Week 3 Post-Op

So I’m now 22 days post-op, and this week has been a bit of a mixed bag once again. I’ve had more good days than bad and the bad days weren’t as bad as in week 2. I’m walking a lot better now, I still limp by the end of the day but I’m getting better at walking without a limp. Christmas Eve I went into work for the morning (exactly 1 week after my first attempt) and was much more successful this time. I was only there for about 3 hours, but our CEO came in after I’d been there for a couple of hours and didn’t tell me off for being there this time. He actually said I looked a lot better than last time and didn’t mention sending me home at all :-). I was a little bit achy by the time I got home but went straight to the bedroom and spent the rest of the day lying flat. I only took a couple of Panadol this time and didn’t need the codeine so a big improvement. That night I even managed to do the first round of phase 2 physio.

Even thought I cheated this year and had my friend Simone (who runs her own catering company) prepare the majority of our Christmas dinner (which was absolutely delicious and I will make sure there are lots of pictures in an upcoming food post), I spent quite a bit of time on my feet on Christmas day. I was actually quite pleased that I wasn’t in that much pain by the end of the day though, and I still managed 30 mins on the bike and about 3/4 of my physio exercises that night. To be fair, the main reason I didn’t finish the physio was because I twisted my leg a bit when trying to sit on the ground in a weird way and it got a bit sore after that. That was an occasion where I needed the codeine (and some leftover pav!).

My new exercises are getting much easier to do. There are still a couple I struggle with I haven’t made it up to the full 3 sets of 10 for all of them, but I am now doing 2 sets of 10 for most. The worse ones are the knee to chest stretch and clamshells. Obviously I’m doing the clamshells without a band, but jeepers it makes my glute medius work. I’m supposed to be aiming for 100 and so far the most I’ve managed is 15. However, the nurse said that this is one of the most important exercises and if I can build up my glute medius that my hip flexor pain should go away so this is one exercise I make sure I do every time, even if I only do a few.

In terms of the bike, my plan of not going for time and just reading and pedaling until my hip starts to ache or I can’t maintain the cadence seems to be working, although I have found it to be a little bit dependant on how good the book I’m reading is. I had to swap books at one point because the one I was reading was just so stupid it made me want to get off the bike! To be honest I did actually have 2 days off the bike this past week when I had a bit of a flare up. I probably only needed 1 day off, although last night I only managed 16 minutes.The other days I seemed to be alternating between 20(ish) minutes and 30(ish) minutes.

The key word for the week has been heartburn! I’ve been required to take Dicolfenac (voltaren) twice a day and aspirin once a day since day 1 post op. Both of these are NSAIDs which are known to cause gastrointestinal issues. I started getting heartburn in week 1, but it was only at about 3 am and didn’t last long. However it gradually got worse and I got my husband to get me some quickeze, gaviscon and losec. Pretty much for the last 2-3 days I’ve had constant heartburn. Fortunately last night I had the last of the tablets and so far this morning no heartburn 🙂

Achievements this week:

• Removed the last of my dressings
• Went to the supermarket without crutches
• Am cooking meals again
• Can put my own shoes on

Again, small things but it feels good to be getting back to some sense of normalcy.

Heading into week for my movement restrictions are now gone so I get to add some new exercises. Even though the restrictions have been removed, I’m still a long way from having full range of motion and some movements are still difficult and cause pain so I’m slowing working on increasing my ROM. I’m also hoping to get into the pool this week. I got back to work on Monday so will probably get back into the routine of going to the pool before work. I’m also now allowed to drive so will hopefully start with a couple of short drives to the supermarket this week before going back to work on Monday.

Rehab Phase 2 and Being Kind to Myself

One of the things that I discussed with my new personal trainer/wellness coach when I caught up with her before my surgery – and she made me write it down as one of my Rehab Rules – is the need to be kind to and patient with myself. I’m one of those people who is usually all or nothing, and if I’m doing all then it’s a kind of go hard or go home mentality. This is exactly what I’ve needed in the past when my journey was about weight loss and fitness and running a marathon. However, that kind of attitude is definitely not helpful when it comes to rehab and could lead to me re-injuring myself. One of my big goals is to find that balance between all and nothing. To learn to listen to my body and no not see not sticking to the plan as failure.

