PT News - Heidi's Bed - Stella's Gate

I've wanted to for the past few days but was hesitant in taking the 1" step down onto the patio. I wanted to get out on the edge of it so I could see the Mule Mountains again besides looking at them standing at my bedroom window. These Wild West sunrises do something to you in a very positive way. It was good to be back taking photos of them. BTW, all photos today are from my iPhone 8+.

I slept better but not longer than any other night, taking bathroom trips about every hour. I was reminded to keep drinking water for dehydration. Plus a few of those times those walks made my legs feel better. I am reminding myself that all of these muscles were shocked first with the crash and then surgery and they are doing their thing to get back to normal. Not a lot of pain though. Neither hound woke me up today.

When I first opened my eyes for good around 5am I laid there waiting to feel the different pains. Which ones are gone from yesterday? What exactly hurts? I started my ankle rolls, then ankle push, gluteal squeeze and heel slide. Wow ... so much easier than yesterday I thought to myself. The hardest exercise to do is the Abduction where I lay flat and slide my leg outward, back and forth.

As I strolled to the kitchen to start the day I knew I was feeling much better than I did when I went to bed. I felt much better than I did when I woke up on Sunday. All signs of improvement. I've increased my Magnesium intake, my Vitamin D dose and making sure every bit of food I eat is not processed, packaged or easy to fix meals. I've been eating that way for a while now so that is not a big deal.

I'll talk about the news I got to day about the PT program after I explain the following photos.

Twelve days after I moved here in June I thought the backyard would be the perfect place for Stella while I rode my bike for an hour or two. She was destroying vertical blinds if left inside and she had already hit the $1,000 limit in destruction due to her separation anxiety. Keeping her in a large crate inside in the AC house was the only solution. June July and August were just too hot to keep a dog outside, even with water and shade.

My neighbor told me it wasn't long after I left that day in June that he heard the "loneliest hound dog howl" he had ever heard. By the time he walked from across the street to see if he could help her until I got back, she has already started digging under the gate, down into the concrete hard soil of Arizona.

With the temperatures now dropping lower every day and not getting really hot until mid afternoon I decided this morning over coffee that I'd have the neighbor move the stones I had moved into the garage back to the bottom of the gate so she would have nowhere to dig. He and I were going to town for 30-60 minutes and I've always thought the 30x60 backyard with shade and water was always better than dog crate inside.

Since my dog feeder has been here in this area forever and sees dogs that stay outside all the time on her route ... she confirmed my thinking was good and with shade and water, Stella would do fine outside even on a sunny morning in cool weather. We are talking low 60's when we wake up and it will stay in the low 70's for most of morning.

The picture above is a test for her. No howls, no digging but it was only for 15 minutes and all of us were out of sight. She knew we had not left. She stood at the door looking downward most of the time watching for the door to open.

Not cosmetically appealing but you gotta do what you gotta do for the hounds. She likes to lay in that corner where it is shaded and spends a lot of time there during the day.

As soon as the 8am bell sounded I was on the phone to the surgeons office to talk to his orthopedic nurse while he was in surgery. She answered a lot of the questions I had the other day in a post about "Confusion". But only in the PT Office call did I get even better news.

His medical assistant told me there was a reason he did not assign me a PT program with a PT at the hospital ... I didn't need one. In his view what he told me and what I've been doing was all I needed. Besides they don't assign hardly any hip replacement people to a PT program when many can do what they need to do on their own at home. That is what the PT told me the day I was discharged from the hospital last Monday. She said he will revaluate me in my followup appointment and if he feels I need a more strict PT program in their system he will assign that program.

I did not have to call the PT Biz down the road from me because they called me after hearing my Friday night message. They have many of my surgeon's patience assigned to their facility and they were one of many telling me just how great his work is. I told her, like I told his office, "I need to know if I am on track based on what I am doing and how I feel."

Both facilities thought I was doing great and I was on track, right on schedule based on my answers to their questions, how I feel. So once again, no need for a PT program under the direction of one of their PTs.

