33 y/o left THR yesterday
Hi all,
I was diagnosed with avascular necrosis in my left hip just about a week and half ago, had my surgery yesterday. Just wanted to share my story so far because reading other people’s stories in this sub made me feel a lot better about what has been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and because I’d love some advice on what I can expect in terms of recovery and lifestyle going forward.
About about 2 months ago, I had a crazy day doing yard work. I was raking a huge plot of sand during a rainstorm because there were bamboo rhizomes washing out and I didn’t want them to get wet and spread (we had just had a big clump dug out and the guys who dug it out did a poor job cleaning up, I didn’t notice until the rainstorm the day after) - I was twisting and pulling with my hips after my arms got tired and woke up the next day with pain in my left hip - figured I had just strained something.
After 2ish weeks of it getting slowly worse I made an appointment with an ortho. The appointment for that wasn’t for another 2ish weeks after, and again it was slowly getting worse during that time, which had me thinking labrum tear. He took and x ray which didn’t show anything and he was thinking bad muscle strain; but because he heard a clicking in my hip, he ordered an MRI.
Got the MRI results from him the Friday before last, I was so shocked at the diagnosis. He wasn’t a specialist and couldn’t stage me but told me there was evidence of some collapse. Luckily I knew a few people with connections in the local medical world and got an appointment for last Wednesday with the primary hip guy in town. Got to his office hoping for a revascularization as I’m a fairly active person and young(ish) father, and was pretty devastated to be staged late stage 3, almost stage 4 as the x ray he took that day now showed collapse just 2 weeks after the first one came back clean. Because of how advanced it was and the pain I was in, he squeezed me into his schedule for yesterday. As I waited for the surgery I browsed this subreddit and the stories of the younger people who have gone on to live active lives kept my spirits up.
The surgery went well, and he took an anterior approach. I was blown away how quickly they had me standing and walking (supervised with a walker of course). I’ve had 4 other major surgeries, and this has been the easiest first 2 days by far, especially as I can’t tolerate narcotic painkillers (I get severe nausea from anything more than 5mg oxy and even that makes me sick without antiemetics). Got home from the hospital a few hours ago, resting up in bed and trying to change positions as they told me to not stay in any one position too long to prevent it from stiffening.
I’m a little nervous about what the next few days are going to bring. I start a new job on the 31st (desk job) and I’m a little anxious about showing up with a cane on the first day. I’ve been massaging the thigh (not the incision obviously) and I can hear fluid bubbling in there. Left side of the leg is mostly numb which had started before the surgery (thinking I pinched a nerve walking with a cane the last 1.5 weeks since the diagnosis)
The bright side is that this whole ordeal has helped me understand my wife better. She has several chronic diseases that left her feeling like her body betrayed her, and that wasn’t something I could relate to before. I’d had major surgeries, but those were all injuries (plus an appendectomy.) She’s been my rock through this, taking on all the housework and caring for our kid.
Mostly I’m still just reeling from the shock. This happened so fast, and I had plans for so many things that I’ve been told are off the table now (hiking the Appalachian trail, getting back into MMA/jiu jitsu, skiing black diamonds again, setting a new squat PR at the gym).
I know the road is both short and long, in the sense that I’ll be walking in a month or so independently, and will be mostly back to feeling normal in the next 6 months to a year. If anyone has any advice on what to expect, I’d love to hear it. Mostly I’m curious about what physical activities y’all have gotten up to since the replacement. I know there will be some limitations, but it’s comforting to hear from those of you who kept living active lifestyles.