Memorable day

This is the date 5yrs ago I had my triple pelvic osteotomy.

This is the date 1yr ago I had my x-ray/CT scan that announced my osteotomy had failed.

If you asked me then if I'd be sat here 5yrs later with a bionic hip, I'd have said you better be kidding me cos I'm not going through THAT again! But here I am, 7mths on with a new hip and better than I ever was after the osteotomy.

If I knew this was going to happen would I have still had the osteotomy? Yes. The joint needed to be put in a better position and it did give me 3ish years pain relief, better than nothing and having an artificial hip at 27 right? Yes.

Having two major hip surgeries before the age of 32, not ideal. But better than living with osteoarthritis at age 32 (or indeed, 22 when I first noticed something was amiss).

Feeling very reflective this evening, but not in a bad way :o)

Flying therabands Physioboy....

....do what, physio at high altitude? physio on our road trip?

You reckon security will let me through with therabands or the flight crew not look at me suspiciously for using them [or the rest of the plane for that matter!]?

I like the idea of flying-fisio but I reckon it would probably make the top-ten list of things that annoy people on a flight!

To be fair he didn't suggest I do, but I am expected to keep up the good work when and where I can. Which is a reasonable request, but I think I'll pack the therabands into my check-in bag. Things are progressing, slowly but surely. There have been a couple of days here and there (visitors) that I haven't done my physio and honestly, you do fall behind and I can tell. So it really is important for me to try and get some physio in on vacation. Still a lot of work to be done overall and he reckons I'm still about 2 months off getting into the physio gym, but he has okay'd my pilates workout I wrote out for him. Which is great, because I can easily incorporate the exercises I have from physio into the pilates workout for double points!!

The spine curls into the bridge with leg extension exercise....we're aiming ultimately for 40-50 right? I asked him if he could do it, a confession, he'd struggle! He said that athletes would be pushing that!! Athletes, er....hello, this is little old me here, I can do 8 currently without collapsing.... one day, one day...

Toodle-oo, back soon.... [unless I get arrested for theraband misuse]

6 mths post-op

Oh my goodness, 6 mths since I had resurfacing surgery! I went to Birmingham last tuesday for a check up with Mr. O'Hara, my implant has not moved one iota and there's nothing on x-ray to cause any concern whatsoever - very happy days!

I've officially been free of osteoarthritis pain for 6mths and that has changed my life beyond words. Osteoarthritis steals people's lives....it won't kill you, but it'll wreak your life and you as a person. I've been given my life back twice now and hopefully this will be the last time before the age of 50 that I'll have to resort to surgical intervention to beat the bugger! No way this is stopping me doing what I want to do.... I might walk a little funky right now, but walk I can..... and I'm not sitting down or staying in anymore!!

The last month hasn't been the greatest psychologically on the recovery front, but I've come to the realisation that there's nothing I can do but keep moving forward with everything. It's done now and I'm pain-free, something that millions are not. I'm in this for the long-haul, so I'd better get comfortable...

Walking at 6mths post-op

If you're looking for the videos, well they've gone cos I can't stand seeing them! If you never saw them, let's just say that I walk like a heavily pregnant lady waddling at high speed, but without the bump..... It's going I tell you, that limp is bloody well going!!

The Bionic Traveller

I've decided to keep another blog about my travel adventures with my shiny new hip over at http://bionictraveller.blogspot.com/

In October I'm off with friends to New England and I'm getting pretty excited now as it's the first holiday I've had in a year! Last year I took 7 trips out of the UK and a couple others up to Scotland.....so you can understand my excitement!!

The last year has been an eventful one nonetheless mind. It's been almost a year since I took myself off to my GP to ask for a referral to my orthopod. Who'd have known that a year later I'd be seeing my orthopod for my 6 mth check-up.... 6 mths post-op! I went from having a moderate amount of pain, to hideous pain, to unlivable pain....to NO PAIN! It's been quite the journey all by itself. My hip journey is here for life I know, but let's include some other good schnizel ;o)

Let's talk about Sox....

We're doing it everyday! ;o)

Well, everyday since about 3.5-4mths post-op. Minus putter-onner you understand. But today, nearly 6mths post-op I put on my socks the way I used to, knee up to chest rather than ankle over other knee. I have been trying to do it for about a month now and not quite able to hook sock over foot with my knee up to chest. It means my ROM is increasing, yey!

It's the little achievements.... Today, putting socks on normally, tomorrow hiking up Kilimanjaro!! No, seriously....

Major Frustrations

I was going to write last week, that's how frustrated I felt about it all!

It's taken me nearly a week to shake myself out of a major hippy frustration. Even my lovely physio couldn't say anything to help! I wasn't being mardy, just fed-up-cannot-be-arsed-when-am-I-gonna-walk-properly bleurgh. If there was a pram, the dummy would have been chucked.

I've obviously reached that point. You know 'that point', where you're training for a marathon, writing a thesis, or re-learning to walk (as you do; 3 times over in my case to date) .... and you hit that brick wall, or worse, you think you're going backwards! As Homer Simpson said "Everytime I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain" and it appears to be the same with my ass!! The more I work on it, the less it functions lol

All my muscles ached with the exercise and I think I irritated a tendon which was making the scar tender. All in all, I was officially frustrated. My physio was really nice and he was trying to tell me that I'd improved, I was hearing the words and smiling, but not feeling it. He's given me some new exercises to do and I'm a little happier about that - bit more variety.

This week has been much better, I can actually feel the muscles getting stronger. I still limp. I am not in pain, which honestly, I'd rather limp than be in pain anyday. I think it would be really hard for anyone to expect me to be 100% frustration-free with this situation.

I'll be seeing Mr.O next week too, hopefully it'll be just as unremarkable as last time! :o)))