My first week post-surgery I probably didn’t do this very well. I was determined to add 5 mins a day to my exercise bike until I got up to an hour, and to do my physio every day regardless. But I very quickly learned that’s not the way to do it. In the past week I’ve been a lot better at going with the flow and making sure I’m doing enough, but not too much. I’m doing this in 2 ways. First, I’ve been writing down all of my little achievements, no matter how small. Here is the list so far (2 weeks post-op):

• Showered by myself
• Dressed myself (except socks and shoes)
• Made my own breakfast
• Put my own socks on
• Walked without crutches
• Had no pain killers
• Got on exercise bike by myself

As you can see, these are not necessarily huge big achievements and, in fact, only walking without crutches was on my initial milestone list. But, I decided that I need to celebrate the little things. The bigger milestones are going to be few and far between so noting down the little things that happen regularly is something I can do to stop from getting disheartened.

Secondly, I’m learning to not put too much pressure on myself. One of the things the nurse said to me on Monday was that the number of reps and sets in the rehab guide is something to aim for, not something that is set in stone. If it says do 20, but I can only manage 10 then do 10. And if I get to 20, but am then having a bad day or week go back to doing 10. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Rather than getting on the bike with a set time to do, I put my iPad over the display, read a book and pedal until my hip starts feeling sore or tired. My only rule with the bike is I have to do at least 10 minutes – if I could manage that at 1 day post-op I can manage that any time.

Today (15 days post-op) marks the start of Phase 2 of my rehab program. The stated goals for this phase are:

• Walk without a limp
• Restore full range of motion in my hip
• Improve muscle control
• Start functional exercises for core stability
• Start pool based therapy

Now, the pool I’m not actually allowed to do until my wounds have completely healed – probably another week or 2. Other restrictions I still have are:

• No external rotation (twisting the leg outwards) until 21 days post-op
• No extension (moving the leg backwards) until 21 days post-op
• Maximum flexion 120 degrees until 21 days post op
• Maximum abduction (moving the leg sideways away from the body) 45 degrees until 21 days post-op

So tonight, after doing 21 minutes and 56 seconds (sorry OCD people, but if it makes you feel better this was exactly 7.5km) on the exercise bike I sat down to do my first round of phase 2 exercises. Bearing in mind that this was my first time doing these and they are quite a step up from the phase 1 exercises I decided not to push too hard. Most of the exercises I’m supposed to do 3 sets of 10 reps, but for most of them I only did 1-2 sets. With clamshells I’m supposed to build up to 100 reps – tonight I started with 10. And I’m ok with that. In the past I probably wouldn’t have been, but if there’s one thing this injury has taught me it is the importance of listening to your body and not pushing too hard. The phrase “No pain, no gain” has been removed from my vocabulary. Yes, there was some discomfort doing these exercises, but I stopped before it got to the point of pain. Yes, I was achy by the end of the hour but it was more of a dull ache than a sharp pain. And that’s where I need to be. I’m sure I’ll have relapses and I’ll get frustrated with my progress and push too hard over the next few months, but hopefully these will be few and far between and I’ll be able to keep ticking off the daily habit of being kind to myself 🙂

Week 2 post Surgery

See these posts for a recap of my surgery and my first week after surgery.

Wednesday (8 days post op) morning I had husband drop me off at work, planning to work until lunch time. Once again I found sitting in a chair fairly uncomfortable so switched between sitting at a normal desk and standing at my own standing desk. We had a staff meeting that morning, so I had to sit for about an hour for that. Husband was getting his haircut at 12:30 so I texted him just after our staff meeting to see if he was going to pick me up before or after and he said most likely after so I knew I’d be there until about 1pm. At this point a couple of my colleagues started telling me I needed to go home, and as my boss was away they eventually got the CEO to tell me to go home! He told me not to come back until I had a note from my surgeon saying it was ok.

We’d noticed a lump on one of the dogs’ lip so husband had taken them to the vet to get it checked out and they said it was a tumour, so they took a biopsy to see if it was malignant or benign. The vet had rung me that morning to say that because she’s a small dog and the sample size was so small the result was inconclusive so the recommendation was to remove the lump and surrounding area and send the whole thing off for testing. They’d also discovered that both dogs needed their teeth cleaning and possibly teeth removed so we had to pick up some antibiotics for them to take for a couple of days before surgery. Husband decided to pick these up on the way home. I initially sat and waited in the car, but he was in there for ages and my hip was killing me so I got out and stood on the footpath.

Once we finally got home I just laid down on the bed and watched movies for the rest of the afternoon and decided not to go back to work until after Christmas. After some codeine and a lot more rest I felt better again. That night I only did 10 mins on the bike and no physio. Thursday, I once again spent the day in bed watching movies and then did 15 minutes on the bike. I still felt ok after the bike so I also did my physio exercises.

