New Hip #2... bidding adieu to the pain UPDATE

[Dan L]

Rob;

Holy sh*t, glad to hear you're back in your body, at least it was a "consistent" process  :).  Really strange stuff how different people react so differently.  The timing and duration are really odd to say the least.

Seriously, hopes for better and smoother things ahead.  It's all down hill now, and you're an old pro.

Best regards,

dan

[hernanu]

Damn, Rob - not something you want to re-do, but I'm glad it's over. I wish you clear sailing the rest of the way.

[Dee Dee]

Wow Rob,

You had a rollercoaster ride.  Makes my "don't over do" experience seem mild.  I cant imagine your out of body feelings and high fever.  I know my fainting was really scary.  I could feel myself slowly going out and it really was awful.  I am finally feeling better and the swelling is going down, but that thigh muscle is screaming at me.  Like you, I keep trying to massage it but it is soooo tender after the episode.  It was fine before the cramping pain episode. 

Our bodies are so wonderfully made.  I am just thankful that we have the technology to get new parts to help us keep our active lives when the old parts wear out. 

Keep on recovering. We are about the same time frame.  I moved to one crutch today (day 9)

Dee

[Tin Soldier]

Did your hands feel like two balloons?  That's crazy high, that's the kind of thing children have.  We probably all had a high fever when were young but not as an adult.  I remember hallucinating about my bed spread bubbling up out of the kitchen sink when I was 6 or so.  Bizzarre.  Glad you got that worked out.  Must have been pretty scary.

Pritchett might have mentioned this to you, but there is a reaction one can have to bone particles that get in the bloodstream from the surgery.  I think the team is pretty darn careful about keeping the bits and pieces out of the surgery site when grinding and such, anyway, fever a few days later is one of the side affects from this reaction.  I think I read about it somewhere also, as if its pretty common, maybe more common with THR.  I don't think a high fever is common though. 

[Baby Barista]

Hey Tin,

He did mention that as one of the possibilities. And it could be that is something I'm especially sensitive to. But now, 24 hours after it all began I feel great! I got out and walked 3/4's of a mile today and I'm ditching all the narcotics. In terms of pain and recovery, I'm way ahead of where I was on the left side.

Back to the whole hallucinating high fever thing.... it really was crazy. The best way I can explain what I was feeling was this: looking out at my room, it felt like I was just a set of eyeballs in the corner staring out. And I had no sense of depth or space. So the rational part of my brain was saying I need to get up. But the whacked part of my head couldn't figure out how to do that... how to travel the vast space between me and the door, or how long that would take. I even remember counting how many flat surfaces I saw (floor, ceiling, walls) to see if that could help me figure out how to navigate my way out of the room.

Even as I write this, it doesn't make sense or do justice to what I actually felt. Maybe this is why I've steered clear of drugs my whole life. I'd go crazy taking a hallucinogen!!

[phillwad]

Congrats - looks like recovery is picking up speed - yes walking faster!!!

[fenceman]

Funny Tin, "You are receding".   "Slight fever, 106"?

I hope Robb & Dee Dee are both done with the tough parts of the recovery.  Hope the rest goes smoothly with a quick recovery. 

[Baby Barista]

ONE WEEK UPDATE:

Hard to believe it's already been a week since Dr. Pritchett installed BHR #2. I won't rehash what I've already posted, but I will tell you where I'm at right how.

After a few pretty good days, I'm really sore today. And best I can figure, it has something to do with a big reduction in swelling. Yesterday evening, I knew something was afoot when I started urinating every 15 minutes. And I don't mean a little trickle... but a full bladder emptying. And this went on for a good 3 1/2 hours.

I measured with a tape and my thigh decreased 3 inches in circumference, in less than a day. But now, from my incision to my knee, the muscle/IT band hurts like a mo-fo. So just when I thought I could start ditching the narco meds, I'm back on them. I suppose there should be little about this that is surprising to me. I guess I was just hoping this time around would be a little easier. But I guess nothing good ever is, right?

[hernanu]

You'll get there Rob.

Your body is like Reed Richard's right now (not Keith Richard's), and is distending and contracting all over the freakin' place. It is worth it, but can exact a price as you get back to where you ought to be.

At least you know there's good circulation and your kidneys are in FINE shape  :o, keep it up, buddy - this too shall pass...  ;D

[Tin Soldier]

Ice, Ice, and more ice. 

Scary about the fever.  You must be glad that's over with. 

[imgetinold]

Late to the "party" here.

1)  Waking up during hammering?  I think you and I might have a different definition of "cool".  You sure handled it swimmingly.

2)  Sorry about the fever trip.  Definitely stay away from mushrooms (or so I hear).

3)  Excited that you're having a much better early recovery.

Keep posting!

[Dan L]

Rob,

Good to hear the progress, the offboarding of the fluid in one day is remarkable.  Hopefully you will get through this stage quickly.

I found myself peeing rivers for more than a week the first time, urgent, middle of the night crutching to the bathroom in a hurry, as the swelling subsided.  Second time was far less of that.

I do not like the narcs either, but important to not be in pain at this stage, because that will delay healing, sleep, etc, although I did find the narcs disrupted sleep after a few days as well.  I did ice continuously from morning till night which helped alot with that band type pain.

