The Trip to the Hip
A story about my experience with total hip replacement surgery.
A story about my experience with total hip replacement surgery.
The night passes so slowly. I didn’t sleep much and woke every two hours or so to look at the clock and see that time had become a snail. When I finally detected the pale blue light of dawn sneaking through the partially drawn curtains, I breathed a sigh of relief. I grabbed the trapeze above my head and pulled myself up. Mother nature was calling so I began maneuvering myself and my IV stand toward the edge of the bed. I was getting better at manipulating my leg although it still hurt like an explicative.
I pulled the walker in front of me and stood up as I had been taught, the injured leg slightly advanced of the good one. I reached over to the clutter table and grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste. Might as well as long as I was up. This trip was easier than the night before as I was learning how to move and to trust my legs.
As I was coming out of the bathroom, Dr. Namazian walked in on his morning rounds. “Ah good to see you’re up! You’re going home today?” he asked like he wasn’t sure.
“Yes. I have to wait for my sister to finish up work here.” I replied attempting to grasp the back of my gown closed. ( Like the doctor hasn’t already seen me naked inside and out!) He looked down at my feet and noticed I was standing slanted putting more of my weight on the good leg.
“You know you can put your full weight on you leg.” He looked up at me like I was insulting his work. “Oh sure,” I thought. “Easy for your to say. You haven’t been sliced and diced.” I smiled and shifted my weight. Slightly.
The discharge nurse, Alyce (pronounce A-leese), came in all bubbly, carrying her clipboard with paperwork to fill out. She asked questions regarding they type of care I would be given at home. Would there be someone home to help me? What kind of shower was there to use? She took down my sister’s phone number and address and asked if this would be where Physical Therapy Home Care would be going. I was planning to stay with my sister for the next two weeks until I felt strong enough to be able to deal with the commotion in my own home.
Then she grilled me about the medication they would be sending me home with, Warfarin, a blood thinner, to help prevent potential blood clots that could possibly dislodge and end up in my lungs or brain causing death. And with that thought, I wiggled my feet under my sheets to keep that blood flowing. She informed me that someone from the Anticoagulation Clinic would be in to tell me all about this wonderful medication I was to be taking.
Not too much later a nurse from the Anticoag clinic arrived wheeling in a TV set and a VCR (I didn’t know they still had those) She asked me if I had started on the Warfarin and I said that they had given me one the night before. She asked me to watch the video so I would understand what this medication was supposed to do and what it could do if I wasn’t careful with my dosing and timing. Here, read them for yourself:
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Notify your doctor right away if you experience any of these warfarin side effects:
Other less serious warfarin side effects that you should tell your doctor about include:
Although rare, warfarin can also cause skin tissue death (necrosis) and gangrene requiring amputation. This complication most often happens three to eight days after you start taking warfarin. If you notice any sores, changes in skin color or temperature, or severe pain on your skin, notify your doctor immediately.
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She gave me the instructions on how to take them. I was to take one tablet every day at 5 PM and get a weekly blood test to make sure I wasn’t in danger of getting any of the aforementioned items. This is the same drug my dad takes every day to help prevent another heart attack, so how bad could it be?
Next up was physical therapy.
A different physical therapist (Gregory Peck believe it or not) took me for my morning stroll and talked me through some exercises to do while lying in bed. Then an occupational therapist came in and showed me how to dress myself using my grabber.And so I was ready! I was sitting up in a chair wearing the sweat pants and sweat shirt I had arrived in and waiting for someone from my family to show up.
Dad got there first and informed me that my handicapped throne was in his trunk along with the walker that had once belonged to my grandmother (God rest her little 4’ 11” Jewish yenta soul!). Karen showed up soon after and began to hunt for a wheelchair to ride my handicapped butt to the car.