After my neighbor did some things around my yard we cancelled the trip to town. I can go anytime, and didn't need to today. I remember he said that he takes a morning nap after getting up at 3am every day and another in the afternoon. That first day I came home from the hospital had cut into both of his siesta times and I didn't want to do that again.

So ... Stella's test for anxiety was cancelled until further notice.

My swollen foot and ankle is "part of it". I can lay down and elevate it for 20-30 minutes 3x per day. The magnesium might help and I need to keep hydrated. I mentioned the other day I felt I wasn't drinking enough water. I did take two different rest periods this morning.

Today was the first morning I was not wanting some kind of pain medication. As I write this post tonight at 5:26pm I have no urge for the Tylenol/Advil combo and have not taken any.

The doorbell rang a little after 1pm. I knew it was FedEx dropping off Heidi's new dog bed. Sure enough there was was by the door. I figured it was light enough that I could use my "grabber" drag the box inside the house, open the tape with "the grabber" and go from there. It worked with no problem. I sat the new bed by the coffee table while I watched some ESPN to see what Heidi would do.

She did not even sniff the bed. Wouldn't look at it and in fact walked over behind the love seat and slept on her old Mexican blanket hidden in the corner. I decided I could fit "the grabber" in the bed's loop and drag it down the tiled hallway into the spot she sleeps in the bedroom corner. It wasn't 15 minutes later she walked back there to check out her curiosity. I found her checking out her new bed.

Since I cannot bend past 90° right now I was unable to measure the old bed and thought this might be shorter but by the photo of the dog on the bed in the Chewy ad, I thought she would fit. It looks like it will work and sure looks comfortable.

I bought a firm bed for me because I like firm beds. Little did I know what kind of factor that would be just a few months later. It makes it easier for me to sit up, swing my legs to the left edge of the bed and get out of bed.

Here are some thoughts for the day ... IF I can remember what I wanted to write.
- This morning was the best I felt since all of this happened
- I was not craving some kind of pain meds when I woke up
- I did all of my exercises where I am laying flat in bed without any pain
- I did more walking today with  one hand not two on the walker
- I walked some without the walker, with a counter, a wall or table nearby in case I needed to balance
      - At no time did my legs feel tired walking that way
- When I sit at my computer desk with the walker out of view (Stella needs room to sleep in the corner of the room by the desk) I feel normal and forget that I am using a walker.
- I spent time sitting in that ugly blue chair on the patio with the day full of cool wind
- I took more rest time, laying flat in bed for at least 30 minutes each time
- Looking at my cars this morning I felt like I could drive today

It's scary, 8 days after surgery I feel more normal than ever.

All is good in the Wild West.

7th Day After Surgery

For some reason last night, for the first time in a long time even when I was healthy, I could not fall asleep. Then my right leg started to twitch off and on. I did not have any kind of tea to drink, no warm milk, nothing else to help except that prescribed Oxycodone. I didn't take that because I had already taken my Tylenol and Advil earlier. Finally a little after 12:30am I wore out and fell asleep. The right leg is tied to the right hip that was replaced. It must be some of the nerves waking up from the surgery.

Not good.

It felt like I had just gotten to sleep when Stella's nose nudged my arm at 4:00am as she stood by the bed whining. She thinks we are back to the old routine since I am there when she wakes up. That will not be the routine for quite a while. Luckily all they wanted was to go outside and right back to the bedroom for another couple of hours of sleep.

As you can see, Stella is never too far away and is sleeping in the corner of the computer room just right of my desk as I type this post tonight.

I can't say I felt great after getting some breakfast but I didn't feel bad. I started some of the exercises before I got out of bed and continued a couple of more while I walked. When the six exercises were finished I walked ... and walked up and down the hallway, around the corner to the kitchen and to the living room door ... around around and around. By 8:30am I had over 900 steps which I think is too many at that time of day ... but the surgeon did tell me to walk as much as possible.

The paper towel is to protect my books from Stella's drool after she drinks water. It has been a very valuable tool recently.  For some reason she thinks she has to check out every book now after she drinks large amounts of water.

So back to my developing routine.

