Movement Without Fear

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.

Sunday Funday!

I have this shirt, and I'm trying really hard to love it.  It's soft, and cozy, and a little bit big, and really really comfortable.  But, it's a flannel plaid, and I'm fairly certain that I look like a lumberjack in it.  In fact, I bet that if I were to go to Home Depot right now they'd look at me and be like "Nah, she doesn't need any help, she's got this." To make matters worse I'm currently using a pencil to keep my hair up in a bun, because why not?  This is why you try on clothes before you buy them.

Speaking of buying, I am feeling so jaded by this Christmas season.  This morning Mark and I took the kids to see Big Hero 6 (totally adorable, and worth going to see), and there was an entire preview where every Disney character was asking a kid "What'dya get?"  Seriously?  Ridiculous.  I'm so over Disney right now that it's also ridiculous, but that's another post for another time.  Anyways, back to my point.  This Christmas break the kids and I are going to focus on acts of service, and giving our time to people who aren't as lucky as we are.  We are going to sit down and brainstorm one to two things each that we can accomplish.  Anyone have any ideas?  I was thinking the SPCA for Cam, and something involving the Sacramento Children's House for Reese.  

Oh my gosh!  I finally did it.  I stepped on the scale for the very first time post surgery.  It is seriously the most nerve wracking thing ever!  I've been wanting to do it for weeks, but it stresses me out so badly that I have to do it in a quick wave of courage.  Scales should cause 100% less anxiety than this.  Anyways, I was so pleasantly surprised!  I've lost 4 pounds since surgery, which puts me at 134lbs.  You know what that means?  I've officially lost 20lbs since May 1st!  I realize that it's 6 months, and that the bulk of that weight was lost in the first 9 weeks, however, what I'm most excited about is that I haven't yo-yo'd!  I've maintained or slowly lost.  This has totally motivated me to get back to meal prepping, and IIFYM.  

I'm trying to start shifting my meals to be more Whole30 compliant now, so that when I start it (on Jan 1st, join me!) I don't go through major carb withdrawals.  I still haven't bit the bullet and tried Bulletproof Coffee, but I want to.  I just get so sad at the thought of only starting my day with one cup of coffee.  I don't even think that I turn into a nice person until I reach the bottom of my second cup. And, that's a lot of butter.  Have you tried it?  Let me know what you think of it!

6 Week Recap: I vacuumed today.

I've basically abandoned blogging, I'm sorry, I suck. This recovery has taken so much out of me, both mentally and physically, and I've been really, really angry about it. But that's not why I haven't been blogging. I haven't been blogging because I haven't been able to sit at a 90 degree angle, which means  that I haven't been able to sit in a computer chair.  So what have I been doing with my time? Watching TV.  So far, I've watched:

Scandal- 3 seasons
House of Cards- 2 seasons
Bones- 9 seasons
Friday Night Lights- 4.5 seasons

Which means that I have officially watched 300 hours of TV since this surgery, or, roughly 12 days and nights. I'm officially going stir crazy. But, and I hate to type this because it's like tempting the earth, but things are finally, FINALLY, moving forward. I'm officially allowed to walk. Kind of. Very small increments at a time, as much as my body can handle. I suck at listening to my body, so this is definitely (another) challenge for me. But I will never go through this surgery again, so it'll be a cold day in hell when I don't listen to my body and stop when I need to stop.

So, what else has been going on? Everett is in daycare two days a week. It is tough, really tough. He hates it. He comes home from school, and when you ask him how baby school was he says "It was bad, weally weally bad." Little man is breaking my heart. I know its temporary, and a short term solution, but I miss my baby. The other kids aren't doing so hot, either. Cam is turning into quite the jerk, and I know that it's because his whole world has been flipped upside down, and I've always been there to help him, and now he kinda has to take care of himself, so I'm hoping that as I become more mobile, and life rights itself so will his behavior.

Reese, oh Reese.   She is such a sweet girl, and I swear, I've never met someone with as pure a heart as she has. She has definitely been the boys rock during this transitional period, and I couldn't be more proud of how strong she's been as her entire world has shifted. Also, we are now in 3rd grade, and dealing with Common Core. First, I want to start by saying fuck common core. They are taking everything they learned last year, and completely disregarding it. The new math is super logical, and I know that it will be beneficial in the long run, but Reese is 8, and 8 year olds aren't logical creatures. I just don't know that she is mature enough to handle math with this much logic.

Also, what the hell is this. The past three weeks they've been working on mental math, and breaking things down and subtracting them by rounding, all in their heads. Two and three digit numbers, really pressing these kids. This weeks lesson? The exact same math problems, but now we get to use manipulatives to solve the problem. Seriously, could this be more backwards?  Ugh, I hate Common Core.

