Surgery Day
On the 28th of June 2021, I was admitted to the Mater hospital for a total hip replacement. This was also the day that stricter lockdown rules came in to play and I was not able to have anyone come in to the hospital with me. If you had seen or spoken to me in the 6 months prior to that you would know that I was HIGHLY anxious about this surgery and I actually did not want to get it done at all. I had had a bad experience with the anaesthetic from my prior surgery when I was 17 and I was very apprehensive going into this surgery. So naturally, the moment I stepped into the hospital alone, I burst into tears.. I believe it was sobs, actually. Luckily a few minutes later I realised I had left my X-rays in my mums car so I had to quickly pull myself together to call her and get her to return to the hospital drop off area. There were no tears after that.
The rest of my experience was pretty smooth sailing.. Except for the vomiting (I don't seem to react very well to anaesthetic and it took a while to find an anti-emetic that worked)! My anaesthetist was great. He chatted to me about herbal medicine and told me that his father had actually studied herbal medicine as part of his medical studies when he was becoming a General Practitioner (pretty cool!). He knew that I was worried because of my previous bad experience and assured me that it wouldn't be the same this time. He was right, I didn't even know that he was putting me to sleep. And before I knew it, I was was awake again!
The surgery was less complicated than my surgeon anticipated. I didn’t need any extra bone grafts to build up my previously grafted socket, instead he screwed the socket in to secure it. And I didn’t need a femoral osteotomy to even out my leg length. This meant that my rehab could go along the usual path without needing extra time on crutches for a bone graft to heal.
< The x-ray is in the window at the hospital and you can see the trees through it.. if you were wondering what was going on!
Due to the lockdown I couldn't have any visitors, but that turned out to be OK. It gave me time to rest and concentrate on recuperating. I spent most of my days choosing what I would order next from the room service menu! Yep, the Mater has room service. You literally choose what you want when you want it, and the food is DELICIOUS!
Rehab
My recovery went really well. I had decided early on that I was going to trust my new joint and not be scared to stand on it and use it. Someone I know actually had a double hip replacement a few days before me so every time I felt scared I thought of him and remembered he didn't get a choice to favour his un-operated hip, he had no choice but to put his weight on both of his new hips. So I was going to woman-up, do what the physio's told me, and do my exercise.
I did my six weeks of rehab at my Mum and Dad's house. Akira and I moved in for that time so that they could look after both of us while Jono continued to work. The first week was the hardest. I got really down at one point because I was feeling helpless - my mum was helping me put my undies on and dry my lower legs... And OMG I had NO IDEA how often I drop things until I wasn't able to bend down and pick them up!
A friend messaged to check in on me and I told her I was in a funk. Lucky for friends because she reminded me that there were lots of things I had planned to do while I was recuperating so why not take control of the things I COULD do instead. It was the reminder I needed and from that moment on I used my long handled grabber to pull my undies on and pick up my dropped stuff, and I found a technique to dry my own legs. Once I claimed my power to do what I could, I didn't feel bad about asking for help on the things I couldn't.
The other thing I found really hard was when the dressing came off my wound and I discovered that my surgeon had cut right through my old scar from my surgery when I was 18 months old. I was pretty devastated actually. I had mentioned to my surgeon before going into surgery that I wanted to keep my old scar if possible but it was only a quick comment as he was passing through. I spoke to my physio friend about it and she told me the entry point would be fairly specific and that he only would've entered there if he really needed to. That helped. But it took me a long time to be able to look at my scar without feeling sad. You can still see some of the old scar but it just looks very different. The old one had the big stitch lines going across it like an old fashioned 80's scar and the new one is very neat and clean looking. It's fine, I have accepted it now, I just feel like part of the road map of my life has been erased.
As far as rehab goes, a physio came to the house twice a week for the first two weeks and then once a week for the next four weeks (as set out by the rehab in the home program offered by my health fund). My physio set me up with exercises to strengthen my hips and knees. It shocked me how incredibly weak all of the muscles on my left side were. I literally COULD NOT stand on my left leg without holding on to something and even that was a struggle. My muscles were most likely weaker than the average hip replacement patient because due to my congenital hip defect I had probably never used them correctly. For this reason, six months on I am still seeng my physio every 4-6 weeks and still working to strengthen everything to the best that it can be.
In addition to physio, my rehab included walking. 1000 steps the first week, 2000 the 2nd week and building by 1000 steps each week until I reached 10000 steps/day. I cannot describe how amazing it feels to walk without stiffness and pain. The closest I have been able to come up with is this: you know what it feels like if you walk through thigh deep water? It’s fine for a little while, then starts to get tiring, and after a while its a real struggle to pull your legs through the water to take the next step. That is what it feels like to walk with advanced hip osteoarthritis. You are constantly dragging your leg through the motion of each step. It is exhausting. Now it feels as light as a feather and I can walk and walk and walk and so far I have gone over 11000 steps in a day and still felt I could do more.
Result
The main reason I have chosen to share my Hip Replacement journey through my instagram posts and here is to help other people who are facing hip replacement surgery. Especially those who have arrived here after being born with congenital hip dysplasia, like me. When I was heading toward surgery I was so scared! And even though all of the experts were telling me it was time, I honestly didn’t think I was in enough pain to be at the stage of surgery. Every person I spoke to who had been through a hip replacement told me they wished they had done it sooner and told me I would be glad. But I kept thinking it might not be the case for me. Maybe I wasn’t bad enough to experience the benefits. Let me tell you, I was wrong.
When you have lived your life with pain, you get good at coping with it. I now understand that I have a different definition for what pain is than other people. I didn’t find child birth painful. It was something.. overwhelming, all consuming, intense. But to me, not pain. It had purpose and it had pauses. What I experienced with my hip, I would describe as stiffness and discomfort, not pain. After my surgery, bruising and tenderness, but not painful. To me, something I would describe as painful is breaking your toe. When it throbs and throbs and throbs and you just don’t know if it’s ever going to stop.
So now I understand that when I was asked if I was in pain, I was but I just didn’t realise how much. I also managed it bloody well (read about that here), and I was extremely inactive so didn’t have cause to notice it too much. I was walking a maximum of 5500 step a day prior to surgery, and that was a push, and I was sitting down a lot. Now that I am no longer in pain, I can see how bad it was. Having a hip replacement was THE BEST decision I have ever made. It has changed so many aspects of my life. I have way more energy, I can keep moving all day, I don’t feel tired during the day (I also had an iron infusion the week before surgery so I’m sure that also contributes), I am happier, I can cut my toe nails with ease, I can put on my socks, I can squat down to do something on the floor and stand up without having to hold on to something, I can climb and descend stairs with no hip or knee pain, I have more drive and focus and interest in life. Oh, and I can wiggle my hips!
Life with my new hip is good. I have named her Pip and she is my highlight of 2021.
