Week Eight Post-Op

PT was pretty uneventful this week.  I told them I wasn't able to complete all my exercises last week since my hamstrings were so sore, thus they didn't advance anything too much.  I am now doing skater squats with a band around my knees and walk-out bridges.  Those were familiar from my first round of PT before surgery, so no worries there.  Since my Monday appointment at PT, my hamstrings have been feeling much better.  My muscles are starting to wake up and get accustomed to being used again.  I can't wait to get rid of the mush that my legs have become over the past two months.

I think I am almost back to my normal walking pace.  Walking feels great.  In fact, I am starting to think that my operated hip feels even better than my non-op hip when walking.  It's smoother, not as tight.  That's a pretty scary thought.  While I am not having any significant pain in my "good" hip yet, there's a very real possibility that it will eventually fail on me.  During my first appointment with Dr. Keene he looked at my X-Rays and said that my right (good) hip looked worse than my left (going to be operated on) in terms of abnormal bone structure.  At least if I have to go through this again, I won't spend years trying to figure out what's wrong with me.  But I really, really don't want to have to go through this again.  Dr. Keene will probably be retired by the time (if) my right hip goes bad and I won't want to trust a new doctor with it.  I know I shouldn't think about the "what ifs", but it's always going to be in the back of my mind. 

Monday: 2.4 mile walk

Tuesday: 10.9 mile bike ride

Wednesday: 12.4 mile bike ride
Thursday: 2 mile walk
Friday:  10 mile bike ride

Saturday: 13 mile bike ride + 2 mile dog walk

Sunday: 1.2 mile dog park walk + 1.8 mile dog walk

The big news this week was that my dog came home on Saturday!  She stayed with me at my parent's house while I was there, but then got transferred to my best friend's house for most of the month of April.  I needed to make sure that I would be able to handle all of the walking that came along with taking care of her, as she's fairly high energy even at the age of 9.  So next week will be a test on my hip to see how it does with increased walking. 

Yesterday I absentmindedly jogged down a flight of stairs.  I didn't even realize I was doing it.  It didn't hurt, so I'll take that as a good sign. The timeline to return to running seems to vary wildly between people and surgeons after this surgery.  I've read about people starting to run as early as 8 weeks, which is where I am right now, and as late as 6 months.  I am absolutely not ready to run yet, both mentally and physically.  My PT told me that the most optimistic result would be 12-14 weeks post-op.  I am not in any rush to start running again.  I would prefer to error on the conservative side and I can be happy enough this summer with just biking and hiking.  My tentative plan is to wait until July/August to start running, which would put me at 4-5 months post-op.  Of course, that's subject to change.  I seem to be healing well without compilations, so maybe I will feel differently in a month.

I am happy with my decision to have surgery in late winter/early spring.  The better I start to feel, the nicer the weather becomes.  It's been encouraging to correlate my healing with the coming of summer.

Content to finally be home.