Friday the dogs were at the vet for their own surgeries. I was a bit stressed out by this because one has previously had problems with anaesthetic and the other one has developed a heart murmer so the vet said it’s risky for both of them. Luckily my husband could see how worried I was so he stayed home with me (he’d gone back to work for the week). The surgeries ended up taking longer than planned partly because they both needed 5 teeth removed and also because in between their surgeries they’d had an emergency surgery to perform. They were nice enough to call us about 11:30 to say that Carmen was done, but we didn’t get the call about Lilly until about 1:30. As a result I once again spent pretty much the whole day in bed.

Both Monty and Sarah were racing at Addington on Friday night (unfortunately in the same race!) so we went down to watch them. We had planned to go for dinner like we normally do, but with the dogs and my hip we decided to just go for their race. This meant I didn’t get to see the horses before the race, but I’m really glad I went because Monty won 🙂 I skipped the post race drinks, partly because it’s a small room and between the syndicate members and race sponsors there were probably about 30 people there and partly because I just wanted to go see Monty! We spent about half an hour in the stables talking to his trainers and taking pictures and then went and saw Sarah and her trainers before going home.

Monty Python winning

I’d only been out for about an hour this time, and that combined with the 2 days of complete rest meant my hip felt pretty good, although I didn’t do the bike or physio for the next 2 days! Saturday and Sunday I started spending more time in the lounge room rather than the bedroom – although I did spend most of it on the couch, and by Sunday I was comfortably walking around the house without crutches – although I’m still limping.

Monday I had my first post-op appointment with the surgeon. Actually the appointment was with his nurse and he just popped in for a minute or so. She removed my dressings and replaced them with this waterproof tape stuff. She said the wounds are healing quite nicely, although one has definitely healed more than the other two. She did say I was looking pretty good for only being 13 days post-op, and I said something about finally being off crutches. She told me that it was ok that it had taken longer than the 5-10 days the guide said and that some people come to their first visit still on them. She said it’s important not to get rid of them until I can walk comfortably without a limp. I explained how I still use them if I go out in public and she said that’s good. One thing she pointed out that I hadn’t thought of is that the crutches also form a protective barrier around me and people notice them and give me more room – important at this time of year when everything seems so much busier.

I talked to her about the week before when the pain had been quite bad and how I’d worried that I’d done something. She said that’s quite normal and a lot of people tell her the same thing. She said with hip surgery in particular it’s a bit of a roller coaster and I will have ups and downs. The reality is that in spite of it being keyhole surgery, there’s been quite a bit of damage to the hip and the large muscles surrounding it and the pain is my body working to heal itself. I definitely felt a lot better after talking to her.

She then gave me the rehab programme (which I already had from the website) and talked through phase 2 with me as I’m able to start that from week 3. We went through which exercises I can start doing when and why it’s really important to note the restrictions I still have and why I shouldn’t do exercises before the week indicated. I talked to her about how I’d been cutting back on the bike and exercises on the days when I had more pain and she said that’s a really good thing to do. She said it’s important to remember to listen to my body and that just because I’ve managed to do 30 minutes on the bike doesn’t mean I have to do that every day, it’s ok to cut back to 10 or 15 if I need to. Same with the exercises. She said she wants me doing the range of movement exercises every day, but with the strength ones, especially as I progress, it’s important to listen to my body and I may end up doing those every day.

After my appointment, husband and I went and finished our Christmas shopping. In the end we didn’t get home until about lunch time so I’d spent about 3 hours out, but this time I didn’t feel as sore. My hip felt tired and weak, but not overly achy so that was an improvement. In the afternoon I read through the rehab guide and decided that rather than starting Tuesday (day 14) I’d start each week on the Wednesday, just to give myself that extra day to be sure.

The biggest problem/risk I have at the moment is carelessness and/or being distracted. When I’m sitting down or lying in bed, or even walking around, my hip doesn’t really bother me at all. I’ve found a couple of times now that when I’m distracted or half asleep I forget about my limitations and do things I shouldn’t do. Little things like going to get in the car or climb into bed normally (one leg first rather than sitting down and then swinging my legs in/up)One of the worst ones was Monday night. Currently my range of motion is restricted to 120 degrees of flexion (bending at the hip) and 0 degrees of external rotation (turning the hip outwards). Monday night I was sitting in bed on the computer and needed to pee so I went to get out of bed whilst maneuvering around the dog and bent my leg too far whilst also turning it out a bit – that hurt and then continued to ache quite a bit into the next day. So much so, that in spite of being painkiller free for a couple of days now I ended up taking Panadol and codeine yesterday as well as skipping the bike and physio. Once again I was quite worried I’d done something bad, but it seems to be much better today.