I do a total of 6 exercises, some of them 2x per day and some 3x per day. I found out that I do need to take time to lay down even if I am not tired or sleepy. I'll get a siesta in per day, maybe two. Plus my swollen right foot told me I needed to find out what to do to make it smaller .... lay down, elevate the ankle above the heart for 20-30 minutes 2x per day. It worked because my foot and ankle were smaller when the time was up. That turns into a pretty busy day when you add time to fix meals, do the dishes and just walk.

I did have a first today ... I walked outside the front door, around my porch and across the driveway at the top. I saw my neighbor drive by and wanted to tell him/her or both what had happened. They said when they didn't see me riding my bike nor around the house outside they assumed I had taken a vacation.  Without hesitation they offered anything they could do at any time, handing me both of their phone numbers.

Tomorrow morning at 9am my neighbor is taking me to the bank. I will get out of his Jeep Liberty, walker and all, go into the bank to make a deposit plus get some cash for tipping the Frys Market delivery people and to pay him back in cash for anything he thinks I might need or when his wife adds anything I need to their shopping list. I have plenty of food left but the next time I do a shopping  run I don't want him or his wife to take the time to shop and then go through checkout for me. That takes too much time. So I am sitting up my Frys Delivery right after this post.

He will also spray the growth (little) on the outside of my fence to prevent any spiders or snakes using that to crawl over the fence into the yard. He would cut the bushes down but he just had an operation on his carpel tunnel and is not to hold, carry or pickup anything heavy for another couple of weeks.

I will be speaking to my surgeons office and the PT office at 8am to make some arrangements for someone to come to my house for PT sessions and examination. I did find my hip incision today, the swelling had gone down that much. It is clean, healing and no discoloring. Last night on Amazon Prime I ordered 3 more pair of the compression socks with traction strips on the bottom of them, some Magnesium and a shower stool with a handle that I can attach to the shower wall if needed. All of that will arrive tomorrow. As will Heidi's new bed from Chewy. Amazon Prime is a great thing.

It will be a busy day tomorrow but I WILL take the time to rest more, which means more times laying in bed flat with my right foot elevated.

Tonight I feel like I'll get to sleep with no problem. I washed my sheets, pillow cases and Heidi's pillow case she sleeps with on the floor. There were no close calls today such as tripping, turning my toe inward while walking. No pain to speak of just a large numbness on the side of my right hip. My bike wreck wounds are healing fast and itching so that will improve things a little once they are completely healed.

I found a Hip Replacement forum late this afternoon, with a lot of good info by those experiencing some of the things that I am. While I glanced through the headlines and some of the posts ... EVERYBODY is different, heals different, different issues or none at all. I am glad and thank my lucky stars that this happened when I was in good physical shape based on what I read on that forum.

I do give a short daily update on Facebook on my Friends list. I have a few concerned friends that can't believe I am doing this alone not counting the dog feeder and neighbor. Some feel I should still be in a rehab facility and a few others think someone should be with me 24/7. So ... they get a Facebook update.  :)

I had my dog feeder tell me how many clients she is servicing right now because the times she was getting here kept getting later. She had 12 different client, some with multiple horses, dogs or cats. She does this 365 days per year and loves animals but at what cost? She is a great dog sitter and I'd have no problem having her take care of the hounds if I took a vacation or I have to go to Tucon or Phoenix later for heart surgery.

If that happens I'd rather have a house/dog sitter and someone here all the time so Stella could have a normal as possible routine. She needs someone around all the time.

So that's it for today. Maybe I had a little bit more improvement. I know to watch myself as I feel better and NOT go against their protocol and continue to follow the basic exercises and DO NOT increase the reps. Like an old high school friend, retired ER nurse told me "on do the 10 they told you to do not a 100 like you feel like doing" ... something similar to that. I got the message.

All is good in the Wild West.

It was a year ago today that Sadie passed away first thing in the morning. Which reminded me today, how long will it be before I can lift 88 pound Stella in back of the car to go to a vet or go for a ride? Even Heidi at 45 pounds ????