Losing wheels to gain wheels!

It’s been three weeks since I got the first after-market part installed in me!  I’ve heard lots of hippies (total hip replacement recipients 😊) report waking up from surgery in less pain than before the procedure, but that has not been the case with me.  The pre-surgery pain emanating from osteoarthritis and bone-on-bone grinding has been replaced with something more akin to soreness and stiffness, attributable to the actual surgical procedure.  I know that this discomfort is temporary, so that makes it much more tolerable than the prior pain and reinforces the fact that surgery was the right decision.

I took to heart the surgeon’s advice to sit/stand/walk as much as is tolerable and really try to listen to my body.  It turns out that “tolerable” is very subjective, and not always a good caution sign for someone who has worked in the human performance optimization world for most of her career.  So, in addition to subjective physical sensations and mood, I have fallen back on my professional training and incorporated objective measures to the mix.  I’ve found it very helpful over the years to monitor my physiological well-being with some type of wearable device, which these days is an Oura ring.  Do I need a device and app to tell me if I’m overdoing it?  Maybe not, but the technology sure is helpful to provide a more holistic picture of my recovery.

Although I monitor each of the individual factors that are calculated into the Oura “resilience” metric, I like the running 14-day average, and trends, of combined parameters like resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep quality, body temperature, and physical activity levels. Even with following all activity, nutrition, icing, medication, sleep, and movement restriction guidelines, my body is obviously under physiological stress despite subjectively feeling pretty good. 

All of this to say that healing is going well, but recovery is a journey that takes time and patience; both of which remind me that riding my motorcycle pain-free (well, at least free of hip pain), will make all this worthwhile. 

Now, off to read another book . . . or paint-by-numbers . . . or watch a movie . . .