Hi Mike,
Wow, the similarities continue to accrue. I'm the Dr. Ball patient who had bilat 5 weeks apart 3 yrs ago. My 2nd op also had a 1 month weight bearing restriction of 25 or 35%.
Some general advice that helped:
* step on a scale to see what 25% of your weight feels like. It was more than I thought.
* I used a backpack when doddering around the house - something to keep my grabber in and carry around a book and such.
* When I was almost done w/ my month on crutches, I met a guy in some docs office in a wheelchair, and considered how much more liberating it must feel for a person in a wheelchair to graduate to crutches - it gave me a little bit better attitude about the crutches.
Some reality: As you've probably found already, 2 crutches suck compared to one. You don't have a free hand. You're much more dependent. Even getting a bowl of cereal and the paper and a cup of coffee is a major endeavor. The closest I came to crying was when I wanted to read the paper one morning and decided I'd get it all by myself. I put on my backpack, stuffed in my grabber, got my crutches, and went out to get the paper. It's laying there on the ground, so I get out my grabber, and it's like one of those arcade games where the toy keeps slipping out (they wrap papers in a plastic bag in my area). I finally get a good purchase on it and get it sooo close to where I can grab it with my other hand, when the paper slips out of the bag and onto the ground and separates into its various sections. I just turned around and went back in.
Some encouragement:
* You're still healing at the same rate, even though you aren't using your new hip joint as much. After a month, when the restrictions are lifted, you'll quickly catch up to where you would have been.
* With the passing of 3 yrs for me, that one month is just a blip. It's a tough month, but it's not all that long a time period.
* I've mentioned how happy I am with results. For relatively short term results during the first year after surgery, you might want to read my "hip story" (on Pat's main site, under Dr. Ball patients). Longer term, in the past year, I've hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, play mens league hockey, completed the 110 mile Tour de Tucson bicyle race/event, and am planning a week-long bike tour this summer.
Good luck (and keep those poor wheelchair people in mind),
-Dirk