In super exciting news, I had my 3 month post op appointment last week! Here we are, three months and some change, well on the road to recovery, and I'm still in pain. When I went into this surgery people who knew me and loved me were so optimistic for me. I constantly heard "You're so young, and in great shape, you'll heal so much faster than you think!" I took that sentence to heart, and clung to it for dear life.
I was so scared going into surgery. Every single thing was unknown. Will we be able to do it arthroscopically or will it have to be an open incision? Can we repair the cartilage or will we have to shave it down? What other damage is there? Even the morning of surgery, talking to my doctor there was no clear plan, but more of a "here are the three options that I am comfortable doing today." My surgery was supposed to take 2 hours, and it ended up taking 5. Instead of my doctor just doing one of the possible surgeries he did all three. My labrum was able to be repaired instead of shaved, but it was completely detached and is now held into place by 6 suture anchors. He had to shave 1/2 an inch of bone off of my hip in one spot alone. I had two different types of impingement that had to be corrected. All of this to say, it didn't matter how young I am, or what good shape I was in, I had every worst case scenario and this wasn't going to be a smooth and easy recovery.
I think that's what has caught me the most off guard. Just how slow this process is. But is it always this slow? No. There are much milder versions of this surgery, I just didn't have any of them. Going into this I had read all of the blogs, and the medical websites, and everything I could, and while reading on paper how slow it was didn't phase me, living it has just about killed me. Six weeks ago I was cleared to walk my kids to school. That's it. That's as far as I was allowed to go. "Healing takes time, and we want the right amount of scar tissue to form, and my bone was so freshly shaved." I heard these words, but I hated them.
When I woke up from my surgery I thought that every day would be better, and I would be pain free in no time. But the truth is, you don't wake up pain free. There is no one day 'ah-ha!' moment. You are still in pain. The sky is still blue. It's a new kind of pain, and it's scary. You've just undergone 5 hours of hellacious surgery, were stuck to your couch for 6 weeks, are barely allowed to walk 1/4 of a mile, and you're still in fucking pain. The pain is getting better. It isn't something that stops me from doing things anymore, and three months and some change later I can say that it is better than the day that I went in for surgery. Did I mention that this process is slow?
With all that being said, I still am afraid with most of my movements. Random things catch me off guard, the twisting of my leg just wrong, bending just at the wrong angle, getting out of bed wrong. Every move that I make is a conscious one. The other day in the grocery store Camden accidentally kicked the side of my foot while he was running by me, and it caused my foot to turn out, and the amount of pain that I was in at that moment almost dropped me to the ground in tears.
Last week my doctor cleared me to walk as far as I want! I didn't realize at the time what that meant to me. I didn't realize it until yesterday when I took Everett and the dog on a 1.25 mile walk. Clearly it isn't a far distance, but there was this beautiful moment, walking down a trail, on such a gorgeous day, with the sun was shining, the trees such a vibrant green, and I just felt free. Like all of this was finally becoming worth it. It was such an emotional moment, one that I didn't know I needed, but was so, so needed. This is the path that I couldn't wait to be on. Taking my toddler on a walk, stopping to bend down and look at the streams, zigging and zagging, and just living.
I still have three more months until I can go back to things like running, and the gym. But, I did get cleared to work my back, shoulders & chest at the gym! Woot, I'm about to be that 'don't forget leg day' meme making the rounds.
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