Pain scale

Them: so.. *head tilt* how are you doing?

LOL. Anyway. I’ll save y’all from having to ask.

I’m 7 months and two week post Bariatric Sleeve surgery and 3 week post hip replacement surgery.

Next Tuesday I have my post-op with the Orthopedic Surgeon’s office to get my (30!) staples removed. Hopefully I’ll get cleared of some of my precautions as well. My current hip precautions: no crossing my legs (which I’m good on since honestly I haven’t crossed my legs at the knee since I was in my 20s), no bending beyond 90 degrees (ie, recline when I’m sitting, not allowed to pick anything up off the floor), no twisting. I’m hopeful I can twist a bit and then be able to go visit my chiropractor because my lower back is super angry.

If I had to pick a number on the pain scale it would mostly be related to my lower back pain. Mostly.

Lower back is generally a 2 but occasionally my lower back pops and it drops down to a 0 for a bit. Hip incision is a low-level 1, it itches but not especially painful, mostly annoying. I have a baseball size lump right around the top/bottom of the incision which I assume is trauma/adhesion. It sits about where my bursitis did pre-surgery. It’s not bad unless I press on it.. then it feels like a giant lumpy bruise. I’m trying to ice that daily to get it to go down.

It’s weird.. not being allowed to pick things up off the floor means I’m noticing (and fixating) on all the things I’m seeing on the floor.

At this point for getting around I’m using my cane exclusively (no longer using the walker). I have not yet started moving around without the cane. I cooked a dinner last weekend and it took ALL of my spoons.. in fact at the end I had to sit down and ask someone else to dish it up and serve it because I was DONE. So I have not yet figured out where the end of my energy is and I need to be careful to not over-exert.

Fearghus says I’m stubborn.. I think I’m just not good at not being able to do and so I try to do too much. He’s been fabulous at preventing me from overdoing.