Week 1 Post Surgery

For a recap of the surgery itself (or the day of it because naturally I was unconscious for the actual surgery) see here

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was that the surgeon had told me he wanted me to get on the bike that day. Remember, this is the day after my surgery and I thought he was slightly insane. But I dutifully got out of bed and got on the bike that evening. To be honest, the hardest thing was actually getting on the bike! It’s not an easy thing to do when you’re on crutches and have limited range of motion in one leg. The rehab guide he’d given me suggested doing 10 minutes the first day, and then trying for 15 the next and building from there. So I did my 10 minutes and jumped off. I decided to wait and start the physio exercises the next day rather than the same day.

The next day (2 days post op) I did manage 15 minutes on the bike, and with a slightly higher rpm than the previous day 🙂 The rehab guide says to have no resistance (check) and aim for 80-90 rpm. Well day 1 I only managed around 55 rpm. Day 2 I got it up to about 70rpm and decided to stay at 15 minutes until I could do it at 80-90 rpm. I also started my physio. I’d been doing quite well with not taking the heavy duty pain killers, but decided to take one as a preventative measure before doing physio because I know from experience how much that can make things flare up for a bit. The instructions he’d give me included fairly detailed descriptions with photos of all the exercises I had to do so I sat down to read them (again) before starting. Once again, I figured the guy was crazy. The first 2 exercises I was supposed to do on my stomach – how the hell was I going to get on my stomach, and more importantly how was I going to get up again?!! I’d already decided to do them on the bed rather than the floor, because there was no way I was getting down there. Once again, Hamish was right and I was wrong – it actually wasn’t that difficult to roll over on to my stomach, I just had to be aware of what my right leg was doing. I ended up downloading a rep counter app because most of the exercises I have to hold for 5 seconds and I kept losing count of how many reps I’d done. Also, I got sick of counting pink elephants very quickly (one pink elephant, 2 pink elephants, 3 pink elephants, 4 pink elephants, 5 pink elephants, done!)

Friday (3 days post op) I finally felt steady enough to have a shower. I needed quite a lot of help from husband getting undressed and dressed but it felt good to have a proper shower and wash my hair. I also had to change my dressings and given their location on the side of my leg just below my hip I definitely needed help doing that. Friday was also the day I managed to dress myself for the first time (except for socks and shoes)!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will know that my husband and I are in a syndicate which owns harness racing horses. A couple of weeks before my surgery I found out that my favourite horse (Monty Python) was going to be racing on the Saturday after my surgery and I’d said I’d be there no matter what. In the end the decision was made to enter him into a race the following week instead. The day before my surgery I made a bunch of meals to freeze and after 4 days of not leaving the house and living off microwave food I really wanted to get out and have some freshly cooked food. I was feeling pretty good so we decided to head to The Met to have a meal and watch a couple of races. After about half an hour or so I discovered that my hip didn’t like sitting on an actual chair as it started to ache. Our meal arrived (I’d ordered steak, salad and chips/fries) shortly after and once I’d eaten I got up to walk/stand/stretch a bit. A few of my fellow syndicate members who were there commented that I was starting to look pale and we left shortly after. We’d probably only spent a maximum of 90 minutes there, but I was quite achy by the time I got home.

I was feeling pretty good again the next morning though, and even managed to make my own breakfast by hobbling the few steps from the fridge to bench without crutches. We had one of our other horses (Sarah Palin) racing at Motukarara that afternoon and in spite of the evening before I decided to go watch her figuring I could stand more than I sat. Normally I go and see the horses in the stable before the race, but in this case Sarah was in a stable way at the back of the stabling area and practically on the hill so husband decided that wouldn’t be a good idea. Sarah ran 3rd, so I tried to get the birdcage in time to take a photo, but had to go the long way round and was too slow on my crutches. Husband relented and let me go to the stables though so I got a couple of nice ones of her being rubbed down after the race.

Again, we spent just over 2 hours at the races and by the time I got home I was very achy and totally exhausted. I then made the mistake of continuing with my plan of adding 5 minutes per day to the exercise bike and did 25 mins on the bike and followed up with my physio exercises.

I had planned to go back to work on the Monday or Tuesday that week, based on my discussion with the surgeon at my first appointment where he said if you have a desk job you might be able to go back after a week. But after overdoing it at the weekend I emailed my boss and said I wouldn’t be back until Wednesday. Good decision – Monday I was really sore. I was actually worried that I’d done something bad because Monday and Tuesday I was probably more sore than I’d been in those first couple of days after the surgery. I went back to spending all day in bed moving as little as possible except for physio. Monday night I did 30 minutes on the bike, but skipped the physio exercises and Tuesday night, feeling a lot better I did 35 minutes on the bike and my exercises.

