Week 1 - Walking with Crutches
Week 2 - Walking without crutches and mastering the stairs
Week 3 - Walking normally and now mastered the stairs
Week 4 - I could get myself dressed
Week 5 - I got very frustrated
Week 6 - I was allowed to try touching my toes and could drive again!
Week 7 - I managed my first day out at Americas Cup World Series
Week 8 - First time back in the gym, cycling and swimming.
Week 9 - Had my first night out post-op
Week 10 - Today! I have found myself a job!
Week 11 - I started back at work
Week 12 - Spent the weekend at Bestival and Did LOTS of walking (22km/day nearly)
Week 13 - My 21st Birthday, I was able to wear heels!
So it has been an extremely long time since I last blogged and for those of you who are regular readers I apologise! The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirl-wind. I have made it back to work!
My hip has always been a huge part of my life, as much as I hate to admit that, and only now am I beginning to realise the magnitude of that impact. Wednesday was my 21st birthday and I managed to wear heels again! I spent the evening with my parents and sister, reminiscing over the past 21 years. Throughout the evening there was an underlining theme, my hip. 1 year ago I went shopping with Mum in Exeter for my 20th birthday but could only manage 2 or 3 hours because of the pain. For my 15th birthday I went on DofE the weekend before and spent the following three days, including my birthday, on crutches. For my 8th birthday I was at a new sporty school and spent about a week around my birthday on and off crutches.
It is such a relief to know that for the foreseeable future (hopefully 20 years, if not more) my hip pain will be a thing of the past!
I spoke to my physio and she made a guess the pain could be vascular, after checking my lower spine, L3 and L4, two sections of the lumbar (lower spine) for nerve damage. These two discs provide the nerves for the area around your knee and a few to your thigh, she saw no problems which was good news.
Lauren gave me new exercises and left it until the following session a week after, to see if the pain was muscular. A week later, week 8, and the pain hadn't gone, while it was less achy and occurred less, it was very much still there! She decided to properly work into the muscles and the layers that envelop each muscle.
Now we all know that feeling of good pain during a massage, well... this was just pain. I had a muscle knot, about the size of my fist, on the inside of my thigh, another big knot just above my knee where the pain was and several other knots around the base of my scar and deep into my glut-max. 20 minutes of hard pummeling into the muscle and I was sweating from the pain, but I knew there was no way round it, it had to be done. I step down of the bed and it felt like a completely new thigh. There was very little tension, I could move my hip joint around a great deal more and the memory of the pain very quickly passed.
Since then I have had more sessions with Lauren and she predicts it will take another month or two to properly get rid of the muscle knots. Each time I go the pain is getting less which can only mean it is moving in a good direction. It is important to know that at lot of this isn’t from the hip replacement but the way I walked before.
My Mum a few weeks ago was talking to a nurse about scar management, she explained that the tissue collection around a scar doesn't conform to the normal skin cell arrangements and can therefore become lumpy and thick. The body senses the damage and continues to lay down excessive amount of cells up to 18 months later. To avoid this she said to massage it at least twice a day as hard as I could resist, especially during the first 6 months. She suggested using an empty roll on deodorant and using the ball to massage up and down the scar. I have been doing this for nearly a month now and I can already see the difference. I would definitely suggest this technique along with bio oil to help keep the scar hydrated. I have also been using the roll on deodorant to massage my thigh and this also seems to be helping.
I am now 3 months post op and I can’t believe how far I have come, who knows what the next 3 will hold… maybe some running…?
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