HEALTHY ARTHRITIC REPLACED HIP
A Hip in Time 3

On July 19, 2024, I underwent a total hip replacement. Ovation Home Care has served many patients who are sporting a new hip, either from elective joint replacement surgery or due to a traumatic event (such as a fall or an automobile accident).

For me, it was a choice. For three years, my lifestyle had become increasingly limited. In fact, I had actually taken to shopping at a smaller grocery store just to avoid walking through gargantuan supermarkets. 

As a part-time musician, my gigs were laborious rather than joyous. I never stood on both legs as I strummed my guitar and sang. I never swayed back in forth to the music. Instead, all my weight transferred to my right leg (poor guy) for two to three hours a night.

I was in pain all the time. Literally. There were even times that I couldn’t fall asleep for hours because I writhing in pain while lying still.

Doc Appointment

When I finally scheduled a consult with an orthopedist, I felt hopeful, but scared. Hopeful, because if what I suspected was true, I could be eligible for new hip…and maybe some relief from my suffering. But I was apprehensive because what if it wasn’t arthritis? Or what if it wasn’t really severe? What if I was just a weenie?

Turns out my left hip was riddled with arthritis. My right hip was this beautiful sphere. My left hip looked like someone had dropped a tacky sack off their roof and onto their driveway.

I was given the option of trying some injections, but to me, that felt like putting a bandaid on the problem. I wanted a permanent solution, not a temporary fix.

So the procedure—total hip replacement, anterior approach—was scheduled for a date about six weeks later. (I would have liked to have had the surgery sooner, but my music partner and I had gigs already on the books.)

Under the Knife

Surgery day rolled around and I was eager to go under the knife and start enjoying my new hip. After all, I had been told how quickly the hospital staff will have you up and walking after the procedure. I’d been told how much easier a hip replacement recovery is compared to knee replacement. I’d been told how I’d wish I had done it sooner.

What nobody really prepared me for—or could prepare me for—was the actual recovery.

Day of Surgery
A Hip in Time 4

Ready. Set. Recover.

My surgery went just fine. I woke up (if you can call it that) a little loopy in the post op recovery unit. My surgeon dropped by to see me and confided that they really had to work me in the OR. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. I did, however, know that I was in a lot more pain than I expected.

For whatever reason, I expected that there were be pain around the incision area. After all, you can’t cut skin without causing a little bit of an ouch. But the pain I felt was deeper. It was in the muscle, which confused me because I was under the impression that orthopedic surgeons don’t cut through the muscle in these procedures.

They don’t. (More on that later.)

The rest of that first day (evening by this point) rolled along in a blur. My wife drove me home. My family enjoyed dinner. I tried to sit very still in the recliner. And I eventually crawled into be with my wife’s help.

But it was how I approached the next several weeks that made all the difference in how I am doing today.

Our Orthopedic Recovery Support Program

Ovation Home Care is blessed to have Terri Pope, OTR, as our Client Experience Manager. She is very involved in the assessment of clients and development of their personalized care plans. 

Terri has created several specialty programs that we employ depending on the needs of our clients and one is the Orthopedic Recovery Support Program. And although I didn’t need to be hospitalized or spend time in short term rehab, we employed these “principles” in my recovery.

Pain Management

I really didn’t anticipate the pain and discomfort I would experience in the first weeks after surgery. In fact, less than 24 hours after my surgery, we were sitting in our living room and I searched for and watched a video of a real total hip replacement (anterior approach). I saw the way the surgeon how to contort the legs of his patient in order to get to head of the femur. I witness how his surgical team pulled his patient’s quadricep muscles far out of the way. (I won’t even mention what he did to the femur itself but I can tell you it involves a titanium spike a hammer, and plenty of elbow grease.)

After the video finished, I said, “So THAT’S why I’m in so much pain.”

It was a pivotal moment for me because, as a rule, I resist taking any kind of pain medication, even over-the-counter medication . But I saw that there was a good reason for me to be in pain. I knew I needed my rest and if that meant taking a pain medication, I would.

But the pain medication doesn’t last forever. So the sooner you learn to manage the pain without it, the quicker your recover.

For example, I regularly elevated my left leg. And I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did early on. Elevating the leg doesn’t mean sitting in a chair with your leg up. It means lying down (supine) and putting a pillow under your knew. The idea is the injured part of your body be above your heart.

I also used ice. And I mean, a lot. Terri made some simple non freezable ice packs (a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water), and I’d swap them out pretty regularly. This was a great tactic because soon, ice could help me manage the pain and I didn’t need a narcotic to do so. 

Compliance

Most patients could accelerate their recovery if they listened to their healthcare providers. Especially the physical therapists who work with you strengthen your muscles and keep you safe after the procedure.

For me, that was Scott Scott was a Physical Therapist Assistant with Brooks Rehab Home Health who worked with me for six weeks. 

When we first started working together, we was asking me to do the littlest things—simple things like lifting extending my left leg from a seated position—and ti felt almost impossible. In fact, I worried that I wouldn’t be recovered enough intimate for my next gig.

But Scott also left me with a home exercise program. So whether I felt like it or not, I dutifully got up from the couch and did the exercises. Sometime I did them twice a day. And guess what. I started improving. 

Scott also told me to use a walker, so I used a walker. After a couple of weeks, he encouraged me to transition to a cane. I’m relatively young, but he had put the fear of God in me about falling. I didn’t want to return to surgery to fix a dislocated hip.

Nutrition

I must admit, when I first saw the Orthopedic Recovery Support Program Terri put together, her focus on nutrition surprised me. And I never really understood it—that is, until I was living through it.

Remember when I mentioned above that orthopedic surgeons don’t slice through your leg muscles? That’s true. But they pull them all sorts of ways to Sunday (to use a colloquialism). When I saw that YouTube video the day after surgery, I finally started to understand why nutrition is so important, especially protein. 

Your muscles have been torn down to make way for a new hip. They’re hurting. And they need protein. 

Coincidentally, I had decided to lose weight by going on a Keto eating plan starting the day before my surgery. (This wasn’t exactly the smartest idea.) But because I was tracking my intake (calories, net carbs, fat, and protein), I could see how much protein I was getting. If it was low, I could fry up an egg or eat a few slices of turkey or have a spoonful of no-sugar-added peanut butter.

I was working my body hard with the home exercise program, but I was nourishing it, too.

Outcomes

Almost six weeks to the day after my surgery, my band (Pre-Existing Conditions) had a gig. I had anxiously feared how it would go. After all, it’s an hour and 45 minute drive, one-way. We would be performing in the heat. There was a long walk between the stage and the drop-off spot for the load-in/load-out. How would I do?

I’m happy to say the gig went off without a hitch! I used my cane to get around safely on the uneven surface. But when it came time for me to play the guitar, I stood and swayed and sang—pain free.

My life has been so much better. The pain, my constant companion, is now gone. I’m actually exercising again, taking walks for two-three miles in the mornings. And I have so much more energy. I never realized how much of my energy was consumed by trying to maintain a semi-normal gait and attempting to put a smile on my face in public. Now, I’m able to do so much more and I love it.

I’m really glad I had the surgery. My thanks to Dr. Chancellor Gray with Florida Orthopedic Institute, as well as the clinicians at Brooks Rehab Home Health. (There are many go home health agencies in the area like Concierge Home Care, Aveanna Home Health, Enhabit Home Health, CenterWell, Trilogy, and Pinnacle; we’ve shared patients with just about all of them.) 

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