The countdown to PAO#2 has now begun, even as I count the weeks since my first PAO. Here's the weekly status report.
~After feeling like crap a week ago, today my hip feels the best it has since surgery. That may be due to the body work my PT did yesterday (she is the best), or to the pilates class I took last night, or to the fact that the sun came out briefly yesterday. All I know is, I got up this morning and was able to walk immediately with no pain and no hitching. Usually I am stiff and sore when I first get up; it's a given. This morning I felt almost normal from the first step.
~One thing I do know is that recovery from PAO is not linear. You make progress, you regress, you make more progress ... as long as the general direction is forward, it's all good.
~My scar has healed beautifully - it's a thin pink line that I hardly notice. It is covered by my swimsuit, except when I hike it up a bit to show off in my Seniors' Pool Exercise class, where everyone has a scar of some sort and mine is the newest and I dare say the prettiest.
~My cane has been unused for weeks. In fact, I'm not really sure where it is right now.
~I can walk a mile, but haven't tried to walk farther. It's rainy here and so I've been doing indoor exercises instead. My goal was to walk the Fairmount Loop (3.5 miles) by Thanksgiving. However, I will be one week post PAO#2 on Thanksgiving so I may have to try it the weekend before.
~I can do 30 minutes on the elliptical with no incline and no resistance.
~I am doing a lot of pulley work per my PT's orders, still swimming some, and going to the occasional yoga or pilates class (more on that later).
~My left (unoperated) hip sometimes hurts more than my right, but in a different way.
~Daily hazards still exist: I'm suspicious of revolving doors after a mishap around 10 weeks when someone got in behind me and gave the door a huge shove. I almost fell down. I don't like people to walk too close to me, and when they are coming at me fast in the opposite direction I get a little nervous. I don't want anyone to knock me over or bump my hip. I am also nervous in elevators. The other day someone banged my hip with a backpack in a crowded elevator and I doubled over and cried out in pain. I'm sure he thought I was overreacting, but I pretty much couldn't walk for 24 hours after that. I now stand with my purse way out in front of me to block people from getting near me. Paranoid is better than hurting.
~I guess that's what it will feel like when I start skating again and fall on my hip. Something to look forward to for sure.
~Carrying heavy loads still makes my hip hurt. I have tried to carry less except when I have no choice. I still think it's great to be able to carry a cup of coffee across the street and still have a hand free to open the door. Can't wait to be back on crutches ...
~ ...Not.
~Yes, I can tell when it's going to rain. It's autumn in Oregon so that's pretty much every day.
~I have gone to yoga and pilates classes. There are moves I can't do at all, and others I modify. Some of them I do pretty well unmodified. As someone asked on HipWomen, why does it seem every yoga move starts with, "rotate your hips outward"? I do a lot of the strength and balance moves with my hips square and no rotation, and they work fine for me that way. I see no reason to try to work on external rotation because let's face it folks, my femurs turn in. It is what it is and will always be. Let them all try sitting in "W"!
~I will admit, however, that it is disheartening to look around the class and see the people who have little core strength or balance but who can all sit smugly cross legged with their knees on the floor, or in lotus position ... everyone in the class can do it except me. I do a great plank ... and I can balance on one foot longer than anyone else (my knee is forward in tree pose, not out to the side, thank you very much) ... and I am the only one in the class who can roll up to standing from my back ... but I am not going to do those turnout moves. It's just not gonna happen.
~Note to self: Yoga is not about competition. Do not compare yourself to anyone else. Let it go. Breathe. Just be.
~Yeah, right.
3 comments:
Hey Teri is sitting kneeing in a w a sign of dysplasia? My daughter does it, she's almost a yr and supposedly had her hips fixed with 3 months in pavlik harness from 4 to 7 months 24/7. I can't sit like that. I kneel a lot and try make a little w just to avoid my heels digging into my where my hamstrings meet my sit bone, but I can't sit like my daughter Izzy??
Must be weird having an internal weather dial, thank God you don't like here in sunny (not) England!
Sorry, Teri, I'm commenting on your own blog!
Louisa, I had the exact problem your daughter had as a child. My parents used the harness and I was fine until I was an adult. PAO wasn't an option back in my day. I'd take your daughter in for some more checkups, maybe find a different expert for consultation.
Hi Teri,
I feel the same way about yoga! Constantly reminding myself it's not a competition. I just feel so lopsided. I only have dysplasia on 1 side, so I'm totally unsymmetric. One hip folds in and one folds out. Oh, well. I'm really good at the moves that turn one hip out and one in, though (if only in one direction LOL)! So next time you're trying to breathe and not focus on everyone else turning their hips out you can picture my lopsided poses and cheer yourself up!
Louisa, I agree it's worth keeping an eye on your daughters hips, but I wouldn't panic. I sat in a w shape well into elementary school and only one of my hips is wonky, the other is perfectly fine. Many of my classmates did too - I kept track of how people sat because I was very self-conscious that I could never sit indian-style. Around high-school age I stopped being able to turn my normal hip in far enough to sit in a W, so now there's no good way for me to sit on the floor :(.
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