It’s been 37 weeks/8.5 months since my R-PAO and 16 weeks/3.5 months since my L-SDD. Holy crap has time flown! Scratch that – it’s been so freaking slow! See, that’s the thing — it genuinely feels like time has passed both super fast and incredibly slowly. It makes no sense to me either.

I met with my surgeon, on July 24th (a few days after my last blog post). At that point my right hip was achy and my left still hurt a bunch — lots of pain around the trochanter, still a flare in the psoas. Also, my back had been acting up and my left knee was causing enough pain to wake me at night. I had to walk with a single crutch, my limp was pretty bad, and I couldn’t lay on my left (operated) side yet. I went to PT weekly, did my exercises at home daily.

Fast forward to today. My right hip is still a bit achy, my left doesn’t hurt as much. It’s almost as if the volume on all of the pains on my left side got turned down a bit so that it still hurts but the pains not as loud. My back is much better and following an MRI on my left knee that came up with nothing, my knee is doing a bit better. I still have to use a single crutch to walk but the limp is looking a lot better to the point that for a few steps first thing in the morning, I don’t have a limp (it comes back quickly but those first steps are stellar). I can FINALLY lay on my left side, if only for a minute or two. I still do PT, I still do my exercises.

At my appointment back on July 24th, we talked about next steps, what they might look like (surgery?  hopefully no), and how recovery takes a long time.  That’s the crux — I don’t feel like I prepared myself for HOW long it truly takes.  Before my surgeries I read every article and blog and site but each surgery took mere hours — HOURS — to complete. I totally failed to fully grasp that following the procedures, I would spend weeks, months, likely YEARS recovering.  Couple that with the fact that when you are in the middle of something, like a recovery — when you’re actually going through it and where it affects everything you do —  a single day can feel extra super long.  Add all those extra long days together and you have an extra super duper crazy long time.

At exactly the same time, it has been 8.5 months since my RPAO and it blows my mind how much time has passed!  It’s like being in a time warp —  a crappy, non-dancing, non-Frankenfurter time warp.

My next appointment with my surgeon is on September 10th.  Before then?  PT, hydrotherapy, work, start back at school, try to have a bit of fun and maybe watch Rocky Horror because until I pulled that clip, I totally forgot how much I loved that movie.  It’s gonna be better, it’s getting better, I am A-OK.