First days of recovery was pretty smooth, it takes about 36 hours for the spinal to fully leave the body so by the second evening it was training wheels off and I was back in pure reality country. The pain wasn't bad especially if I didn't move. I had been given a half dose of Tramadol the first evening to help sleep but the stuff made me dizzy and nauseous, I'd rather hurt any day than feel like puking. I was allowed 2 extra strength Tylenol every 6 hours, 1 Celebrex (Advil) anti inflammatory twice a day and 1- 80 mg aspirin twice a day. The aspirin is a blood thinner to combat blood clots. I was encouraged to walk for 10 minutes every hour and I did that. They really promoted drinking lots of fluid so for the first times in my life I had to get up to go pee several times a night and then I'd go for a stroll around the floor.
Lots of nursing care and several visits from Alicia the physio gal and 2 visits from the surgeon. The last visit from each was 7 AM on Sunday morning Day 2 when they discharged me. I asked Dr Hart what was the worst thing I could do to hinder recovery as I have an inherent knack of doing just that first off. He asked what I meant. So I relayed the aftermath of the time I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee. I woke up the Dr. said I was good to go. I asked what my limits were and I think he thought I was hinting at a sick note for work. I'm self employed so when he said I was cleared to go straight back to work I went out and put 300 km on a snowmobile the next day and my knee blew up the size of a basketball. He looked at it and asked "WTH had I done?" I said I went back to work like he said I could.
After my story telling Dr. Hart grinned and said, "You are my problem child in this group aren't you?" Worst thing I could do was fall. If I broke the ball fixture out of the bone that may not be repairable. Use the walker for 4 weeks and by then the meat is healed and holding the hip in place. By 6 weeks the bone is starting to fuse to the fixture. It takes months for this fusing to be done. No showers for at least 6 days, infection is always the worst case scenario. No deep knee bends,
squatting and lifting or crossing my legs as any of that can cause the hip ball to pop out of the socket. Righty O! that sounded unpleasant.
Sunday morning by 8 am Sandi and I were back at the hotel. Business class Edmonton to Montreal and back is more that $7000.00. If we had flown back on Sunday it would have been another $1200.00 more so we opted to stay the night and fly Monday.
Nurse Cratchet (Sandi) went so far as to set an alarm on here phone to make sure I walked 10 minutes every hour. I think I weirded out a few of our neighbors at the hotel wandering back and forth on the floor.
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