I'm now 5 weeks post surgery and am walking around without the crutches!  Well, most of the time.  I'm supposed to still use them for any kind of distance but around the house I'm good.  I've been up and down stairs and at least 200 yards without them and no troubles.  I do notice that leg gets tired fairly quick and when it does, the hip starts to ache.  Just so long as I sit for a while, I seem to be fine.

When I had my follow up visit with the surgeon this week, he was impressed with my flexibility which made me happy but I was fairly flexible prior to the surgery so it's not all that surprising.  I had pretty good strength too.  He told me I can pretty much do anything except straight leg raises with the left leg for therapy and no jogging for a few more months - no problem there since I really had no plans for jogging.

Physical therapy is going well and we are spending quite a bit of time on core strength which never hurts.  Well, yes, it did make me quite sore but in a good way!  I haven't been doing as much at home as I should but I stay pretty busy with daily activities and am on my feet moving around quite a bit.

I did my first long distance drive this week - 2 hours - and it went pretty good.  I got a little achey but it was evenly divided between the surgery hip and the non-surgery hip.  Actually, I think the non-surgery hip is ready to be 'done' with carrying the full load.  It held up surprisingly good this past month but now it's starting to complain.  I don't blame it.

I should mention that the return to work after the 3rd week was pretty rough.  I work in a huge high rise office building where my normal parking place is about a block from the door but then it's almost another block of walking to my desk.  When I came back to work, they gave me special parking accommodations in front of the building but it still was a pretty good distance.  Doing that on crutches was NOT fun.  The first day I came in at my usual 7 am and figured out pretty darn quickly that I couldn't possibly carry the backpack I had brought with my laptop, wallet, lunch and other work supplies I had brought home.  I got to my desk and had to sit and wait for another early-bird to show up to go back out to my car for me....  After that I asked them to let me install a virtual desktop at home so I could just leave my laptop in the office.  This wouldn't really be an issue for those that work only in an office but I'm pretty much split between office, road, and home.

By the time I was getting off the crutches, my arms had developed enough muscle that the crutches were less of an issue for these longer distances but they still pretty much sucked.  I can't even count how many times they've fallen to the floor from where I had them leaning.

Post Surgery Week 2 - part 3

Yesterday I had my post-op appointment with the PA.  Although I'll admit I haven't used the continuous motion contraption much since the nausea quit and I started feeling more normal, my range of motion with that leg was surprisingly good.  I'm still limited to 20 lbs of weight on that leg (I know I've exceeded that more than a few times) but I was happy to get the stitches out and remove those crusty steri-strips.  I was quite surprised to see I actually have FOUR incisions!  I knew there could be 3-4 but two were close enough together that they had them covered up as one.  Not that it matters any but it was one of those "oh wow" moments.

I also got my application for a handicapped parking pass from the PA.  I had been lucky enough to get a half-way close parking spot there but going to the Secretary of State with it to get the actual car tag was a different story.  It would have been much easier if I had brought someone along that could have dropped me by the door.  Since I didn't actually HAVE the handicapped parking pass, I couldn't park in that spot...and their stupid doors aren't very cooperative for someone on crutches either.

Lesson Learned:  Take a driver to post-op appointment and to Secretary of State office.

Lots of other things are starting to get easier but I have to keep reminding myself to go light.  They did give me permission to start using an exercise bike but we don't have one...need to find someone to borrow one from.