This 51-year-old, male, RBHR hippy is now repaired and freed from
the right hip OA that had been the monkey on my back for the past 5
years in the form of pain, limping, and decreased ROM. Being from
Rochester, MN, the most common question I get is “why would you want
to go over to Madison, WI, for your resurfacing surgery, when you
have the Mayo clinic in your back-yard?” The answer, simply put, is
John Rogerson and the Capitol Lakes rehab facility. I described my
experience at Mayo Clinic in another post on this site, so I won’t
go into that again. It’s sufficient to say that upon my initial
visit to Dr. Rogerson’s office last October, I knew this was the
procedure, the device, and the surgeon for me. Here is my surgery
experience story.

I arrived in Madison on Wednesday for the pre-surgery visit at Dr.
Rogerson’s office, with the surgery scheduled for the next morning.
With us traveling from Rochester, MN, they were happy to schedule
the orientation visits on the day before surgery. allowing my wife
and I to consolidate it all in one trip. Freshly baked cookies were
on a tray in the waiting area, and the receptionist June offered us
some piping hot coffee. Dr. Rogerson’s daughter Joanna, one of the
P.A.s at his office, went over every aspect of what to expect the
next day and the ensuing recovery days. Towards the end of the
visit, Dr. Rogerson stepped in to say hello, meet my wife, and
answer any final questions I had. Then we were off downtown to find
Capitol Lakes rehab facility. After a quick tour of the building, we
were greeted by Desiree, the main PT therapist, for our initial
meeting and crutch fitting. There was a plethora of tips, timelines,
restrictions, and techniques thrown at us in this half hour meeting,
so much so that I just couldn’t take it all in after a certain
point. No matter, I knew we would go over these things many times in
the ensuing days. The rehab facility, basically a 15 story retiree
assisted living community building, is only a few blocks from
Meriter hospital where the surgeries take place. The room is a small
studio apartment, with one bedroom and one living area with a
sleeper sofa, a kitchenette with an upright bar table, and a
bathroom with a walk-in shower. If you’re a 6-foot man like myself,
be prepared to be slightly uncomfortable in the small chairs and
sofa as you cannot really sprawl out the way you would at home, but
it’s still not bad. You’ll be spending most of your down time in the
bed most likely anyhow for the first day after leaving the hospital
to get some rest finally.

We took a quick ride over to the Wal
Mart on the belt-line highway a couple of miles south of the
downtown area, to buy some groceries. Being from the midwest, I
found this Wally World a bit unique since it’s the type with a
parking ramp below the main store, and we were at first confused by
the missing “sea of concrete” parking lot and main external
entrance. It was a hoot watching our full cart ride down to the
escalator beside us back to the parking ramp. We planned for small
breakfasts, quick lunches, and efficient, easy dinners, which has
proven to be prudent planning with all the PT sessions and visits
from OT’s throughout our stay, and the numerous naps I have taken.
After a great steak dinner at the Tornado Room two blocks up the
street towards the capitol building, we settled into our apartment
for the night, avoiding any further food or drink intake after
midnight.

The next morning, after showering with the anti-bacterial body
wash given to me the day before, we arrived about 2.5 hours before
surgery time at Meriter. The patient registration desk
grand-motherly lady was efficient and got us registered and up to
the proper floor for pre-op in no time. This is about when the
anxiety, the weight of the whole situation, began to set in for me.
The pre-op nurse met us in the waiting area and brought us back to a
hallway full of preparation rooms that resembled one of those zoos
that have reptile and shark viewing tanks arranged in a walking tour
fashion. Strip down please, gown on, brush your teeth with a special
liquid to kill any remaining critters in your mouth, draw some blood
for the lab, insert the I.V. etc. “What’s your birth-date for the
seventh time, please?” It wasn’t long before the anesthesiologist,
Tom, popped in to give me his speedy, yet personable overview of
what will happen, and he was right. Shortly after this, Dr. Rogerson
came in wearing his usual broad smile and blue scrubs to visit with
me, and in the remaining few minutes that I was in pre-op, he exuded
the sureness and confidence that we used to see in the live feeds
from the crew of the space shuttle missions. At about 10:30am, I
took a short gurney ride down the hallway, passing by various faces
smiling down on me with a “Clockwork Orange” kind of vibe to it, and
I was being transferred onto the operating room table. There seemed
to be about 5 dudes in there, not counting my rickshaw driver.
Renee, Dr. Rogerson’s other P.A. was there already decked out in her
blue “space” suit, arranging shiny steel things on a sterile tray.
“Don’t you guys have any tunes on in here?” I asked. One of the
assistants immediately plugged his ipod into the room speakers and
my request for some Rush music to pass out to was granted (yep, just
like back in the 70s). I think we were actually doing a sing-along
to “Limelight” when the lights went out without warning.