My first week post-op was a bit of a roller coaster and I was starting to get the impression this wasn’t going to be as easy as I first thought. When I first met with the surgeon he said that most people are off crutches after about a week and that it might be possible to go back to work after a week etc., but I really just don’t think that was realistic. Yes, I probably overdid it at the weekend, but even without that there was no way I was able to walk (properly) without crutches. As long as I stayed in bed and did nothing except my physio and going to the bathroom I was fine. But too much sitting in a chair, or too much standing or moving around, or moving my leg the wrong way would cause my pain level to go up drastically. The medical certificate he’d given me at the hospital was for 6 weeks and I was starting to thing I’d need them 😦

Surgery Recap – Part 1

Once, again I have been a very slack blogger. It’s be 2 weeks since my surgery, but I have not yet updated you. I’m putting this down to being too bored to do anything – kind of like when you are too tired to sleep – and it being too much trouble to get my laptop out of my bag! As a result, this could be a long post! But I’ll break it up into parts for you 🙂

Day of Surgery

I dutifully reported to the hospital at 7:30am and then sat and waited for about 45 mins before a nurse came out and told me she’d be admitting me soon. It turns out my surgeon likes to have his second patient show up first thing in case something happens to his first patient of the day. Makes sense from his point of view because it means he doesn’t waste his theatre time, but it would have been nice to know that beforehand! Half an hour or so later the nurse came back and took me through to do all my pre-surgery stuff: Paperwork, blood pressure, heart rate, pre-load dose of paracetamol and numbing cream for the back of my hand.

After that I still had to wait about another half an hour before getting changed into the sexy hospital knickers and gown. Fortunately I had my tablet with me so was able to read for a bit. When she came back for me to get changed that was when my husband left, thinking that I’d be going in soon. This was not the case – I still had another long wait. Fortunately, knowing this, the nurse had given me a really warm and comfy dressing gown to wait in – it was like one of those fancy hotel robes 🙂

Eventually, the anaesthetist and then the surgeon came to talk to me. Neil, the anaesthatist, was a nice Scottish guy who went through the usual questions. Hamish, the surgeon, asked me how I was – I asked him if it was too late to back out! He said no, but he’d prefer if I didn’t! He then explained the procedure to me and I was left to wait again. This time the wait was fairly short. The nurse came and took my bag and crutches away to put in a locker, and then the anaesthetic technician came and got me and took me back to the operating theatre. On the way she grabbed a warm blanket to put over me.

Once in the theatre she introduced me to the theatre nurses and then I had to get onto the bed and lay down, and she put the warm blanket on. Then Neil came over and put the cannula in the back of my hand and started putting the drugs through while the technician put the oxygen mask over my mouth. If you’ve ever had anaesthetic before, you’ll know it’s a little bit stingy, but this seemed a bit more stingy. Neil asked if I could feel the stinging all over the back of my hand and I could. He then said he thought he’d need to use the other hand so he came around the other side and started trying to find a vein there. By this point the back of my left hand was really sore and I was going “ow, ow, ow, ow, ow”. I looked down at it and it was really swollen. So they turned the drip off and then put another cannula in my right hand as the vein had collapsed in my left – probably from being used too many times. While he was doing this he talked to me about running and marathons to keep me distracted. This time, when he put the drugs through and the oxygen mask on my face it was only a little bit stingy and I could feel my eyelids drooping straight away.

Next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery. A nurse quickly came over and explained where I was and asked me what level my pain was. I told her it was a 7 so she gave me some painkillers through the catheter. The next little while is a bit blurry, but I remember they came over a few more times to ask me about my pain and give me some more drugs and small sips of water. At one point the pain went down to a 4 so she gave me a tablet, but then it went back up to a 6 or 7 so she decided to give me a ‘pain pump’. Its a little machine they hook up to your IV that allows you to dispense your own pain relief by pressing a button 0 you can only do it 10 times in an hour though and it has a timeout feature so you can only do it every 5 minutes or something. At this point I noticed that I now had the catheter in my left wrist instead of the back of my right hand. After the pain pump was in, Neil came and saw me and explained that the vein in my right hand had also collapsed at the end of the surgery so he moved the cannula back to the other side.

