January 16, 2012 39 year old Male, Married, 1 son-16 months, Having BiLat BHR with Dr Philip Schmitt…drove 2 1/2 hrs from Kalamazoo, MI to Novi which is 20 minutes from the hospital…scheduled for tomorrow…noon. Got to the hotel this evening, hit Bonefish for one last meal…before midnight. Now..about to hit the hot tub and try not to think about the fact that I going to be put under for the first time ever and then incised, dislocated,apple-peeled, drilled, hammered…ALL x 2…but all at once so I am thankful for that.

January 19, 2012 Well, it has been almost 48 hours since my surgical journey started…and what a 48 hrs it’s been. For those of you who have been through it…which I imagine is most, on some level, I will try to avoid the too detailed blow-by blow.

I arrived at 10am and was immediately wished into the pre surgical area. I got IV’ed and sedated…then on to the surgery… The last thing I remember before the surgery is the attractive nurse holding me around the neck like we were slow dancing.

THE SURGERY I woke up to people talking around me but not not being able to respond. You know…the FOG.

I got up to my suite where me and Mrs Fuzzy are staying…a friend came to visit and say hey…much too early…I was still coming in and out and fell asleep and woke back up again in the 20 minutes he was here…by the way, he brought me Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies…COME ON MAN!!

The next morning I got breakfast and then the PT started…they got me up and out of bed into a chair, then later on up and out of my room with my walker to the hallway and back…which took about 15 minutes…baby steps.

While in bed I have been giving myself, what I am calling the Walt Disney Treatment. Constantly packed in ice around the surgical area. VERY SWOLLEN. Before AND After I have received comments on my bravery for doing BiLateral…which made me wonder at first, if I should…too late now…but as I said before I would rather go thru this…and put my family thru this ONCE.

The nurses here at Huron Valley Sinai have been great for the most part…hospital stays in general are just interruption after interruption…Take your vitals, draw your blood, are you ok?…I need more ice, vitals pills, new IV bag…blah blah. I have been trying to get up and out on my own. My little loop to the hallway floor is already a lot quicker.

DAY 2 Turns out though when you do bilateral BHR, you lose a fair amount of blood. BP was low, pulse was high. My Hemoglobin has been ridin’ low with slight temp so they finally decided to give me 2 units of blood. I just finished unit 1 and feel better already. I decided to do PT in between ’cause I wanna get outta here…and I can’t really do anything really with the 4 hr infusion so It’ will be good TV, Movie Blogging time for me and the Mrs.

Thank you all so much for checkin in on me. How do I feel? Good…the top of my right incision stings A LOT when I “walk”…but other than that we( me, the nurse (John is Very Cool and Mrs Fuzzy)) are staying ahead of the pain.

January 20, 2012  Day 3..Discharged. Well after some INCREDIBLE swelling last night, I was released to race the reported weather home. I let my ice pack lapse and so both my thighs, which were already swollen from the surgery got really swollen with no ice…needless to say my incisions were killing me. At 3 am I called the nurse in for ice and hit my Pain Control button every 8 mins as soon as I heard it reload..on top of some Norco and Toradol in my IV…that got my pain under control. Then I reloaded up on ice..Walt Disney’s got nothing me…When we finally got up, it was ALL about getting the heck out of there…Drive back to KZOO toward the impending weather.

Everything went super smooth. Mike, Dr Schmitt’s PA was in my room at 8 sharp. Transport came to take me to my last PT/OT session with Lisa and Chris and then back to the room for Breakfast while Mrs Fuzzy Packed. We were out and on the road by 11am and that is where we are now as I speak…type. Here is is my first Bilat Schmitty Hippie Photo…time to get my life back. WOOO HOOOO!!!

January 22, 2012 Well today is my second day waking up in my own bed. It has not been easy. I am now starting to realize why I got the “going off to war”-like comments from all the nurses and PT Techs at the hospital…”you’re doing both hips?!…YOU ARE SO BRAVE!”…”Hey John!…THIS GUY GOT BOTH HIPS DONE! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS GUY?!” I obviously missed the pursed-lipped “poor bastard” looks afterward as I was being rolled toward the OR.

As much as they try to prepare you for being home, nothing can…unless you can afford to bring a couple of them home with you. I tried so hard not to cheat during PT and do all the little exercises..not grabbing the trapeze AND make the bed flat before trying to get out on your own(because who really owns a Craftmatic Adjustable)…but after being home I should’ve just kept the wool over my eyes. Seems as if it would be just as hard…and when I say hard, I mean almost disheartening.

