Category Archives: hip replacement

Loving my Leg Lifter

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I’m so mobile now, a year later, that it’s hard to believe I couldn’t lift my leg in or out of bed after I had my hip replacement surgery. When my physical therapist introduced me to the leg lifter I was elated. Being able to get in and out of bed felt like freedom to me! I didn’t waste much time shopping, went straight to Amazon and made my selection with price as my criterion; after all there weren’t any moving parts to go bad in a leg lifter. It was early COVID days and I was concerned about my daughter getting sick because she was planning to travel from Colorado to care for me. After I got the leg lifter I insisted she not make the trip. I was able to get around just fine and take care of myself! The airbed I’d purchased for her use is still in its box.

As I was Saying…

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I’m back to see if anyone has landed on this page since I was last here a year and a half ago. Lately I’ve been following Instagram links about internet get-rich-quick-schemes, thinking maybe this website is the key to my financial future! But really it just feels good to be writing again. The last year has been filled with health, money, and other issues that I’d just as soon forget about. Sometimes I blame it all on turning eighty; other times I think it’s just part of life’s random suckiness. Anyhow, doesn’t matter. I’m here now; I have a new hip and don’t walk like an old lady anymore, as long as I keep up with my walks and PT exercises. All of which is time-consuming but worth it, so I’m disciplined. This month I had COVID and was sedentary for three weeks; it made a difference in my mobility afterwards, which motivated me to get back on track, so to speak, at the local high school. Then there’s the matter of my teeth; I’ll have new ones in about a month after a year and a half of healing and attempted regeneration of bone following a fractured implant. I was the one in five hundred who suffers one. Sounded like good odds at the time… Here in Northern California we are enjoying (!) a recurrence of chilly rain after a couple days’ reprieve. I got out and moving early today to make the most of it. I do not enjoy walking in the rain very much, though I can do it. My walking buddy, Judy doesn’t walk in the rain. I miss her, chatting and laughing together makes the laps go so much easier. We are counting the days till spring: 54.

Today’s the Day

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The hip surprises me with occasional sudden lapses, but the thing is, my knee hurts too. Pain referring from the hip, I tell myself, uncomfortable because of the extra burden on my hip, I tell myself. And inside, I’m afraid that I need a knee replacement too. Really afraid. I’ve heard so much about how unpleasant knee replacements are. Now that I’ve accepted the necessity for a hip replacement I’ve been so glad I’m having one; hip replacements get good reviews by comparison to knees: fast easy recovery. It took me a long time to get here, to this easy acceptance of the surgery; I’ve almost been looking forward to it. Now this. I can’t put it off any longer. Today’s the day. I’ll call to make an appointment for a knee x-ray. Knowing will be better than this constant grey dread. So I’m prolonging my morning ritual, which is long anyway, the comforting milky tea, the tangy sweetness of blended cottage cheese and pineapple, the supplements, the checking of email, all so familiar and comforting. I’ve really worked out a way to live with my disability that is more than tolerable. But today’s the day. I’ll make the call.

Chiggers

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Last night I felt okay for about an hour. Not that my body felt any different, but I had such a sense of being free from the swarming chiggers of anxiety, guilt and fear with which I am usually beset. The editor in me wonders if chiggers swarm. Think I’ll check. Yup chiggers swarm. They are ugly little things and dig in, bury themselves under the skin. I was free of chiggers for about an hour yesterday, but during the night they started burrowing and this morning I am scratching at the itchy welts they left behind. I’m going to research chigger cures and see if I can apply them figuratively. One old-time remedy was to bathe with bleach in the water. Chigger shock and awe. Think it’s better for me to take it one chigger at a time. So today since my anxiety has been focused on the fact that my knee hurts more than my hip when I walk, I’m going to get to work on that chigger. I’ll make an appointment for an x-ray and either confirm my fear that I need a knee replacement as much as a hip replacement or ease it. And today I’ll try not to read about tragedy in Afghanistan or Haiti. There’s nothing I can do about it; and my phone just pinged me that mandatory fire evacuations underway in a nearby neighborhood. One chigger and a possible fire evacuation is plenty to deal with today.

Old Lady

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Think I’ll share the ups and downs of hip replacement. I went through a couple years of procrastination and false hope that my life need not be impacted by hip pain, but when my physical therapist Li said “Hip replacements are good!” and asked whether my insurance would provide a walker, I knew it was time to consult with an orthopedist. I hadn’t wanted to do that because I was pretty sure the recommendation would be surgery. After taking a tumble and fracturing my hip five years ago I recovered with minimal loss of strength and agility. Why all the scary statistics about life expectancy after fracture? I was special! I was good as new! Until I wasn’t a couple years later, and started having pain in my groin and thigh. Being a firm believer in the mind body connection I blamed my pain on my Larry’s sons’ unkindness to me after his death. I had acupuncture. I worked hard with Li, and was able to walk a mile a day without support. But then I went through a stressful time; the pain worsened and I reluctantly started to use a cane. I, who took such pride in my youthful energy and demeanor was now an old lady.