of days) so don't be surprised if it happens to you. The activity brings it up at first, but eventually is what it brings it down.
My bowels weren't moving at all, and after 5 days the visiting nurse finally gave me some laxatives, it wasn't pretty but it worked. I hope you don't need that.
Regarding urine, I couldn't do it and they inserted the dreaded catheter after 12h...
Sleeping wasn't easy, and as others I had spasms down the leg 2 or 3 times every night (this lasted until 6 or 8 weeks post surgery, but the first few days are the worse as you're much more sensitive, later it doesn't bother that much).
I had daily naps for the first 3 weeks or so, this made up for the bad sleep at night.
For a while the best way to rest and reduce swelling is to lie down in bed with the leg elevated (use a couple of pillows or cushions), as sitting down is uncomfortable after a few minutes. This seemed to work better for me than ice sometimes.
So you do your walks etc, and then if you feel sore (normal) rest in bed for up to 1h or so and it gets better. Then you're ready to do a bit more, sit for a while, another walk, sit or lie down, ...

Try focusing on the improvements made from the previous days, rather than dwelling on how much is left...

[hernanu]

Hi Scott,

For getting in and out of the bed. Here's something that worked for me very well (I live alone).

To get in bed:

Sit at the bed, making sure you're almost to your knees at the edge. Tuck your unoperated leg's ankle behind your operated leg. Use that leg to raise the other leg as you pivot onto the bed.

To get out of the bed:

Reverse. Tuck the unoperated ankle behind the operated as you're lying flat. Sit up and pivot, use the unoperated for support as you bring your leg to the floor.

Ta da!!!    ::)

[chuckm]

Scott, early on with all the meds I kept a small journal (on a note page on my iphone) and recorded every time I took a med. I also have a timer feature on my wrist watch that I set for four hours (the interval for my pain med - Norco) that would chime when the time was up so I knew I wasn't over dosing. I still have the journal and the first week I just sat in my new recliner and was only taking a pain med in morning and one at night. By week two I doubled to 4 doses a day and I'm sure that was because I was crutching around and just being more active. Week three I was totally off all prescribed meds and just took two Ibuprofen 200mg per day. My surgeon told me to keep up one ibuprofen per day for a couple more months to help with swelling around the psoas tendon.
Chuckm

[bosoxgordon]

Well I got up and walked around a bit with the crutches and boy am I stiff and sore. The pain isn't too bad lying in bed with the ice machine going. I'm just not sure how much I should be trying to move around these first few days. Moving around definitely aggravates it and makes the pain levels pretty high. I instinctively want to get out a moving but I wonder if it would be better to just lay low until the soreness subsides. I can do my exercises in bed without too much pain.

As far as tracking my meds, Dr. Gross has a journal I'm supposed to keep track of several things. Anyone that has met Dr. Gross knows that he loves to collect data to try and improve the treatment. I think he is particularly interested in collecting data from the outpatient folks. I think he said they've done 80 of the outpatient option so far.

I can say that I think I got a better nights sleep in the hotel than I would have had in a hospital bed. Whenever I've been in a hospital there are always people coming into the room all hours of the night.

I'm also surprised in that I've been drinking lots and lots of water and I'm still urinating but it seems as thought the pain meds dehydrate me. Is that a normal reaction? I'm definitely not urinating as much as I'm drinking water.     

[keepmovin]

Hi Scott,

I'm coming in here late and spent a few moments reading through all your posts and everyone's comments and advice.  You have received excellent advice from everyone - I really have nothing more to add - everyone did such a fine job! :D
I would like to say is your deserve a surface hippy award or medal!  You are two days out of surgery, already home, and dealing with issues we left up to the nursing staff, in the hospital to deal with!  Wow! Sounds like you are doing great though and rest assured, all your frustrations and concerns are completely normal and will behind you soon enough!
The stiffness and soreness is typical early on.  You are resting more than moving around but it is important to get up and walk to get things moving for a few minutes a couple times a day gradually increases that each day.   
Do you have home physical therapy assigned to you?  I found it very helpful especially for your first time around.   Use your pain meds as needed, but I think you will feel a lot better, more in control, once you can wean yourself off of them.  They’re definitely dehydrating and also increase constipation.  I found I couldn’t drink enough water when I was on them.
Be patient with your healing.  Some heal quickly, others a bit slower, it will not help to try to rush it along.  This will only slow things up in the end.  Find you’re your pace and work with that.  Before you know it, you’ll be running around and playing with your son before you know it! 

[Miguelito]

Hi Scott,

I really don't have any advice on the moving around versus not. For me, personally, only moving the bare minimum was the way to go, but different strokes. I was just a lump for that first week. And my leg was just a log for a solid week. Not sure what good too much walking around would have been. I'm sure a little is good (blood clots, etc.) but you can definitely overdo, plus you really don't want to fall. I'm of the opinion that they really wrench things around while you are under, and while the scar is small, there is a massive amount of muscular trauma and that just takes time to heal itself.

I did want to comment on Providence Hospital. While I had a couple of issues with them (for one, my catheter was kinked, I had to pee like a racehorse and the nurses never noticed, then they let it fill up and didn't empty it so I again had to pee like a racehorse) That being said, I distinctly recall the opposite experience of what you feared about being woken up at night. It's a new hospital with spacious, solo rooms, so you don't get the overcrowding you do with a Boston hospital; so, you don't get woken when they come to check on your roommate, you don't hear them rattling around outside your door (which at this hospital is much farther away than it would be in Boston). Moreover, I'm not sure they bugged me at all over night. They might have, but I suspect that Dr. Gross knows that hip surgery is not heart surgery and what patients need post-surgery is rest. They handle so many of his patients there that they know that is what he wants and so that is what they provide.   

