Total Hip Replacement Surgery: Day 5 Post-op

These two 'visiting' me when I'm resting in my room

I'm determined to get these posts up from the early days and things have got better so here's what I'd written up on day 5 post-op on the 28th January 2018...

Yesterday afternoon and evening a weird clunking began in my new hip joint. No-one had warned me about this but Google tells me it's normal- especially in the first 6 or 7 weeks. 

There isn't pain associated with the clunking but it is a horribly weird sensation. 

  

Last night was a much better night compared to my first night home where I struggled so much. 

In the evening my legs felt extremely agitated again. I had prepared myself mentally for experiencing pain but this discomfort and agitation is not something I was expecting. It makes me feel trapped in a body I just want to escape from. I want to start stretching and twisting to make it feel better but I know that is not an option due to the risk of dislocation. 

 

the dressing is brilliant as it is waterproof - hoping wound is healing well

I am desperate to be able to lay on my front to stretch my body out. At the moment I feel all hunched and scrunched up. Again not something I had expected as I had thought it was the arthritis in my hip that was putting everything else out of alignment and right now I feel more unaligned than ever. That's frustrating. My fear is that I'll have to live with a compromise of getting rid of the arthritic joint but living with other restrictions instead. I just have to keep trusting in what I see and hear of other people's successful hip replacements and believe that one day that will be me. 

It feels like a slow road right now. Like a prison sentence. Not being able to get outdoors has affected my mood and I feel so low. Possibly a side effect from some of the drugs I'm on too. It's just not me - I don't feel any motivation to do ANYTHING. Even the things I'd set aside as little pleasures to do doing my recovery - sorting out recipes from my magazine collections, reading books I've never had time to read, perhaps a spot of blogging or sorting out photos. I can't even muster the motivation to play board games with the kids and I dislike myself for it. 

I keep being told that it's early days - that it's only 5 days since I had major surgery but I just don't feel like I'm making enough progress to see a positive end in sight. Again I have to trust the road that others have travelled and believe that it will get better whether I feel like it or not at the moment. 

I'm sick of my own whinging and negativity. If it was someone else in my family feeling this way I would have little sympathy and tell them to pull themselves together. Even though I know it doesn't work that way. 

So onto a positive...even though I can't get comfortable sitting or lying down- I have managed to sit through episodes of 'One Foot in the Grave' - it's a programme I've loved for many many years and it's given us such laughs re-watching old episodes. 

Another positive...last night was so much better than the previous night. I'd accepted that I would need to sleep propped up with pillows and that I'd need a light on (On the rare occasions when panic attacks have happened before, being in complete darkness has been a trigger). I managed a whopping 3 and a half hours unbroken sleep. Waking up at 2.30 for a walk around my bedroom. That felt an epic amount of sleep compared to the previous night. Then I managed a couple more bursts of sleep until we got to 5.30am and that to me meant I had made it to morning. In the early hours of the morning I even went down to one pillow for a while and lay flatter. I'm hoping it will gradually become more and more comfortable to do so. 

 

the bruising is travelling down to behind my knee

Since the spinal wore off on day 1 I had sore ankles - behind my ankle. At first I thought it was where they had clamped me for the op but the anaesthetist said they hadn't clamped my foot. So I am guessing it is more of a bed sore kind of pain. That soreness became stronger through the night but I guess that figures as I slept more. Will need to change my TED stockings today so that may help - am supposed to change them daily but it's a job I need complete and utter help with so we've left it until today to tackle it. 

 

the process of changing TED stockings - Left thigh definitely looking swollen now. 

Apologies for the far-from-nice pictures - but I wanted this to remain an accurate and honest account of the recovery process.