After awhile a couple of nurses came and wheeled me down to the ward. Another nurse, Rachel, came and introduced herself, checked my vitals, bought me a jug of water and let me know dinner would be around 5pm – quite early but given that I hadn’t eaten since the night before I was quite hungry and looking forward to dinner. I’d heard about the food at Forte, but while I was waiting I read the information booklet provided, including the menu:

When the food arrived, it didn’t disappoint:

Who said hospital food sucks?

In the room across the hall there was a lady who I swear must have been mostly (if not totally) deaf! Her TV was so loud, Rachel asked me if I wanted the door closed. This made it so much better (although I could still hear her TV). Unfortunately other nurses and staff coming into the room kept leaving it open – at one point it was so bad I actually rang the buzzer so I could ask a nurse to shut the door! At this point the nurse asked me if anyone had told me I was getting a room mate and said she just wanted to let me know in case I got angry. Why would you get angry about having a room mate? The public health system here in New Zealand is actually pretty good, so most people going to private hospitals either have private health insurance or are having their surgery done under ACC. I pay for private health insurance because it means I can get treatment (particularly surgery) done in a timely manner and have some choice in the specialist that I see – not so that I can have my own private room if/when I need to go to hospital. If I’d been in the public system, I’d still be on the waiting list for surgery and could have been for 2 years (if not longer). The nurse explained that the reason I was having to share was because something was broken in the room they were going to put the other lady in (I also suspect the patient across the hall from me was staying longer than they intended as I heard her informing her doctor and the nurses that she had decided to stay another night). Either way, didn’t bother me. The reality is we’d both just had surgery and weren’t really up to being raucous or having a wild party!

In fact, the night was pretty uneventful. We were both on pain pumps so had to have our vitals checked and dosages recorded hourly so it’s not like either of us got a lot of sleep. The first time I needed to go to the bathroom I needed the nurse to help me – this was under orders in case I got dizzy or fell over – and after doing it once, I decided I needed the nurse to help me each time. It’s quite awkward to get out of bed when you can’t move one of your legs! Also, the bathrooms are designed to be wheelchair friendly so the doors are really really wide and trying to open the door, go through it and then close it again with crutches and limited mobility was difficult.

I gave up on sleep at about 8am, although I surprisingly wasn’t tired anyway in spite of not getting much sleep overnight. Rachel came back on shift and let me know breakfast would be delivered soon and then she’d come back and help me shower and get dressed ready to go home. If I have one negative of my hospital experience it would be breakfast. I’d ordered weetbix, milk, fruit and juice. I hate cold toast so I figured this would be the best option. But when they delivered it there was a small jug of cold milk and no hot water. Now I get with most cereal you do have cold milk – but weetbix? I can’t say I’ve ever had cold weetbix before. But it was no big deal, I just let them soak while I ate the fruit.

Just after breakfast the surgeon came to see me. He said the surgery had gone well, they’d only had to shave bone from the socket and not the top of the femur and showed me the pictures they’d taken while in there. I can’t make sense of them but they do look kinda cool! He then gave me some paperwork and told me that there was a prescription in there and that the pain killers are optional (only take them if I need them), but I have to take aspirin to prevent blood clots and diclofenac (voltaren) to prevent excess bone growth for the next 3 weeks – non-negotiable.

All the information we’d been provided with stated that there was a strict discharge time of 10am so I’d told husband to be there just after 9:30, but when he got there I still hadn’t showered or anything. So after a short visit he went off to see some friends around the corner and I told him I’d text him when I was ready. Eventually Rachel came back and helped me shower, changed my dressings and helped me get dressed. Then she went off to get my discharge paperwork so I texted husband to come get me.

I was actually feeling pretty good at this point so I got husband to stop at the pharmacy on the way home rather than take me home and then go back to the pharmacy. When he came out he said “that must be a weird combination of drugs” and when I asked why, he said the pharmacist had looked at him funny. I didn’t think much of it until I got home and pulled all the drugs out – seriously, I think he gave me enough drugs to start my own pharmacy!!! Codeine, tramadol, paracetamol, aspirin and diclofenac. Yikes! I resolved to try and stick with Panadol and only take the codeine if I needed it. I’ve had relatives who have been on codeine painkillers who have had some pretty bad withdrawals when coming off it and I didn’t want that, and tramadol sends me fairly loopy.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I watched Guardians of the Galaxy (loved it!), napped, ate, read my book and then went to sleep. At this point I was thinking recovery wouldn’t be so bad. The pain I was having at this point was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be.