Hang in there, this is the hard part.

Mike

[Miguelito]

Scott,

Missed a few of your posts, sorry. Want to comment on the one about the meds and recovery being a little harder than you anticipated.

My first week post-surgery was very, very tough. It was just about getting through, nothing else. My leg was a log. I am sure I took the "maximum" meds recommended. Probably all otherwise-healthy people should that first week. I did get the night-sweats post-surgery, probably from the medicine, and that sucked. I know that other people have had an easier first week than I did (and many others have had far worse), but whenever I read on here about how easy things were for some people immediately post-surgery I try to balance that out with my experience, which I think is more the norm. I also think people's minds are wired to not remember very physically painful experiences. You forget how much it sucks immediately after surgery.

Completely anecdotally, I also believe that males (younger males) who have alot of muscle to slice and dice have a rougher time post-surgery. It just makes sense to me that the more muscle to cut through and to wrench a femur through, the more trauma. I base that anecdotally on my own experiences: My hernia surgery when I was 28 and thought I was a big tough guy really laid me low for 4-5 days; my older aunt and mother who had hip replacements both seemed to have a lot less problems in the first days after surgery than I did.

All that said I hope you are one of those lucky folks who heal really quick. But don't get discouraged if you are not. There are probably going to be (minor) setbacks. If I remember aright (don't quote me on this as my posts are out there somewhere for fact check purposes) I felt worse at a month as I did at two weeks. But I felt great at those two weeks.

But this first week should just be about getting by. Do whatever you have to to make it easy on yourself and don't hold yourself to any standard.

Mike

[oldsoccerplayer]

Most of my memories from Providence Hospital aren't my own - they're what my wife told me after we got back that I'd either forgotten or was too drugged at the time to remember. My favorite was that a nurse came to check on me around 4am and asked if I wanted anything. I told her I'd like some ice cream - and a few minutes later she came back with one.
I don't remember being constantly woken up during the night, but my wife does.  :(
It did peeve my that after a few weeks they kept sending me letters asking for a donation when the charge for my stay there was more than my entire net worth.

[bosoxgordon]

To be honest the outpatient option was the only part I was a little concerned with. However, with my insurance I have to pay 5% of the total costs. Well a stay in the hospital would be at least twice the cost of the surgery center. I heard nothing but good things about Providence hospital and I'm sure they do an outstanding job. However, the financial part was a factor for me. The other big factors were that Dr. Gross reccomened it for me. He said a hospital is often not the best place for a healthy person to be. I talked with him at length about that and I also talked with Lee Webb (Dr. Gross' assistant) about the outpatient option and they said they have had very good results. Of course they have stricter criteria for the outpatient folks. I think Dr. Gross is also committed to keeping the costs down for his patients. I was one of three that did the outpatient option and all went very well. I have to admit the thought of being taking care of in a nice hospital like providence sounds nice but I was willing to go with Dr. Gross' recommendation while also saving me some money.

On another note, I also have the "log leg" thing going on. It seems to be slowly getting better but I still struggle with afew things. I think I'm gonna just lay low for most of this day to give my body a chance to recuperate.

[lgbran]

D day becomes a dim memory,
Isn't it great Scott, had my surgery on the 11th and such a great relief. All the best with your progress

[obxpelican]

One thing about providence, you will never get lost in that hospital and if you are a Dr. Gross patient it usually goes like clockwork.


Chuck

[tennisgirl]

Hi Scott,

I used a strap to move my operated leg until it became stronger.  Another suggestion:  The Polar Care machine is an ice consuming beast!  I froze little bottled waters instead of loose ice and was able to reuse them for weeks.

Mindi

[bosoxgordon]

Has anyone gotten a fever shortly after surgery? Tonight I felt like I had a fever so I checked it. It's 101.4. The instructions the doctor gave me said to call if the temp gets above 102. They also mentioned the breathing apparatus they gave me and to practice my deep breathing with it. It mentions that if I don't do that it could cause a fever. I've not been as good as I should have been with the deep breathing. I'm not too concerned. The incision seems fine and there is no drainage or unusual pain. I saw someone mention that after surgery it is common to get a fever. Just wondering if anyone has experience with this. If it doesn't get better by morning I will probably give the doctor a call.

[Granton]

Hi Scott,

Yes, I was feverish for about three days from about four days after surgery. Didn't check my temperature but bedclothes and pyjamas were soaked in sweat. Lasted, maybe three days.

What is it, effect from anaesthetic?

David

[obxpelican]

It's very common to have night sweats, watch that temp though, any sign of infection needs to be treated quickly.

Keep in mind, this time of the year there are many viruses hanging out in hospitals so you may just have caught something.


Chuck

Has anyone gotten a fever shortly after surgery? Tonight I felt like I had a fever so I checked it. It's 101.4. The instructions the doctor gave me said to call if the temp gets above 102. They also mentioned the breathing apparatus they gave me and to practice my deep breathing with it. It mentions that if I don't do that it could cause a fever. I've not been as good as I should have been with the deep breathing. I'm not too concerned. The incision seems fine and there is no drainage or unusual pain. I saw someone mention that after surgery it is common to get a fever. Just wondering if anyone has experience with this. If it doesn't get better by morning I will probably give the doctor a call.