progress?

Well I'm a moron. 

A few days after the conversation with my doctor about how I needed to slow down, I decided it would be a good idea to mow the yard.

Hear me out.

I ran it by FH first, and he actually gave me the okay. I mean, mowing the yard is basically walking behind the mower since it's self-propelled. and I've been walking pretty well, even in the yard.

So I did it. But I forgot about the pulling, the pivoting, and all the other movements involved in mowing. In my defense, I went very slow and made deliberate movements and nothing actually hurt when I was doing it. As soon as I was done, I sat on the couch with an ice pack and rested for a while. Then I rested for most of the day, and I felt fine. A little tired, but no pain.

Until the evening. 

At some point, I took a step, felt sharp pain, and that was it. I knew I had overdone it. It was painful to walk the entire next day, and I spent most of it sitting with an ice pack and taking tiny, slow steps whenever I needed to walk. 

The tendonitis in my arm also flared up and I was in so much pain. 

Talk about a setback. 

I feel so stupid. I thought I was doing good, but once again I overestimated my progress. Ugh. How embarrassing. 

Now I'm in healing jail and I'll be scared to take too big of a (literal and figurative) step forward for a while. 

I really hope this is a lesson learned and I don't do something stupid like this again.

6 weeks

Dude. Essentially at my 6-week follow up today the doctor told me I am overdoing it and I need to slow down.

I thought I was going slow! I also thought I'd be ready to go back to work 3 weeks from now but when I saw the look on his face while I was talking I felt my plans go down the drain. He said that's probably not realistic.

Really? I know progress is slow but come on.

Then I started to believe him when he explained that yes, I could go until I hit pain, but then I needed to stop immediately, NOT keep going for a little bit and then stop. And that if I did get sore, I shouldn't still feel sore the next day and if I did, that means I over did it.

Oh.

Then he did an exam and all the movements we made came with a small sharp pain at some point or another and that's apparently also a sign to slow down.

Because overdoing it (even a little bit) every day slows down your overall progress.

So that whole appointment was disappointing, overall.

To drive the whole point home (pun intended), I have been in pain all afternoon. Why? Because I drove to the appointment (about an hour) and I felt a little bit of pain after about 30 minutes but kept going. This was before the conversation with the doctor. Had I stopped and switched with FH and he took over the driving, I might not be in pain right now.

Sigh.

alcoholish

I have a doctor's appointment next week. When they sent me the confirmation text, I had to click on a link and go through my medical history to confirm that nothing had changed. It pre-populated the fields with what was already in my file. I was scrolling through the fields when I got to one that made me do a double take.

Under alcohol use, I was categorized as a "heavy drinker." 

Say what?? I was offended!

So I looked it up. Apparently, medically speaking, the standard for women is, if you drink more than 7 drinks a week, you are considered a heavy drinker. Which seems awfully light to me. At 2 glasses every night, I never thought of myself as a heavy drinker. Moderate, maybe.

But maybe that's the problem... thinking that you don't drink as much as you do. 

So I got to thinking: One drink every night is fine, but two is too much? Is drinking every night even okay? Where did these definitions come from? Does it even matter? Is this a sign to take it down a notch? I don't get drunk every night, I just like one with dinner and one to wind down and get sleepy. I rarely have more than 3 drinks in one night because I know I'll feel like crap the next day. My doctor has never said to cut back but now I'm questioning if I drink too much.

I stopped drinking the week before surgery so it's been a while since I've had any alcohol. There have only been a couple of times in the last several weeks where I even wanted a glass of wine. Right now would be a really good time to do a hard reset and change my drinking habits. Maybe having a glass (or 2) of wine every night isn't the healthiest and I am trying to be healthier overall...

So I guess the new standard for Jen is to have less than 7 drinks a week. If I have 2 glasses 3 nights a week that's under the threshold... I never thought I'd have to overthink how much alcohol I drink!

Ok well that's a lie because alcoholism does run in the family (having both sides come from Wisconsin this is a normal thing actually) and I've always thought I was never even close to being a heavy drinker. I am able to say "no" and I am able to just have one drink and stop. When I do get drunk it's fun and it's never extreme. I feel like those are classic tests of alcohol problems. It still bugs me being classified as a heavy drinker though. 

Hm.

custom ice /heat packs

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? 

