The Grind of Healing

In a previous blog post (It Should Have Been Easy Again) I talked about falling, breaking my hip, surgery and my discharge from the hospital. This post catches up with my progress to date.

When I last posted, I was still at my parents house. After a total of five nights, I moved back to my home. The visiting nurse had met with me twice and did not have any major objections to the move. It was not easy. On crutches I soon found it hard and tiring to do just about anything. I found myself sitting for most of the day. Physical Therapists visited twice a week and schooled me in trying to make it easier to accomplish tasks. One cool idea was to use an old walker my folks had as a "truck" to haul things around as needed. This made food prep easier: I could load the walker at the refrigerator and haul it to the counter. The walker has a seat on it and I could sit while cooking. They tried to show me ways to be comfortable sleeping, but to this day, I cannot sleep in my bed and find myself sleeping in a recliner in the living room. I dread the night. I often only get 3-4 hours of sleep at night. The PT people visit me twice a week and monitor my exercise progress and change my program as I progress. I was also getting visits from a nurse who tested my blood since I was on blood thinners(warfarin: rat poison). After four weeks, I have now been taken off of warfarin, so that nurse will not visit anymore.

A week after I got to my house(two weeks post surgery), I had an appointment to get the staples removed on my incision. A friend drove me to the appointment and has hauled me around to many places since as well as mowed my yard once. Others have stepped up and given me rides when I need them.

This week I have shown some improvement. The pulled muscles in my upper thigh are not as painful as they were. I suspect that when the surgeon reset my break, there was probably times when my foot could have been near my head! And since I am off warfarin, I now have permission to take ibuprofen which is my preferred pain killer. I have been able to do my exercises at the goal of three sets a day now.

I will have to admit that this whole healing process is extremely boring. I have read a lot(and run out of reading material) and sleep some during the day, since I have trouble sleeping at night. Yet it also has made me grateful about how large my social circle is. Many friends have come by to visit. My neighbor picks up my paper each morning and checks on me. My neighbor and others have made me meals. That helps with the fatigue factor.

So, the slow pace continues. I have an appointment with the surgeon in Bellevue on May 2. He will xray the leg and hopefully give me approval to start putting weight on the leg. I am sure that it will take some time for the muscles to start working together again.

This is a pre surgery xray of my broken femur/hip joint. The break is my right leg(left side in the xray) and you can see how twisted and displaced it is. I normally would not wish this on anyone.

BUT!

It has been reported to me that someone on another social network talked about my injury and posted an xray of a repaired joint from a DOG! If this is true, I find it to be in bad taste.