Today, I am 10 days post-op from my left hip resurfacing and feeling really great! (Although I still need my afternoon naps
.) I have ditched the cane walking around the house - it seems a little early, but I keep forgetting to grab it and can walk just fine without it. I do still take it for my twice daily walks outside. I think it would be difficult for anyone who has not been in this situation to quite understand how wonderful it feels to be able to walk without hip pain! The soreness from the surgery is very minor at this point, compared to the joint pain I had before.
Here are some differences I have noted about my two surgeries:
I had virtually no pain after the surgery on my right hip - the left one was much more painful immediately afterwards, but that did not last long, and it's fine now.
I never had a problem lifting my right leg up to get into bed - I had to use the leg lifter contraption for my left one for a couple of days.
My right hip was quite swollen for at least 3 weeks post-surgery - the left one was swollen for only about 1 week and I can actually get into my tight jeans at this point.
After the first surgery, I had a huge bruise on my calf just below the knee on the operated leg - no such bruising on my left leg.
I don't think I was able to get rid of the cane this quickly the first time. Don't know if it was because I was more afraid then to put all my weight on the operated leg, and that I'm more confident with the second one? The left leg feels quite strong and very stable at this point. Or maybe the fact that the left hip was still in bad shape when I was recovering from the first surgery.
What I find interesting about this is that I had the same surgeon, surgical approach and hospital both times. Even so, the experience was a little different for each surgery, some things were better and some worse with each one (although the "worse"s were minor), but I can tell already that the outcome for both will be the same (unless I do something stupid to mess things up, which I will try to avoid).
One of the great things about this site is that there are so many people contributing, who had their surgeries performed by many different doctors with different approaches, post-surgery protocols, etc., and we get to hear about and learn from their experiences. And in the vast majority of cases, the outcome is great in spite of those differences!