I have to say that I was really impressed with Forte Health. The hospital was only built last year and opened at the beginning of this year so it is fairly new. The food was amazing. But absolutely hands down the staff were fantastic. If you are in Christchurch and have to have surgery I would absolutely say go there if you get a choice 🙂

 

Keeping my mind busy

One of the things Cate and I talked about on Friday was the need to occupy my mind for the next week. I won’t be able to do anything physical and will probably be spending much of my time in bed or on the couch. At this stage I have at least this week off work, with the option to extend that if need be. That’s a lot of time for my mind to do stupid things and for me to resort to eating out of boredom. So in order to keep from going completely stir-crazy here is a list of things I have to keep my mind occupied

Watch Guardians of the Galaxy

For some reason I didn’t see this at the movies so I’ve been waiting and waiting for it to come out. I found out a few weeks ago that it’s DVD release date was the same day as my surgery so had planned to send my husband out to buy it for me while I was in surgery (I’m not the only that needs things to keep my mind occupied). But it actually came out early so I went and bought it yesterday. This is going to be the first thing I do when I get home 🙂

Read lots of books

There are a whole bunch of books from some of my favourite authors that I’ve been holding off on buying so that I’d have something to do while recuperating. I bought 4 today – including the last of a Nora Roberts trilogy, and latest in the Janet Evanovich/Lee Goldberg series. If I get through all of those I have some more on my wishlist.

Update my Blog

As well as posting progress updates, I plan on updating my About Me and replacing the 2014 events page.

Self Improvement

I’ve been doing some thinking about where I want to go with my career lately and have come to the conclusion that I want to add software developer to my repertoire. I’ve been in IT for about 10 years, but only did the bare minimum of software development courses as part of my degree – mostly because it used to drive me nuts. But in the past couple of years I’ve moved into more application support, specifically around Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SharePoint and what I’ve come to realise is that if I want to progress my career in these areas (and I do), I need to be able to write the custom scripts and plugins required in most installations. I’ve been doing some HTML/CSS/JavaScript refresher courses online recently (through CodeAcademy), and I’ve found some online resources for learning the other languages I need. I looked for courses locally, but the only thing I could find was a one year diploma and the timetable just didn’t work for me so I’m going to try online first.

Work from Home

I recently completed a CRM project at work, but I’m way behind on the documentation for it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) I have the ability to work from home. I’m not sure how much I’ll do this week, but if I’m not up to going back to the office next week my plan is to work from home updating documentation.

Hopefully, that should be enough to keep me from going completely insane!

What do you like to do to keep your mind busy? Tell me the last book you read or movie you watched.

Who are your favourite authors? Any recommendations?

Finding balance

Friday I met up with my new personal trainer for a pre-surgery catch up. It’s one of those slightly weird situations where I feel like I already know her so well, but have only met her in person a couple of times , although I see her around quite a bit. I first came across Cate’s husband, Riwai and his friend Dave a couple of years ago when I did the 5k series in Hagley Park. I’d see these 2 very very tall men (I’m sure they’re both over 6 foot and I’m only 5 foot 3!) running in the crowd and I made it my goal to keep up with them. I’d see them every week and every week I made it my goal to get a little bit closer to them when I crossed the finish line. Then, at the end of my first 20 week challenge Riwai won the cardio category and in his speech he talked about how he’d done it the year before but not put any effort into it, sat around on the couch drinking beer and eating pies etc. But this year he’d decided to change and he just got up and did it. He told us that if he could do it anyone could, and that even if we hadn’t had the best challenge that year that we could be back and on the stage the following year. At the time I was thinking “Yeah, right! I’m not you and I’m always going to be a failure” (I’m paraphrasing!). But his words stuck with me and I ultimately decided to enter the challenge again the next year (and went on to win the Cardio category myself!). Cate herself was a personal trainer for a number of entrants in all of the 20 week challenges I have entered, and the 2 years I’ve done the Saint Clair Vineyard Half Marathon Cate and bunch of her Leapstars has been set up near the finish line cheering every one on. Anyway, the long rambling point I’m trying to make is that Cate (and Riwai) and I have been on each other’s radar for a good couple of years now. So, as Cate pointed out on Friday morning, it feels like we already know each other but we don’t really. We’re kind of like passing ships in the night.