The next thing I remember was waking up at about 3:30pm in the
recovery room, and having a very deep, meaningful conversation with
the nurse there, the content of which I cannot even remotely
remember to save my life. Somehow, I was suddenly in a hospital room
with a TV monitor staring at me from the ceiling, and a beeping,
blinky, Rosey the robot looking thing beside my bed. The first night
in the room, I was pretty wiped out, but I didn’t experience any of
the horrible nausea, etc. that others have complained of. I was able
to, at one point, get to my feet and use the cute little plastic
urinal bottle like a man. That’s was over-achieving in my book at
that point, so I retreated to bed for the rest of the night. Having
not eaten for a good 20 hours or so, outside of the ice chips,
water, and cocktail of pills the nurses had given me, I convinced
the night crew to let me order up a cheeseburger and fries from room
service, with a few vanilla ice cream cups from the nursing food
pantry for desert. Those ice cream cups can magically keep coming if
you want them to, so keep asking for them if you’re a fan. No
strawberry, but the vanilla and chocolate seem endless. I had better
not be paying for these. The night was filled with lots of vital
checks, pain pills, buzzers and bells, and the drone of the
electronic leg compression devices, so not much sleep was to be had,
but again, I was asleep for most of the day anyhow, so the night
seemed to pass faster than I expected.

The 1st day after surgery I was able to get out of bed a couple
of times and use the crutches, slowly and tentatively at first, and
paid some visits to the restroom. This day also included my first
visit to the PT center where they have you walk a bit on the
crutches, and while lying down, the lovely Tammy started to move my
leg around in various directions to bring it back to life. Later
that evening, I was able to stroll around the hallways for a couple
of short walks to the nurses stations which made me pretty happy
with the progress I had made the first day. Better have some more
ice cream.
It was a good, restful second night which included about 4 hours of
sleep strung together somehow. The worst of it all for me was, and
still is now, the damn anti-clot TED nylon stockings. They are
tight, uncomfortable, but a necessity of life for 3 weeks they tell
me, so far.

The second day after surgery, Saturday morning, was filled with
preparation for transport back to Capitol Lakes. As the day before,
I started with a huge breakfast of eggs, toast, french toast, bacon,
yogurt, and a couple of milks and OJ. By the way, contrary to
popular belief, the hospital food at Meriter was really quite good
in my opinion, a bit inconsistent in delivery time (anywhere from 5
minutes to 50 minutes), but quality and portion sizes were not
issues at all. You can linger until about noon, which I did, time
enough to grab one more room service lunch before you’re on your own
nickel back at the rehab center.

Back at Capitol Lakes, we settled in on a sunny afternoon, and
attended a short, in-room PT session. All of these PT sessions
somehow magically just keep coming for the duration of your stay,
not always with the same person, but they are all setup for you
ahead of time, which is nice. If you had to set them up yourself,
you may be inclined to blow them off. As much as I wanted to take a
walk outside for couple of blocks to the capitol square, I was too
wiped out and instead chose to instead stay in for a performance of
one of the several symphony orchestra ensemble groups from the
university that practice in this building’s main floor music hall.
This is a nice side-benefit of staying here, so take advantage of it
when offered.

Sunday, the third day after surgery, found us on a brilliant
sunny and unusually warm February afternoon. After a morning land PT
session with the lovely Liz, the wife and I and my two new best
friends, the forearm crutches, decided to take a stroll outside
towards the lake front. Madison has a nice jogging and bike trail
network, and we followed this around one side of the now frozen lake
adorned with a few ice-fishing shelters here and there. We walked
for about an hour and a half, using the parking ramp elevator to
take us up to the capitol street level, past the capitol and what
was left of the weekend’s Winterfest activities, and looped back to
the rehab center. I was feeling good about the walk, using the cross
country ski crutch technique most of the way, and was thinking that
this wasn’t so bad.