Let’s see, where to start…eliminations…0 to RIGHT NOW!..this is not commensurate with wriggling forward and slowly getting up out of the chair, opening the walker, walkering it to my master bath…by the time I get there I am lucky if I haven’t dribbled a bit…AND every pee is like Niagara Falls…this also happens in the middle of the night when I am much closer to the bathroom but now I have to swing and/or hoist my almost muscularly-dead, but painfully alive legs to the edge of the bed, grab the walker in the dark and “quick-walker” it to the commode…after one night of that…Mrs Fuzzy got me a Urinal like in the hospital…SO MUCH EASIER..I’ll leave it at that.

MRS FUZZY WORSHIP BREAK…THIS WOMAN LOVES ME LIKE A FAT KID LOVES CAKE!!

So getting out of bed is hard. I’m a fairly strong guy but lifting my upper body up with no leg assistance is friggin HARD!…on top of the muscle and incision pain. The first night, I think the absence of SEVERAL pain meds in my system lead to some bad dreams…in which I was running from SOMETHING…and I kicked both my legs for real which woke me up immediately in agonizing muscular and Incision pain…go ahead and laugh…I admit it was funny later…don’t forget that Mrs Fuzzy is laying next to all this…worried. Yesterday when I finally got out of bed and into my Recovery Pod(Hospital Grade Recliner Chair..Courtesy of Stryker Medical..Mrs Fuzzy’s Employer) it had been about 40 minutes. Ice on and off all day…down my pants all around my thighs…try to take some ice bags from the hospital if you can..then stop by the store and pick up 2 22LB bags of ice. We put ours in our winter fridge…Outside.

My 17 month old son runs around touching everything and wonders why daddy can’t get on the floor with him or why he can’t play with the pull-switch on the chair. He loves when I poke at him with my little grabby thingie though so we try have fun with it.

FUNNY MOMENT LAST NIGHT The moth flies and flits around the room…My Mom takes 2 clap shots but misses…The moths’ evasive maneuvers bring it into my crosshairs in my chair…I take the shot…I grazed some dust off of it…forcing its emergency descent and landing onto my very sore post-op right thigh..SLAP..I GOT HIM!…I WON!…but did I? OWWWWWWWW!!  Sorry but that’s how it went down…followed by a fit of tearful, gut-busting family laughter.

TODAY This morning after a “better” night’s sleep I decided I should take a shower. We have a walk-in stall so that’s a plus…no room for a high bench or anything so it is good I can stand full-weight bearing, and am able to turn in a circle and grab what I need. I was told to wash as normal, avoiding my new friends…I want to name my scars so badly but I got nothin good…I’ll experiment…Tango & Cash. I was told to let the soapy water just run over them and not allow any direct shower contact. Fine but if I get a cut on my finger, I at least use some peroxide or bacitracin…these are healing INCISIONS…and I am not to apply anything for 2 weeks?…seems illogical to me.

BTW The shower in the hospital SUCKED…and I am working on a strongly-worded letter to the person responsible for the beautiful new wing at Huron Valley Sinai…I’ve never been chinese water tortured…for real…but the shower there is what I imagine it is like. So having MY shower was AWESOME but amazingly tiring! I got out, dried off, and for the first time felt really faint…I had to sit down.

SERIOUS CONCERNS My thighs are still swollen…as a man should I say Thighs or Quads? Swelling doesn’t really concern me at this point but lateral to Tango & Cash they are NUMB..very numb…I could leave the ice on there for hours and not feel it. I can bend my left leg to more than 45 degs at the knee (Tango’s Side – 15cm long) but I can barely bend my right leg to 30 degs(Cash’s Side 17.5 cm long…more aggressive resurfacing needed)..the muscle is soooo tight and the incision stings..the muscle feels warm but not “infection” hot…no discoloration or discharge(puss) from Tango or Cash…I am clearly going to have to dial back my expectations…I’ve read a few of your set back Posts due to over doing it too soon so I will honor those people by using them as a cautionary tale.

So Now I am back in my Recovery Pod…Fed ,medicated, Arixtra in, rotating ice bags in my pants, waiting for my Patriot’s to come on. Fuzzy Jr just went down for a nap…finally!…time to love on Mrs Fuzzy for a few…cause I can see clearly now, that this is going to be a long road…for the both of us. I welcome any feedback and thanks for your continued support and encouragement.