December 15 2013 - Reality is Beginning to Set In

December 15 afternoon blog

A quietly exciting day in my healing process...
I am feeling like a fledgling bird - beating me wings, lifting slowly from the nest-my right thigh muscles are  so close to settling back around the bones, in the right place, learning to stretch in all the right directions; to lift FORWARD AND UP! Oohhh, almost, so close! Pushing beyond tolerable pain is dangerous and foolish. It moves so quickly now, the increasing ability to function nearer to normal! 
It goes by the hour! 

Lift off the bed- oh, THAT Angle is suddenly ok! 
No norco, switched back to Tylenol again, this time it WORKS! 
Walk across the room with the walker- evenly distributed on both legs- closer! 
Lift left leg slowly, leaning on walker... Lift the lean from the walker, shifting to leg... So CLOSE! 
So exciting! 
Each small triumph gets its duly deserved notice and acknowledgment , " gasp! Ooh! Look! I don't have to pivot on my left foot ( irritating the previous left replacement joint )  more! I can step from foot to foot as I lean on the walker!!"
I moved the chair I use for the new elastic band hamstring stretch into place, got the loop around my foot, did the ten stretches and put it all back in place carefully, all by myself, with my sister nearby for safety! Not something I had the strength or low enough level of pain for before now. 

Sitting on the commode... About halfway down, applying equal weight to both feet, realizing that for the first time in- a year? Two years?? I can ALMOST sit down - and then rise up -with ONLY the strength of my legs. 
If you have never experienced and injury or damage which takes this ability away, believe  me- it is HUGE in the way of personal independence!! 
I am about to be free, and it invokes really deep, strong, moving emotions in me.
As much as I have told everyone who would listen ans many who wouldn't since June that i WILL HAVE MY LIFE BACK - suddenly, it really truly feels like actual, indisputable fact, and it's like someone I knew who died is coming back. 

****This, dear readers, is because I am religious about doing my physycal therapy. It is increasing my strength and flexibility, my rotation and my function, 
BY THE HOUR. I do not lie or exaggerate, and within weeks of this procedure of Anterior Hip Replacement surgery, you will see it, feel it, and believe it. 
Going through it twice is a double challenge... 
And makes it all the more breath-takingly miraculous. 
It makes me love my life more and more by the minute. 
"Gratitude" doesn't suffice as a word any more. I need a new language for it. 
*whew* 


It was a good afternoon. My sister went and got ice cream from a local shop, Gunther's - my favorite, Peppermint Stick with hot fudge (eating both scoops for lunch seems to have thrown my digestion off a touch, but it was fun!  I rarely indulge that way. )
Dinner was leftover Chicken Paprikash with carrot juice-cooked rice and lemon sour cream brought by a friend, with mushrooms and eggplant from my sister on the side- divine! 
We relaxed and watched tv... Toni has cleared off my recumbent exercise bike and is using it nightly, and I'm glad she can, so she doesn't maybe feel quite so sedentary and cooped up here - I'll use it like mad again when I'm up to it.

I am officially off norco! I'll use it if i have to as-needed, but this time Tylenol is working! 
So little pain, and I did plenty of PT! 

I also learned the cast list for my first return show, "Cannery Row" (I'll be singing for it!) and it's a GREAT group! 35 of 'em!! I so look forward to learning the music, and working with some splendid people! 

I'm finally tired, so it's drifting off for me! It's been 
A fine day and night! 


I must to my bed. Good night!