Monday, the fourth day after surgery, I paid for the long walk
with more pronounced swelling and stiffness, but a pain pill got me
up and going for my in-pool water PT session first thing in the
morning. This was a welcome experience. After “sealing us up” with,
for lack of a better description, a sheet of saran wrap with
adhesive around the edges, we were allowed to enter the warm pool.
Desiree put us thru a few of the standard leg extensions and high
stepping exercises, and pool-noodle supported cycling motions in the
water. This all culminating with allowing us to simply walk around
in the deeper water. This was an interesting experience, because it
allows your brain to get around the aspect of trusting your new hip
without fear of falling on a hard surface. Yes, I am actually
walking without crutches naturally, albeit in the water, and I will
soon be doing this on the land also. Some time to relax followed,
and a quick lunch led to an in-room visit from Amy the occupational
therapist, with two student therapists in tow. This was more of a
Q&A session, during which the students were allowed to take notes.
The afternoon PT session, which I must admit was becoming a bit
tedious by this time in my day, was interesting in its own way.
Desiree focused more on walking with me using one crutch only and
got me walking more “normally”, without swinging my right foot
outward a bit, and with keeping my somewhat swollen thighs together
to produce a tighter, more balanced, walking gait. This ended with
an in-room PT exercise session, and a lying down massage of the
incision area. Nice, very nice. We were told earlier that Dr.
Rogerson would be stopping in at some point late in the afternoon,
so we decided to use the remaining time before his visit to take a
quick walk back up to the capitol. Dr. Rogerson arrived about 4:30pm
and stayed for about 15 minutes or so, just to see how I was doing
and answer any questions. My wife commented just how personable and
caring this guy is as a doctor, and I can’t agree more. He told me
that things are looking great, and even though we live only about
3.5 hours away, if the 6 week followup visit didn’t work into my
schedule, that I should just have his office order a couple of
x-rays from our local clinic and send them over to him to evaluate.
I’ll probably hand deliver my x-rays in person at that time, but
it’s nice to know there’s really no pressure at this point to do so.

Tuesday, the fifth day after surgery. After an early morning land
Pt session with Desiree, which included a short jaunt on an
elliptical machine at the fitness center, we settled back into the
apartment for some R&R and online work. The elliptical walk was an
interesting experience. I wanted to see what it felt like, and more
importantly, how to get on and off the thing in this condition. I
was surprised to see how high the knee was going on the operated leg
in the forward position. Stand on your operated side of the machine,
lift your good leg onto the opposite foot-pad, then shift all your
weight onto the non-operated side and lift your new leg onto the
remaining foot-pad. A short nap in the afternoon, and I was off to
the final in-pool PT session. Much the same as yesterday, lots of
surprising flexibility, and it felt very good! I had asked Dr.
Rogerson during his last visit about using the Tegaderm to get back
to swimming before the incision was completely healed. He said he
just doesn’t trust the stuff, since after staple removal, the
glue-like seal applied during surgery to the outside is now
breached, and we can’t afford the risk of a water-based infection of
any type. Given the ramifications of such a thing, I’m OK with
following that restriction.

Wednesday, the sixth day after surgery. Joanna came over early,
at about 7:15am, to remove the 45 little staples from my hip, and
this was welcome as that “zipper” was starting to itch somewhat.
Yes, I took a few digital pics of the staples for nostalgia sake
that I can look back on later. With sterile strips now in place over
the incision, we were free to get on the road for home. The 3.5 hour
ride home was completely doable, but it surely did not seem that way
a few days ago when I left the hospital. I used a couple of ice
packs on the trip, and took a couple of leg stretching breaks on the
way home.

Thursday, the seventh day after surgery. As I write this, I’m
relaxing comfortably after my first full day back home. I’m
regularly walking around the house without the crutches, but still
use 1 crutch often inside to get out of chairs and for going up or
down the stairwell (2 story home), and I still choose to use 2
crutches for walking outside. I am nearly off the pain meds, just
taking one before retiring to get a good night sleep, and keeping
the leg elevated while sitting or lying down seems to help with the
swelling. The worst part at this time are the dreaded TED
compression stockings that they want me to wear for 3 weeks. I’ve
been spreading out the PT land exercises throughout the day and I’m
feeling the squats.

I am now starting my new life with my new hip, and I plan to take
it slow and easy and observe all precautions to make a full
recovery. Overall, this has been as wonderful an experience as could
be hoped for a resurfacing patient. Yes, going downtown to Mayo
Clinic would have been more convenient in one respect, but I would
be fumbling through my own self-directed PT sessions by now, instead
of making professionally guided, sure and steady progress each day.
Another aspect of this trip is that you are able to isolate yourself
from all the friends and family that would inevitably show up at all
times of the day to visit too soon after surgery, and you can focus
entirely on your rehab and getting well. All of the professionals I
met over at Madison are caring, friendly, personable, and above all,
completely competent. I know that armed with this great week of
rehab and good habit formation, I’m going to be successful in
getting back to my previous activities and then some over the next
few months.

Thanks Dr. John Rogerson, and many thanks to your office team and
the the “extended family” at Capitol Lakes! You are all THE BEST!