Dan

[Dan L]

Tin,

Thx for the Floyd reference, they has significance for my 1st bhr; could not sleep in the hospital, jumped on the wireless in the hospital and downloaded Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and drifted off to that and later Van Morrison's version of Comfortably Numb from the Departed soundtrack.  It seemed to help, probably some sort of 70's flashback to quadraphonic therapy in a Pacer with a really nice sound system...

Dan

[Tin Soldier]

70's flashback to quadraphonic therapy in a Pacer with a really nice sound system...

Sweet!  I just always think of that quote when people talk about high fever.  I think I actually had that weird feeling of detachment when I was a kid, it's all a distant memory and a little fuzzy around the edges. 

back to the topic at hand, I hope BB is getting along better now. 

[rbt2011]

Glad to see you are doing better.  That's one crazy story about the hammering and then the hallucination.  You'll be laughing about it before you know it.  Best wishes for a more boring recovery from here on.

[Baby Barista]

A few random bits and pieces:

I'm now 11 days out from surgery and doing pretty well. I have a far greater range of motion this time around. I'm already frequently using just one crutch to get around. Yesterday, Dr. Pritchett took out the stitches and took X-rays. Everything looks great.

He did tell me a bit more about trying to seat my acetabular component. He said my bone density is so high, he couldn't get the anti-rotational fins to engage. They just kept popping out. So they kept rotating the component until they found a spot where the bone was soft enough to allow those fins to dig in. Since they spent so much time hammering, that's likely what woke me up.

Interestingly, I shot off a picture of my X-rays to a friend with engineering computer software to measure my component placement. My first implant, the left, has an inclination angle of 37.47 degrees. The second, my right, is 37.59. I couldn't freaking believe it! Dr. Pritchett is a fantastic surgeon, but there was obvious luck involved as well.

There were a couple of interesting things to come out of my conversation with Dr. Pritchett. As I mentioned, the weekend before my surgery, he attended a hip resurfacing conference with Dr. McMinn and many of the other top surgeons. He said one of the big topics was metal ion testing. Dr. Pritchett says more and more doctors are becoming averse to such tests. He says as a growing number of patients insist on getting the tests, surgeons are increasingly seeing just how poor of a diagnostic tool they are. Even within the same lab, blood tested my different lab personnel can come back with wildly different results. Furthermore, a few patients of Dr. Pritchett's who've insisted on tests and they come back at the higher end, have then wanted MRIs.... and they have all come back problem free. Likely to be a debate that continues for quite a while.

Also, Dr. Pritchett recently called NY Times writer Barry Meier to directly voice his concerns about his biased reporting. Dr. Pritchett says Meier basically admitted to him that the metal-on-metal panic stories, draw a great number of readers to the NYT website. And that he's flooded with hundreds of emails from happy HSR patients every time he writes a new article.

As a fellow journalist, this sickens me. I've always gone after the truth in any story I've ever reported. And many times, the truth I've found, is not the truth I expected to find. That's what makes the job so exhilarating and fun. I think most journalists would agree. But sadly, the few rotten apples spoil the whole bunch... which, coincidentally, is exactly what Meier has done in his reporting of MOM prosthetics. He's writing about a few bad apples and letting them spoil the whole bunch.

[hernanu]

All good news, Rob. I'm glad you're over the hump and progressing so well.

Very interesting about Meier; I just don't think you can compare him to real journalists. The difference is their goals and ethics, not their training. If he writes something that is knowingly biased for profit's purpose, he metamorphosizes from a journalist to a marketing shill for his paper. Journalist no longer.

[Woodstock Hippy]

That's all great news ,BB.  Soon it will,all be behind you and you'll be enjoying life pain free.

I'm at 13 months and I think my left has finally caught up to my right. Both feel all good.

[Tin Soldier]

Very cool stuff - BB.  Measuring angles is sort of fun.  If I recall the software that Roman (Dr. P's radiologist) put on the disk of the images, has an angle-making software.  I couldn't figure out how to use it.  Maybe I had the free version with reduced functionality (love that word).

Cool that Dr. P contacted Barry.  That's awesome.  I think maybe the winds are changing.  Kinda seems lately that the surgeons are standing up to the negative press.  Although, still surprised S&N, Cormet, Wright, Finsbury aren't doing more press releases about how great HR is.

BTW - speaking of Barry, and bad apples, I guess I have to commend him for being truthful with Dr. P about the fact that metallosis sells and that's why he extends the truth and embellishes. 

Interesting deal about the metals analysis having varying results.  I believe the analysis is the same type of analysis I'm familiar with when we test metals in soil and groundwater, (ICP - mass spectrometry) and I don't usually see much difference in the lab results of a duplicate sample (same sample, just analyzed twice to assess lab process).  Although the samples of blood and serum may have a different digestion process or something that adds variability.  Don't know,  Also, I think folks need to understand that the low levels we are talking about are sometimes at the lower end of detection limit and thus some of the accuracy is lost.  Anyway, it's all very interesting.  Looking forward to learning more about the metals analysis in blood and seeing how that tool develops.   

Good job on recovery.

[Pat Walter]

Glad you are doing well.

Very interesting about Meir.  It is amazing what a few can do to influence a whole lot of people.  Too bad.

Good Luck and keep up the healing.  Take it easy.

Pat