Thursday got off to a great start. I had a reasonable
sleep; calling the nurse only twice. Once, because I lost the circulation and
feeling in both arms and hands – very odd and unexplained as I had been moving
them, but the feeling came back after some simple arm movements and self-massage.
Secondly, because my right heel was getting very sore - my entire leg was like a dead
weight so the nurse propped it up with a pillow and the problem was
quickly resolved. I wasn’t in too much pain after the local anaesthetic machine
was stopped so I was pretty happy yet surprised. Breakfast went down a treat
and I even managed to almost fully dress myself in my own clothes after wash
time. – Another big milestone in my eyes! The physios arrived at the same time
as the porter man to take me for my CT scan so physio was postponed until I
returned. It doesn’t sound exciting, but I was eager to leave the ward for a
short while and visit another part of the hospital. At 10.10am we reached the
CT department. The porter left me in a room next door and was told I would be
collected shortly for my scan. After what seemed to be about 40 minutes, I had
my scan which lasted about 2 minutes and then I was deposited back in the same
room and told to wait for the porter. Long story short; I was forgotten about
and it took over 3 hours and a lot of tears later until I was returned to Sarah
ward. I was understandably quite emotional because in those 3 hours I missed
out on my morning physio, I missed out on lunch, and I missed a lot of
medication that I was due. Now Thursday, like Tuesday, had turned into a bad
day and it was totally out of my control. Everyone warned me about good days
and bad days, but I didn’t account for other people whose actions could negatively
impact on my days. I had a good rant and cry to Andy on the phone – who was ready
to go all Mike Tyson on the Hospital staff. Then the lovely ward Sister (Pennie)
was horrified and bought me lunch from the café (which was a lot nicer anyway),
and ensured the physios came and had a longer session with me. When Caroline
and Kate arrived, I was even more determined to make progress, and as they hadn’t
really seen me ‘walk’, I decided to show off using my zimmer frame. I was
feeling pretty happy until they told me that I was cheating and swinging my bad
leg through, rather than contracting my weakened hip flexor and initiating the
movement. I understood what they were explaining and tried desperately hard to
move my right leg but I just couldn’t! It was so demoralising and I felt like
this day was never going to get better. A few more attempts but to no avail.
Caroline asked me to head back to my chair and we would try it later. So I
turned around and cheated my way back, when Steph walked in. After seeing the
state I was in on Tuesday, she couldn’t believe I had made it out of bed and
was ‘walking’. With Steph watching, I attempted again to move my right leg
first and even though it was only like 1cm, I managed it! Once again, another
milestone and I was ecstatic! It was like my brain had finally remembered how
to talk to the muscle and it just switched on all of a sudden. Using the
zimmer, I continued to ‘walk’ around properly and the physios were so
impressed, they progressed me to crutches.
Having the freedom to now use my crutches and get to the
toilet by myself was great. My mum, Andy and friend Sarah came to visit me so I
managed to turn Thursday around and it finished on a high. Despite the couple
of bad experiences I endured, I was still as determined as ever to remain
positive and get through this tough time.
Since coming off the hardcore meds on Weds, the Docs, nurses
and physios kept saying to Natalia and I that we were doing so well. We hadn’t
complained about pain, or demanded more medication. They honestly couldn’t believe
how well we were doing and exclaimed that we must have high pain thresholds
because there was no other reason. Apparently PAO is the most painful surgical
procedure that there is – more so than hip replacements, knee replacements etc because of the sheer trauma that the body is put through. To hear how
well we were doing from the professionals was great, and I was staying true to my
earlier wishes. I told Andy that people have to deal with much worse in their
lives and I didn’t want to complain once or cry (unnecessarily J) and feel sorry for myself. I can’t
explain how I’m doing so well, whether it’s all the prehab I did prior to
surgery, or having my hip twin to share the journey with, or
writing this blog, or whether it’s the sheer number of people that have
messaged me and who are sending positive vibes. Most likely it’s a combination of
all of the above. But what I can say for sure is the recovery thus far has been much
easier than anticipated and the pain is no worse than what I had coped with
prior to surgery. So for anyone reading this and facing PAO, just try and
remain positive. It really does help! – That’s coming from a pessimistic hypochondriac.
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