Onto the future. My next hurdle? Driving. I know that I won't get cleared this week, my hip still locks up when I move it side to side, so in an emergency I might not be able to get to the brake because my hip locked up.  I'm working on forcing myself out of the house, and back into socializing with people.  When you watch 300 hours of TV you kind of turn into a hermit.  Also, I vacuumed today! Seriously, huge. It took me a few breaks, with some sitting, but it's done, and it's one less thing on Mark's plate! I really miss being my happy, social, outgoing self, so I need to kick this funk off like its yesterday's business.

Wait, what kind of surgery are you having again?

Last October (2013) I was out for a four mile run when I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my right hip.  I pushed through, and finished my run.  Over the next few months I couldn't run without the pain, and the farther I got the worse it felt.  At one point I described part of my pain as 'feeling like bone was rubbing on bone.'  Still, I opted out of going to the doctor and pushed through the pain and continued to run and train for my half marathon.  In February of 2014 I completed my first ever half marathon, and was in the worst pain of my life.

That was the very last time I've been able to run.  Through out the half marathon training process I worked with a chiropractor to keep me as mobile as possible, but the day after the HM I made an appointment to see my doctor.  At first I was diagnosed with bursitis, an inflammation of the bursa sacs around my hip, and told to do these special stretches and that I should be better within a week.  Beezy pleazy, I had just spent almost 5 months in daily pain, there is no set of magic stretches that are going to fix everything in a week.  I continued to work with my chiropractor who pushed really hard for me to have an MRI, and so in March of 2014 I went for it.

The MRI showed that I had a torn tendon, tendonitis, a possible labral tear and an impingement cyst in my hip joint, and recommended that I have another MRI, this one with contrast.  I remember the night my MRI results came in my doctor called me to give them to me and was going to send me to physical therapy when all of the sudden she was like "Well, do you like running?" Um, yes, obviously, because I had just run 13.1 miles.  And so with those results she decided to send me to an orthopedic doctor, after ordering the MRI with contrast.  The MRI with contrast showed a labral tear, and 3 other cysts forming in my hip joint.

Fast forward through a set on x-rays, a 3D CT scan and an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, and onto where we now know that I have several tears in my labrum, cysts forming in some of the tears, both a cam and a pincer type FAI, and something fancy called a protrusio.  All of this to say, my hip is jacked up and we are past the point of physical therapy and into the scary land of surgery.  Even though my surgery is already scheduled for August 27 we aren't sure exactly what kind of surgery I'm going to have.

There are two types of surgery to treat this, open FAI surgery and arthroscopic FAI surgery.  The best case scenario will be arthroscopic, but because of the protrusio I may have to have the open surgery.  Focusing on the best case, if I have to have the arthroscopic surgery they will make 4-6 small incisions around the top of my thigh to insert a camera and all of the surgical equipment through, shave down the bone on the top of my femur (ball part of the socket) and the bone on the actual socket to keep it from rubbing together and creating more labral tearing, repair the labrum and anything else that needs fixed.  Overall it should take 4 hours (normal people only take 2, but because of the protrusio there is significantly more bone to shave), and recovery will be 4-6 weeks on crutches, and 6 months until I'm back to normal.

Worst case scenario, they make the tiny incisions, insert the camera and realize 'Woah, this is way too much bone.' Then they pull out, close me up, and reset another surgery date to complete the open FAI repair.  To do that they will have to cut a piece of my femur off, rotate the hip and will have a 100% open view and access to the entire thing.  They will then shave the bones, repair the labrum and anything else that needs fixing, screw the bone back together and close me up.  Recovery this way is a bit steeper, with 6-8 weeks being on crutches, and the same 6 month overall recovery.

So, needless to say I am super scared.  Four weeks on crutches, not being able to bend more than 90 degrees, and raising three small children just doesn't seem possible.  But, I've opted to do the surgery, instead of waiting to see if it will heal on its own, because here we are, just shy of 11 months later, and I'm still in pain.  And not just a little bit of pain, but 'modify everything in my life' kind of pain.  I can't lay on my right side, clearly there is no running, no lunging, no squatting, no deadlifting, no a lot of things.  I can't practice soccer with  my kid because it hurts too bad.  I'm tired of everything hurting, and I can't wait to be able to lay in bed at night, on my right side and watch a TV show.  Or go for a jog.  Oh, how heavenly that sounds.  There are some things that I will probably never be able to do again (like squats), but I can't do those things now, so it seems like a small price to pay.

So, now I'm spending my energy focusing on going into the surgery at my goal weight (132 lbs), able to do a strict pull up, and a hand stand push up, and what I'll need to get or do to make the recovery process easier.  I've read a lot of blogs, and am trying to take this one thing at a time.  Hopefully I'm able to stay positive and accomplish everything that I need to before August 27!