Almost 11 months post op.

The snow today made me think about our trip to go snowmobiling the night after I got home from the hospital. Yes, I've skipped a lot here, I just didn't get around to it, and now here I am, looking forward to my 1 year post op followup and xrays.

I was instructed by Dr. P to stay on crutches, toe touch weight bearing, for 6 weeks. No movement restrictions, as long as I wasn't in pain. I didn't realize for quite a while that my hip flexor had been cut and reattached - it just didn't occur to me to ask about it, and I didn't know that it was something to even be concerned about. I'm lucky to have a job that I can do from home, so I was back working full time the Monday after I got out of the hospital. Full time included naps during the day, though. The hospital in Philadelphia set me up with visiting nurses, and they came twice a week. A physical therapist came once, and I wasn't sure if it counted against my 20 visit limit, so I told him not to come back. Dr. P said the PT before weight bearing really didn't accomplish much anyway. In retrospect, I should have called my insurance company to check, and I'm fairly sure now that it did not count against my limit.

It took me about a week, I think, to *ahem* get things moving again. The nurses kept asking me about it, and Hunter even brought me home a bottle of magnesium citrate, which is the stuff people take before a colonoscopy. The nurse told me not to take it, unless I want to sit in the bathroom all day and be miserable. Senekot ended up doing the trick. Thank God.

It seems I'm one of the few people who actually *lost* weight during my recovery. I lost about 12 pounds, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because my husband was in charge of food for so long. Maybe because the painkillers made me feel like garbage. Maybe because my liquid intake quadrupled during those weeks. Hunter made me drink lots and lots and lots. Which was a good thing. It was just hard in the morning... before he went to work, he would bring me a big mug of hot tea, and a big glass of milk. I would have to somehow drink the milk before it got warm, and the tea before it got cold. Also, he bought Ensure for me, and would count them every day to make sure I was drinking them. I ate one or two oranges a day, and he would leave a meal in a microwave container on the top shelf of the fridge, so I could reach it. I have a big Sigg aluminum water bottle, which he would fill every morning, then check when he got home to make sure I was drinking water. He took really good care of me.