I go in to see Dr. Hickman for my three week post op check-up. Mainly, I want to see the x rays. I am pretty excited to see his handy work. I have posted several times regarding, in my opinion, the excellent work he and his team did with the 10 inch scar. Three weeks at this point and still no need for pain meds, basically my ranch of motion is much improved from pre surgery status. I come of blood thinners this Saturday and am thankful I am reaching that milestone. No problems with the thinners, it just I am glad to move beyond a critical point. My stamina continues to improve daily! As indicated in previous posts, I can't emphasize enough the need for presurgery conditioning. I am quite certain my speedy recovery and lack of pain is due in part to the conditioning. Today, I rode the stationary bike one hour at moderate resistance, did upper body weight training consisting of 2 sets of 10 reps per machine, and walked 5 miles crutch assisted in less than 2 hours. I am now at home resting after icing for 45 minutes. Virtually no swelling! Keep in mind that my work outs prior to surgery averaged 2 hours a day and on weekends I did bike rides of up to 5 hours. I write this for the main purpose of letting people who are on the fence to prepare for the surgery and not to be afraid of enjoying the recovery process. I remind myself to listen to my body for signs of over doing. For example, I am sleeping well, eating and hydrating well, and lastly checking on the fatigue factor. My blood pressure has been in the 116/75 range, my oxygen is at 97% and my resting pulse is 58. All of these indicate that the body is handling what I am doing well. Everyone recovers at different rates and I would not encourage people to compare, but I can tell you that with a good medical team, a positive attitude, and hard work prior to and after surgery, you can enjoy the recovery.
I use to hate walking, mainly because of lower back pain, but now I have no stiffness or pain when I walk. My prior hip life was to run (before I had to stop a year and a half ago) only because I could get the run in between an hour to two hours and then take anti inflammatory's to get through the rest of the day. Now, I feel like I can walk for ever at this point and I am enjoying the opportunity to see the outdoors at a nice pace. The colors in the Utah mountains are spectacular right now!!! We are fortunate to live at the base of several trail heads that are in the mountains. I can walk for miles on trails and never see another human. I may walk more in the future and run less. Who knows?
I have always been pretty methodical when it come to training and conditioning. I am approaching my recovery much like preparing for and endurance event. That is take the body to a new level of resistance and then back off and let it rest. For example, today was a heavy day and tomorrow I will back off with active rest. It's the same process I use to peak for marathons and etc. The trick is not to push beyond fatigue. Tomorrow, I will do 45 minutes on the bike and walk three miles, the next day 50 minutes bike and four mile walk, then on Saturday the same work out as today and Sunday a day to relax. I am having a blast working the program and as long as I am careful, I anticipate that there will be steady progress. This is stuff that gives me balance in life and I am so thankful surface hippy has been there for a lot of answers and to give me the courage to get r done. Rick
Topic: looking forward tomorrow 3 week post op check-up (Read 1772 times)
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