Since I've been icing my hip on a constant basis, I needed more than 1 ice pack so I could pull a cold one out of the freezer after one got warm. I made a couple using ziploc bags, but they are an awkward size and after a while they started to leak. (Well, the Ziploc brand did not leak. The Walmart brand did.)

To fix my problem, I created a pocket in a wide ace bandage by folding the end back on itself and sewing along the edges. 

Then I made custom ice packs to fit that pocket using the food saver. I used 2 parts water, 1 part rubbing alcohol so when they freeze they are kinda slushy and pliable. (They are hard to see in the picture because they are clear) 

It's tricky to seal them with the food saver, but if you elevate it on a book or something, you can get the plastic on the sealer and the liquid won't spill out.

I also made a custom rice pack using leftover fabric from RV curtains. Because sometimes you need heat instead of cold.

week 4 ish

What day is it again? Oh yeah, it's June. Damn, May went by so fast and so slow.

It's been over a month since surgery. Walking without a crutch was slow and awkward at first, but gradually I was walking without pain and with a slight limp. I was doing great until The Incident involving big roaches in a paper towel roll and I ran before my I knew what was happening. Not something you want to do on a healing hip. It set me back progress-wise about 2 days, which wasn't so bad in the long run but man it sucked.

At this point I'm mostly pain free, but still feel the joint get pinchy if I do too much, and am icing all the time to stay ahead of inflammation. I'm done taking all the drugs (YAY now maybe my stomach will calm down), and I'm ready to start trying to drive. I need to see how much strength and stamina I have so I can start to measure progress. I'd like to go on walks to measure how fast I get tired but I don't really have anywhere to do that safely. 

I still wear the brace if I'm in the yard, since grass and hills are surprisingly difficult to walk on, and I also wear it if I'll be doing bending, like weeding the garden. It's uncomfortable and HOT, but keeps me from bending too far. I think it will be a while until I can bend past 90 degrees. 

Ironically, I'm in a lot of pain but not my hip. My arm hurts from crocheting too much. It seems like I developed forearm tendonitis from crocheting for hours every day. Go figure. So now I need to find some other way to pass the time.

3 week update

All right, it's been 3 weeks since surgery. Technically the halfway point of the projected recovery timeline but I definitely do not feel halfway healed. 

I've been walking on 1 crutch for the last week. (I still crack up when I think of myself as tiny tim)

Physical therapy has been awesome. I didn't know how to safely transition to 1 crutch, so they had me slowly start shifting weight back and forth onto the right leg, and over the course of about 15 minutes I was able to do it. It's not something you want to try at home. It's honestly a little scary because your brain at that point is so used to not putting weight on it, and you're not confident that it will even hold. Even now, the joint feels weak and if I move too big or twist the joint, I get a nice stabbing pain to remind me not to do that. The brace, while uncomfortable, is actually really helpful because it restricts your movement for you.

Starting tomorrow, I can start to try walking without a crutch. This time I won't have a physical therapist to show me (my next appointment is in a week), but basically you use the crutch more for balance instead of weight bearing. Again, that will be a slow process building strength (and confidence). My gait is still forced and the steps are still very careful and calculated. I have to remind myself to put weight on it while I'm standing. It's like I lost all the muscle memory that I've had for 40 years. What a weird thing to have to think about. Definitely have a long way to go.

In other news, two of the incisions are infected. I don't know how, I followed all the instructions, washed my hands constantly, and used clorox wipes on EVERYTHING every day. It be like that sometimes I guess. 

The bad news is, you don't take infected surgical incisions lightly. I'm on a strong antibiotic (ugh) but given the choice between those and a gnarly joint infection, give me the pills. 

So the days have been passing. Some have been good, where I feel good and have energy and feel like I'm getting stronger, and some days are not so good, where I don't feel good and I'm tired and sore and have to rest more. It's that, "2 steps forward 1 step back" type of feeling. 

Who knew it would be so hard to learn how to walk again?

more useful crochet things. Kinda.

Today's crochet project was a face scrubbie. I usually use a washcloth to exfoliate but I figured I'd give these a try.

The first one was a loose texture, my thought was it would dry faster.

I didn't like it. The texture was too loose, and once it got wet it loosened up even more, so it was hard to use as a scrubbie. I do, however, really like this stitch, it's pretty.

The next attempt was a little more tighter and compact.

You know what? I didn't like this one either. I think what it is is that the yarn itself doesn't feel scrubby enough. It's too gentle for my taste.

Overall, I think I prefer the washcloth. 

These were fun to make, though.