Winifred and Me: A Five-Week Report

Back at the stove!

A couple of weeks ago, when I introduced the new friend who lives in my hip*, Winifred, I promised a blow-by-blow report of what I experienced in my first experience with joint replacement. I hope none of you Lovely Readers take it as an insult when I guess that many of you are either already at or approaching this event yourself. I mean, you are reading a blog. If you were cool and young (and I started to add "hip" to this list but, too soon) you would be reading this in Substack or as an Instagram post. 

The bottom line is that although my road to recovery has not been that of those who told me it was a piece of cake, and that within three weeks I'd forget I'd had surgery at all (nope, nope, nope), I'm making excellent progress. Last week, in fact, I cooked my first full meal since mid-August and it was not particularly onerous or exhausting. (One Pot Chicken With Rice and Caramelized Lemons, if you're curious, and it was delicious.)

So welcome, fellow limpers and groaners! I have two disclaimers to make before I dive into the nitty-gritty of my own personal hip replacement. 

The first is that surgery was five full weeks ago, and I was under anesthesia part of that day. Except for the moment I was emerging from anesthesia and was told that not being able to move my toes was perfectly normal (it is not), I remember virtually nothing of that morning, and only bits and pieces of the rest of the day. 

The second disclaimer is the most important thing I have learned in the past four weeks, and if I could write it in italics and boldface and a shockingly large font, I would. It is this: 

My experience is mine, and mine only. Yours, should you need joint replacement, may include two things that I have experienced, or several things, or nothing at all. It's like falling in love: You can prepare all you like but you won't know what it's like for you until you go through it yourself. Also like love, be aware that it can hurt but this isn't inevitable. 

Also, I am not a doctor. None of this, not one word, is intended as medical advice. Again, it is what I experienced and your own doctor may roll his/her eyes in horror at what you are reading. 

So. Let's dive in.

My surgery was the first of the day at Big City Hospital, and I highly recommend this prized spot. As the first of the day, I knew it would start on time and that I would have a few more hours of lolling around before the physical therapy crew came in to get my lazy new butt out of bed. Husband was not as thrilled about the schedule, since it meant we had to be on the road by 4:30 a.m. to make the 5:45 a.m. check-in time. Pffft. He had all day to nap. We arrived at the hospital on time, with the required walker and comfy clothes in tow.

As for the surgery itself, here is what I remember about it: (Crickets.)

That's it. Nothing at all. I assumed my (excellent) surgeon was doing the work, and had not subcontracted it to a first-year medical student, but honestly, he could have raffled off the opportunity in an NPR fundraiser ("Use cool power tools! Say STAT and mean it!") and I wouldn't have known the difference at the time. Because anesthesia is wonderful, I did not see him until I was mostly conscious several hours later.

Fortunately he checked in with Husband in the waiting room when I was still snoozing away in the recovery room. Husband was most impressed that (excellent) surgeon took all the time necessary to answer any of Husband's questions. Husband also remembers that I waved as I was rolled down the hall from the recovery room to the orthopedics wing, another moment I do not remember. The orthopedics wing, by the way, was an excellent place to spend the next 24 hours. (Some fake-joint patients leave within hours; my clotting issues won me an overnight stay even though this is still considered an out-patient procedure.) All of the personnel on this hallway only deal with zippered hips and knees so they truly know their art. They knew what is run-of-the-mill and what makes them say "Hmmm..." They have the best advice on pain meds. In my case, they were total sweethearts.

The physical therapy folks I would not describe as total sweethearts, but they know their job and their job is to get me up and moving when that was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. (We had been pre-warned about this--"You're going to love everyone you meet there," our joint replacement class leader told us about the orthopedic wing staff. "Well, not the PT people," she added. "You're not going to like them at all.") Surgery was in the morning, and by early afternoon I was out of bed and walking down the hall. There is an up side to this seemingly-cruel forced march: No need for bedpans. If you can walk 100 yards, you can get that hip over to the bathroom.

I was hoping that the 3:30 a.m. alarm would mean I would sleep well that first night, but apparently the good nap I had in the operating room caught me up on all the sleep I needed. As always, hospital sleep is the worst. The mattress is the worst. The pillows are the worst. The long, long night watching the digital clock on the other side of the room is the worst. On the advice of the nursing staff I had taken pain meds before I "went to sleep" (ha!), but even that did not help.

Speaking of pain, I will make all veteran joint replacement patients jealous by reporting that I had almost no pain. I believe I took three pain pills, total, and those were prophylactic before PT sessions. I know; I've just destroyed all the sympathy I had built up by having a complication but this is to reassure y'all that pain is not necessarily the worst thing every replacement patient will face (see also: foot drop, as discussed in a previous blog post).

But morning comes! And with morning comes more PT. This time I walked 300 feet and climbed up and down a fake four-step stairway. I learned the phrase "Good foot first going up, bad foot first going down" and have repeated that phrase a minimum of 7,000 times since. Then the physical therapist gave me a photocopied sheet of exercises to repeat at home, and a warm good-bye hug (ha! Physical therapist, remember?) and I was cleared to go home. 

Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it: First days at home.

*That sounds kind of creepy, but the alternative to thinking of Winifred as a friend would be thinking of her as a foe, and that seems counterproductive.