Meet Winifred!

 

My surgeon apparently favors the button-and-zipper incision.*

What a cliffhanger! 

When I left you three weeks ago with a photo of Tom Walz's Award-Winning Tater Tot Casserole, I had intended to be back within hours with news that I was an award-winner as well, having earned the prestigious A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award. 

Spoiler: I am not an A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award winner. But I also have not failed hip replacement recovery--maybe a solid C shading toward C-? 

The good news is very, very good. Here are the things I feared most, in descending order and warning my sons that this list contains TMI:

1. Death. I probably had a higher awareness of this possibility than most hip replacement patients, given my clotting disorder and the distinct shadow that passed over my (excellent) surgeon's face when we talked about this. I distinctly remember our conversation: "You won't even be aware of it if things go wrong," he said. "I'm the one who'll have to tell your family you didn't make it through." Well, alrighty then.
2. Anesthesia-prompted dementia. My mother, the Best Woman Ever, went into her second knee replacement with slight signs of dementia but came out of the anesthesia fighting the IV and catheter and convinced President Lincoln was in the next room. She never completely recovered. I had discussed this with the surgeon and anesthesiologist and they assured me that if I were not already showing dementia symptoms this was unlikely to be a problem. Still...
3. (TMI AHEAD) Post-surgery constipation. I know. But IT'S A THING!

I was able to rule out two of those three things within moments of waking up post-surgery. I was alive! President Lincoln was dead! And...well, the third concern was still concerning but a few days later, checked off the list.

What I had not known enough to fear was emerging from the procedure with a dropped foot. In fact, I didn't even know what a dropped foot was. As I foggily emerged from la-la land in the recovery room, my first words to the nurse were "I can't move my toes. Is that normal?" And she looked me straight in my still-slightly-crossed eyes and lied through her teeth: "Oh, yes, that's perfectly normal." 

Mmmm...not so much. 

As my dear Lovely Girl #2's orthopedist brother was able to explain, dropped foot is a known complication of hip replacement, and happens when the sciatic nerve is stretched or damaged. This long nerve runs from the base of the spine to the foot, and when it is mad it can stop talking to the foot. In my case, that means I can push my toes and foot down normally (think of pressing on the accelerator) but I can't lift the toes or foot (think or lifting the foot back up off the accelerator). It's a very weird feeling: I tell the toes to lift, and nothing at all happens. 

Think of how you move your foot when you take a step--you lift up the front part, hit with the heel, then the front part lands. In my case, walking is more like having a raw pork chop attached to my ankle. To take a step in the first few days after surgery, I basically lifted my knee and kicked that pork chop out in front of me and watched it go SPLAT! on the floor. 

So, LG2's brother told me, this is a known complication even though it only happens in about 1% of cases because I am super-duper special. The silver lining is that it almost always resolves, but the attached cloud is that nerves are the slothful turtles of recovering cells and this could take a long time, that I should think in terms of many months. 

My (excellent) surgeon also reassured me that the pins-and-needles I was feeling were an good sign--the nerve is trying to fire, it just hasn't gotten its act together. 

A few days later I was fitted for a carbon fiber AFO (ankle-foot orthosis) brace that slides into my shoe and gives my foot enough substance that I walk with a fairly normal gait, or as normal as one walks three weeks post-hip replacement. Sadly, the brace means that I had to order shoes a size larger and wider than my already-substantial feet normally require. When they arrived I burst into tears. "It's progressive degradation!" I wailed to Husband. "Now I'm having to wear clown shoes!" I do believe Post Partum Depression might also apply to hips.

There is good news on the recovery front. A few days ago I noticed that I can lift my toes a tiny, tiny bit off the floor. And by tiny, I mean you can barely slide a sheet of paper under them, but that's progress from three weeks ago. And the nerve firing continues to be intense, and has ramped up from its original 10 decibels to about 500 decibels. (I know, I know. Pain isn't measured in decibels, but this has very much felt like something that can be heard.) Again, that's good. My (excellent) surgeon was quite sure that the nerve wasn't cut, but hip replacement is not a delicate operation and he believes the nerve was stretched.

So I am here, and healing, and getting better every day. Tomorrow (or soon) I'll write about the "normal" parts of hip replacement I've experienced and the positives, of which there have been many. 

I just wanted you to know that Winifred is installed and working great. See how beautiful she looks? 

*The surgeon did not actually use a button-and-zipper incision. That is not a thing. This is my denim skirt making its presence known in the X-ray from my post-surgery check-up. But if button-and-zipper incisions do become a thing, remember that you read about it here first!