A runner with a walker...the road after hip replacement.

I'm now the proud possessor of an artificial hip. And a walker.

And, let me tell you, recovery is a bitch.

My surgery happened on April Fools Day. It started at 5 pm and was a wrap by 6:15. It went seamlessly and flawlessly, and the surgical team was very happy. Yay! I walked the next day with my walker, and I went home three days later.

The time leading up to the event was NOT spent getting in great shape as I had hoped and mentioned in my last post a million years ago. Turned out that working out in pretty much any way caused me great pain...and I was just soooooo sick of being in pain. So I bagged it. I went into surgery out of shape and overweight. #winning

The best part of having surgery late in the day? You basically fast for 24 hours! Starting off my weight-loss journey ;-)

So the surgery happened. The pain came. It was horrible, but not as horrible as being massively and concretely constipated. Turns out pain killers do that, and the only way to get unconstipated is to stop the pain killers. So guess what? I'm not taking pain killers! Wheeeeeeee! Sometimes I almost get high from the pain. Sort of. I'm lying. It really hurts and there is no euphoria attached to it.

The pain is in my right thigh.

The joint feels fine.

Apparently, during the surgery they slice into your TFL and then split the muscle fibers and then retract the split muscle with metal retractors. And then they retract your quads with metal retractors. All so they can see the joint capsule, which they then slice open. Once they've sawed the femoral head off, they drop the leg down perpendicular to the rest of the body using a special table. This pops the femur up and out a little so they can drill down into in more efficiently and with greater visibility.

Are you cringing yet? I'll stop. But if you click the first link in this post it leads you to a post that has a link (you following me?) to an actual video of a hip replacement surgery...should you wish to make yourself totally skeeved out. Or educated. For me, it was both.

What this means is that my quad is ON FIRE. And weak.

Physical therapy is so humbling.

Every simple exercise causes leg shake. I have 10 exercises and a couple of "practical" things that I do at least three times a day. My PT says that I would progress faster if I were taking pain meds :( I'm going to test the waters with acetaminophen and ibuprofen, and I'll be icing after every session. Yesterday she had me go up and down our big flight of stairs (now one of my "practical" things to practice) and our goal is to have me off the walker and using the cane by the middle of next week. Graduating up to my friend, the cane :)

Most of the time I'm in good spirits. It's been challenging sometimes because I really just want to be alone. Or have people baby me. But my kids are on Spring Break (I know, I know! They are NEVER in school!) and they are still perfecting their "helpful" skills and because I can't drive them anywhere, they are ALWAYS here. (Go ahead...ask me how many times I've seen Frozen since my surgery. Go ahead...ask.)

People who've been down this road tell me that by six weeks out, you hardly even know you had the surgery...other than the fact that you don't hurt anymore :)

Others say that you shouldn't really plan on being "normal" for at least six months.

And then there's the guy who just ran a 100-mile ultra just shy of 11 months post-surgery. He finished in about 28 hours. That won't be me. Sorry not sorry. 

Will I ever run again? I don't know. I know that I want to. At least a little bit. But I have a lot of work to do before I'll feel comfortable tackling that. For now I'll be working on getting out of bed without using my hands to lift my leg up and over ...and graduating from the walker ;-)

Happy spring, people! Never ever ever take your mobility for granted :) Ever.

I've been posting a lot of this....ummmm....journey on Instagram. Feel free to click on over and follow me there.

mommy goed RUNNING!

yeah...

that's cuz mommy goed poop!

lol... do you like how I made that brown? click on it if you missed the background story.

In my last running update, I mentioned that I would be trying to run on Tuesday.  Well, that didn't happen.  It was slated to be a tempo run... which I usually like.  But I just wasn't in the mood.  Not like I always have to be in the mood to go running when I go running, but on Tuesday .... "oh, excuses, excuses, XL. you just suck and are lame and have no biz being on this planet"..."oh, shut up, you." yes, I talk to myself. I can't remember what happened.


I went on Thursday.  Just a mellow 5.25.  I ran 7 of my little 0.75-mile loopy-doos inside The Gate.  It was all that... but we're skipping the side of chips ;-)  Very consistent laps... only a 6-second spread between the fastest and the slowest not counting the one lap where I was messing with the iPod... gotta stop doing that... never again in a run for time like my 5K two weeks ago... but it is hard to run to anything by Flight of the Conchords and not bust up laughing, and it is hard to run to In My Father's Eyes without crying, and the seminar on How to Listen to and Appreciate Great Music just wasn't working for me, nor were the little French pronunciation mp3 downloads from the kids' school... you see?  I had to search!  It still was a very relaxed and relaxing pace right around 9:40 per mile.

Next up... 8 to 9 miles tomorrow.  I'll be shooting for the 9 but knowing that, after nearly 2 weeks off, the 8 is probably more realistic.  I am a realist.  My husband is the optimist.

I know all you running readers doubt that I really run.  And those pics from my last 5K were in the dark and I run at night when no one is looking so there is really no proof... I know that is what you're thinking.  So here are some pictures of me running in the day a few long runs ago... maybe a month or so ago...

My biggest fans giving me the ol' high-five as I speed past...

Big G in typical fashion pissing me off trying to show me some "new" way to high-five... 

that he invented as part of some mythological alien body language based on the last 40 bazillion books he has read

LOVE THAT KID!

Approaching the halfway/turnaround...

this is near that portapotty I was telling you about ;-)

And there's my sweet Q!

I have to stop for hugs!

how can I not?

Tomorrow I am hoping to share the new core workout of the century.  I started it last week... in my own way... still waiting to see the results.  But this routine... if you can do it... guaranteed to give you the core strength of... of.... the guy who is in the video!

I'll let y'all know how that big run tomorrow goes... now that I'm 'going' there shouldn't be any problems ;-)
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What's going on with my running?

Wha' happen?

Things were going so well. I had some pretty good long runs. Did an awesome (for me) 5K virtual race. Had a nice run two days after that. Then I took the weekend off. Three days off, actually. I planned to run on Monday. And I was constipated. That's oversharing, isn't it? But we're buds, so it's okay, right?

It was so bad.

I tried to run on Monday night. I did make it for 3 miles...hoping the whole time that there might be some 'movement' *wink,wink*  but there wasn't :(  And the next day I got a migraine that lasted until Thursday :(  Woe is me. Really.

It was so bad.

I was clinging to reality by my fingernails for a while there.  Clinging.  Fingernails.  Luckily, by Saturday morning things started smoothing out.  And moving out. get what I'm sayin'?  And today I felt a whole lot better... but I am still emerging from a migraine/constipation haze.  sounds lovely, doesn't it?

The plan now is to run on Tuesday...unless a window of opportunity miraculously presents itself tomorrow... which is not likely.  And I am OKAY with this.  :)

In the meantime, this kid is picking up my running slack:

She had been going for a while before I started filming. And she kept going after I stopped.

This girl is go go go... all. the. time.

I am looking forward to getting back on track with my training... and so glad that my race isn't until mid-May :P

How's your training going... if you're training, that is?

What's next on your Big Event Agenda... be it running or something besides running?  Do you think you'll be ready?