With a wheelchair finally located, I walkered my way over to her. I had to hold my injured leg up as it was too painful an angle to rest it on the foot rest. They loaded my bags on my lap along with a set of crutches, and Dad carried the walker and my grabber. So off we went down the hall and out the door into the sunshine and wind. Poor Karen is a tiny little thing, my height but probably a good 20 pounds lighter. She is currently suffering from something called “frozen shoulder syndrome” which has caused her to have limited and painful movement of her arm. so she struggled a bit to push my carcass and chair up a hill and into the parking lot.
She wheeled me up behind her fancy-shmancy BMW and I began to think about what it was going to take for me to get into that car. I couldn’t get the walker between her car and the car parked next to hers, so I stood up from the chair and used the cars’ sides as substitutes. Karen opened the car door for me. I took a deep breath. Remember that toilet seat incident pre-handicapped seat? Well this was even lower. The movement wouldn’t just require lowering myself into the car, but then pivoting my body around to get my legs into the car. Thank goodness for leather seats as is made it easier to pivot my bottom while getting my legs into the car. My dad had placed my aides in the trunk of Karen’s car and gave me a kiss good-by. I thanked him for all he had done and knew I would see him soon, as he visits my sister often. Karen got into the car and we were off.
The ride to her house was about 2o minutes from the hospital. Every right turn that she made caused me to wince as the centripetal force moved my leg in toward the center line of my body. I had to hold my leg still on each turn she made. Once we arrived I was greeted by my two nephews ( 10 and 13) and they helped carry my things into the guest room. The accommodations at my sister’s house couldn’t have been better. A nice high bed and a private bathroom. Karen attached my “throne” to the toilet as I placed my toiletries on the counter top.
I called Kalani after I had taken note of the things I would need now that I was at my sisters: a few more pillows, my computer, and some food items. He arrived later that evening with the asked for goods and my children. We visited for a while, but as it was a school night they had to leave before it was too late. And it was time for me to figure out how to work myself onto the bed and get some sleep.
I got myself ready for bed, changing into my clothes using my grabber to pull on my pajama shorts. I pulled back the big down comforter and the sheet and sat on the side of the bed. I reached over and took two of my Tylenol with codeine to help me manage the pain through the night. I placed the walker within reach of the bed and then tried to slide my sore leg up onto the bed. This bed was much higher than the hospital’s, and though easier to sit on, the raising and the turning of my body was more difficult and painful. Once positioned I used my arms to slide sideways then backwards up to the mound of pillows I had arranged so as to sit up slightly. I flipped the blankets back over me and turned out the light. I snuggled into the pillows and the comforter and closed my eyes.
Then it started……. the needed trips to the bathroom every three hours. Apparently the fluids they had pumped me so full of in the hospital to get my blood pressure up had finally decided to vacate my body. Add to that, later during the night, I awoke with a terrible ache in my heels. Because I couldn’t really move from my back yet, my feet stayed in the same position. The lovely, heavy, down comforter was pressing down on the tops of my feet thus putting extra pressure on my heels. I finally had to remove the blanket from my feet so my heels would stop aching.
The next morning I began to think of a different way to deal with the on/off the bed issue and the aching feet. What I figured out was that it was much easier to get on the bed from its foot and the use my arms (and tri’s and delts) to pull my body straight backwards to the head. No painful turning required! I could put my walker at the foot of the bed and use it as leverage. I put my good leg’s foot on one of the walker’s rails and pushed my body up onto the mattress without having to bend my right leg at all.
To solve the issue of the sore heels, I slept on top of the comforter and pulled one side of it up over me like a taco. This worked really well and became my habit for the remainder of the stay at Karen’s. Things began to settle into a pattern. Tylenol, at night, bi-hourly bathroom visits, broken sleep, walking loops around my sister’s house, and spending a lot of the time sitting on the bed with my computer and FaceBook “friends”. There was no where else in her house that i could sit comfortably, except for the chairs in the kitchen and then it was only comfortable for a short while. The TV in the bedroom did not work, so my computer became my sole form of entertainment.
But all this was much much much better than being in the hospital.