So Friday, when we sat down for coffee it was really about getting to know each other better. Actually, it was more about Cate getting to know me and what makes me tick and what I want from her in the coming months. The reason I contacted Cate a few weeks back is because she’s someone who has experience with injury, and chronic or long-term pain both from personal experience and from specialising in clients who fit this category. So we talked a little bit about my injury, my upcoming surgery, my experience with endo etc. But she also asked me to explain what I wanted from her – to write her job description. I have no problem talking about the physical side of my injury, and I’m self-aware enough to know that my biggest problem in the coming months is going to be mental. But, I don’t really do introspection, and I’m very bad at asking other people for help or telling them exactly what I want or need. I could explain in general terms that I’m an all or nothing type of person and also, when it comes to exercise my general experience has been go hard or go home. So there are 2 risks with my recovery – either I’ll not do the physio because it’s too boring or 50 million other excuses I could come up with. Or, I’ll push myself too hard with exercise and trying to run again. So I need someone to help me find that balance. That’s about as far as I got with the whole this is what I need from you conversation. It’s not something I’ve ever really done before, so I don’t know what kind of help I’m going to need.

A few weeks ago I sat down and started making a rough list of goals or milestones as well as rules for my recovery. I haven’t put any timeframes against my goals, because that’s just asking for trouble – even though I know it goes against all the ‘rules’ of setting goals! Cate is happy with that and has banned me from setting time limits or making my goals too specific. She also added to my rules – the main new rule being that I need to be kind to and patient with myself (also something I’m not very good at).

The closer I get to surgery, the more nervous I get. Not for the surgery itself, but the after surgery. This will be my 8th surgery in my lifetime so that part isn’t really unknown or scary to me. But I really have no idea what’s going to happen afterwards. I don’t know how my recovery is going to progress. I don’t know if I can find the balance required to push myself enough, but not too hard. I don’t know if I’ll be able to run again. And if there’s one thing I hate it’s not knowing (I’m an Aquarius – my catchphrase is ‘I know’!). So it is nice to know that I have Cate and her team of Leap Stars in my corner to help me navigate my way through the unknown.

 

 

 

Time to reset

Hard to believe, but it’s been almost 1 year since I started this blog. I haven’t posted much in the last few months, but it really is time to change that. When I started the blog it was as Emily’s Running Adventures. I’d just made the decision to run the Queenstown marathon and my intention for the blog was to use it to document my training and to keep me accountable. This worked quite well for the first 6 months. It motivated me to get out and do different runs so I’d have something interesting to write about, rather than just doing the same old same old all the time. Then, in June, after running my 5th half marathon for the year and before I really got stuck into marathon training, I got injured and was unable to run. Since then, my posts have been rather sporadic. My exercise routine has become just that – routine. Mon, Wed, Fri = weights day at the gym. Tues, Thurs, Sat = ride class. Sunday was usually a walk with friends. Difficult to write interesting posts when you are doing pretty much the same things all the time. There’s only so much I can say about spin class – even though I love it.

I’ve also been a bit demotivated in general since getting injured, especially since finding out I needed surgery. I wrote a few posts that were quite melancholy and that’s not really what I want for this blog. I want it to be somewhere fun, interesting and motivating. A place where people want to come because (hopefully) they’ll be entertained. I “rebranded” a couple of months ago to Geek Girl Living Fit with a plan to blog about more than just running, but again my posts have been sporadic. I’ve been finding it hard to get excited or motivated about anything really. On top of that for the past few weeks I’ve been avoiding the Interwebs in general. Lately, when people have found out I’m having surgery I get one of two general responses. Either something along the lines of “you don’t look sick/injured” or, even worse, they decide it’s a really good idea to tell me about the person they knew who had hip surgery but the surgeon screwed up and now they’re having hip replacement etc etc etc. Seriously, what goes through people’s heads? Who in their right mind thinks it’s a good idea to tell surgery horror stories to the person about to have surgery?! Anyway, it’s too tempting to research my injury/surgery online and find yet more horror stories to I’ve been avoiding temptation.

However, I’ve now decided that I want to return my blog to its original purpose – documenting my journey and keeping myself accountable. When I first started the blog I obviously didn’t have many followers so I wrote as if no one was reading. Then as I started to get more followers I felt like I need to make the blog more interesting so didn’t write about a lot of things or deleted drafts because I felt like they were too boring. So now I’m going to go back to like it was in the beginning – write like no one’s reading. Maybe no one is, and maybe people are. Either way it’s ok. I’m going to write this for me, and if people read it and get some value from it that’s ok.

I met with my new personal trainer this morning, and we talked a bit about this blog and making sure I post regularly – good, bad and ugly. I need all the tools I can get to keep me on track with this new journey I’m about to embark on and I want to make sure regularly documenting my progress, thoughts and feelings will be invaluable on that. If you choose to come with me on this journey I hope you get some value out of it. I’m not going to make any promises, but I will try my hardest to post at least a couple of times a week from now on.