Day 48 following hip surgery

Today was a good day. I received authorization to start driving again from the PT. She will send a note to Dr. Hochschild who will give me formal approval in writing. Apparantly that is state law in Georgia. Hopefully, I will start driving tomorrow or Wednesday.

Two and one-half weeks after surgery i transitioned from walker to crutches. For the past few days I have been using one crutch and today I transitioned full time to a cane. I can walk with a cane with minimal pain and can even take several steps unassisted, albeit with a slight limp. I am hoping to walk unassisted within the next couple of weeks.

My workouts on the stationary bike trainer are going well. Today I did 30 minutes covering 7.3 miles with resistance 1-4. I also did 45 minutes of pool exercises at the JCC. Going forward my rehab routine will be M-W-F -- Pool exercises, Stationary Bike and Treadmill, T-TH-Sat -- Full body circuit weight training incorporating all my leg exercises prescribed by the physical therapist.

I still get stiffness and pain in my quads and the muscles along the outside of my right (bad) leg. My ability to put weight on the leg is improving greatly over the past few days. When I sit or get up from bed there is lots of stiffness in the right leg and it takes some wet heat to allow the pain to subside somewhat.

Today I received a call from Peter Pop, the Ultracyclist and Radiologist from Southern California. I had send an email to Peter inquiring as to how he was doing with his own recovery from hip replacement surgery on January 16, 2007. He has recovered very well. A good writeup of his rehab experiences appears at http://www.ultracyclist.com/. Peter answered lots of my questions. He was back on his bike outdoors climbing hills one month after surgery. Wow! He said my surgery was likely more invasive than his. Next week will be 8 weeks post surgery for me. I think I could do outdoor triking if the weather cleared up, but will probably stick with the indoor trainer for awhile. I am amazed at how quickly we can begin to recover from these major surgeries. A good writeup of Peter's experiences can be found at his website listed under the links on the right side of this page.