Two Weeks

I can't say the above post title without thinking of Arnie in Total Recall, which makes me either really lame or really awesome, I can't decide which.

Anyhoo, this is to say I am two weeks with my new hip!!  Life has been better than ever and I continue to surprise myself with what these shiny pieces of metal/plastic/ceramic are allowing me to do.  Some highlights:

1.  I am now fully able to get in and out of bed by myself at all times.  Something I have been unable to do since December!

2. After a doctor's appointment to look at my incision (which is looking great, by the way.  Well, as great as an 8ish inch long incision on my butt can look), I totally jumped in on his walking group that meets at the hospital.  It took me 25 minutes, but I walked around the whole damn thing (outside!) and got a lot of praise from my doctor along the way.  My hip was fine, but my poor atrophied muscles have felt it for sure.  Love it!

3. The snow is finally melting away enough from the road that Domino and I were able to walk outside for a bit yesterday.  Sun and exercise!  Pretty soon I will resemble a human being!  Good-bye pasty, puffy body!

4. Oh, and I have been home in Labrador for about 5 days now!  I thought that I would have to live in my basement for a while to avoid the stairs (sunken living room and no bathroom on the main floor), but it turns out navigating the stairs before the replacement was actually more difficult than now.  I can scoot around all over the place.

5. I can actually walk around with just one crutch for the most part, but stick to two with the stairs.  Not ready to try that just yet.

There were a few bumps in the road, mind you.  I was looking to get a spinal as opposed to general anaesthetic, which my anaesthetist agreed with due to "instability" in my neck.  However, after nearly an hour of trying, two docs, and about 16 jabs to my spine (which, yuck), it was a no-go. I was told I probably have arthro-spinal-degeneration, or some such thing.  Apparently it also took two docs and two tries to intubate me as well.  Now, my anaesthetist wants me to wear a medic-alert bracelet stating "cervical instability" and "difficult to intubate".  I ended up with a chip in my femur during the surgery, which seemed to turn up okay. On day three, the IV narcotics majorly caught up with me and I had a very scary low-blood pressure event that was one of the yuckiest feelings ever.  Once I got off the IV, I was fine and up doing laps, exercises and stairs.  No more passing out :)  My hemoglobin dropped down, and there was a threat of transfusion, but it raised up on its own by the next day, thank goodness.

Despite these little hiccups, I have felt so thankful to have this done.  If my life is already so drastically improved, what will it be like in a few months?  I can't wait to see!