Post-op Update

Six giant screws later, a little extra blood, a couple IVs later, surgery went very well. My surgeon is very pleased with the coverage he was able to give to my hip joint.

I spent six somewhat eventful days in the hospital after surgery. I had an epidural for the first three days, I'm very thankful for that because it made pain control slightly easier. I had a reaction to the dressing from the epidural (nothing we didn't expect) so it was taken out a day earlier than planned. I had a blood transfusion, of my own blood that I donated pre-op, a couples days after surgery. Then things got a little interesting. I had a big drop in blood pressure (90/30) and we couldn't figure out what was going on. Since pain meds can lower blood pressure, the only option was to greatly drecress them until it went up a little bit. My body wasn't exactly a fan of that and then spiked a fever in the middle of the night, which made my doctors uneasy. By about the next day, my blood pressure went back up, still not my normal but more stable.

I was able to a slowly progress with PT while in the hospital. We started with just sitting on the side of the bed, and then by about day four I could walk to the doorway with my new fancy SmartCrutches. They are special crutches which are designed to take the stress off of your shoulders and wrists. They're great.


By day five I was ready to go home and have been resting appease here since then. We moved my bed downstairs (our usual post-op plan) in the family room so that I can be more comfortable. Sitting up is still pretty uncomfortable and I only do so when I'm going to the bathroom. I'm still on all my pain meds around the clock, but will hopefully be able to back down shortly.