I haven't posted much about my training for almost a year now. When I get back to 100% I will post a summary of my 2016 training: what I did and why.
As with all my training, there are reasons I did what I did, objectives I aimed for, road blocks, and of course, some stupid shit mixed in here and there.
Regardless of how I trained I knew I was going to end up where I am now: getting my other hip replaced. The only thing I had to decide was how to get there.
In February 2016 I was told my right hip would need to be replaced. This wasn't a shocker because I was told it was in worse shape than the one that was replaced in 2013. The decision to replace the left one was made based on on the pain I was in. It hurt 24/7 and I had lost range of motion. At that time, the right one didn't hurt at all.
In February 2016 the same symptoms started in my right hip. I remembered them well and instead of opting for surgery right then, I decided to try cortisone shots and see if I could buy some time. If it worked it would buy me 6 months to a year before needing the replacement. In the grand scheme of things, 6-12 months on a hip that needed to be replaced years ago didn't make that much of a difference but I'll explain later why I chose to wait.
Many people have reached out to me with questions and concerns so I've compiled some of the texts I've sent to friends since the surgery last Tuesday to give you some insight into what has been going on:
For those keeping score.
* The left hip was replaced in Feb 2013 using posterior approach
* The right hip was just now replaced using an anterior approach
FROM THIS WEEK:
Update: I guess the summary is that this first week sucked but I've made progress from my daily goal of taking a successful shit (I'll spare you the details) to being able to walk with just the cane.
When looking at my notes from last time - this has been about the same. I expected it to be easier but it's not. It's different in many ways: less limitations but more pain - which could be due to less limitations. Before surgery I was popping pain pills up to 60mg per day. The pain never stopped and was waking me up at night. When I left the hospital it was at 100mg+.... (I didn't take the morphine tapper they prescribed and just stayed on the hydrocodone). This is now at 30mg per day. Less than when I went in. Today I will begin breaking it in half. This is one way I have to show progress. I have pain but this isn't the same in any way.
Yesterday was one week post-op. Before I went in, I wrote out what I'd do differently this time. I only had one thing and that was to take the recovery half as slow as I did before (no need to squat 315x12 in the first six weeks). I'm still not being a pussy but am staying away from what the rehab limit would be. This part is driving me nuts because I've never tried to "take it easy" before and at times it pisses me off - and therein lies the mental challenge.
I've made it to one week of holding back and will keep doing so until my two week appointment and then do what the doctor says. His assistant told me the biggest issues they have with people like me are that they push too fast and end up needing more time to recover. If I do what they say, then within 8 weeks I can do almost whatever I want. This is better than the 5 months it took for me to recover from the last hip surgery.
As of now my leg is still swollen and hurts. Getting out of bed is a bitch but chairs are ok. Things are where they need to be and I'm going batshit crazy being home-bound.
My plan is to start going back to the office Monday.
FROM THE DAY AFTER SURGERY
Surgery went well.
Even being on morphine, dilaudid and hydrocodone with ice on hip, knee, quad, and lower back it still hurt really bad. I'm supposed to go home tomorrow around noon.
They gave a nerve block in lower back before. That was a real fucking treat!
Everything went smoothly. I have to stay over today because my fat ass needs a cpap - If you use a cpap all surguries are require a stay over.
The best part happened right when they got the pain managed. The hiccups started and were going strong for hours. These usually last 6-12 hours and I can't sleep because they are violent. This always happens to me with cortisone but I'm now thinking it's from the Lidican. Either way - this sucks... I hoping the next pain med push at 2:00 knocks me out.
I still haven't pissed and no matter how hard I try only dribbles. Like I took tons of ephedrine and just squatted with a suit on. I can't pee and my dick has shrunk to a niblet.
They ran a bladder scan right after the hiccups got really bad. This lead to hose being pushed up my dick (hurt even worse than I can describe and I am doped out of my mind). They sucked the piss out. NOTE TO SELF - find a way to never let this happen again.
Right now I'm lying in the hospital bed eating throat lozenges because of the breathing tube, my dick hurts, I'm stuck to calf pumps to avoid
clots, anther pump for the hip, c-pap
mask on, white noise app, sleeping mask on forehead to pull down if the hiccups cease at all (currently they are every 10 seconds), heat pad on back, new hip that hurts like hell, and god knows what else.
Somehow I forgot about all this shit from when the other hip was done in 2014. Then again, I was on a morphine drip, catheter, and breathing tube for the first 24 hours. All that shit was gone when I woke up this time. It's like I did the first hip "multiply" and this one "raw". Based on the dick tube alone I'm gonna say multiply was way better.
Once I do get home, well medicated, I should have many good stories from this one.
Summary: I doing ok, it just gets better from here and while the pain really sucks I'm finding the humor in it all. That, and it's done.
I've somewhat come to terms with it and have researched the hell out of the types of materials used and different surgery approaches.
I haven't seen you put out too much info on who your Dr is or the type of materials used,(metal/poly/ceramic) etc. This is actually the first time I read you had the posterior approach done.
Is there anything you would recommend or advise regarding materials, approaches and actual specific surgeons.
Just out of curiosity why did you opt for a total rather than a resurfacing? Thanks
Oh one last thing. Did the dr give you an "expiration" date on it. From what I read it won't last more than 15 yrs for an active weight lifter necessitating a revision at some point.
I have been following your blogs for a few years now. I first started back during my freshman year of college in 2010/11, so obviously I had read up on your first replacement when it was done. I knew I would also need one eventually, so I always had it in the back of my mind that I would consult you once I got it done - it's just ironic that you just had the second one right around the same time I had mine. It's been 7 weeks now since I got it done, so I'm back to the gym, but I leave my lower body work to be done during physical therapy. My injury goes back 15 years to when I was ten years old, so as you could imagine there's a little bit more work to be done than the normal replacement. I haven't been able to squat in about 3-4 years, because the pain was too great and I couldn't put the weight on the one side.
Now that I've had the replacement, I'm ready to work my way back into squatting as I build the strength on that side back up. Obviously I'm not an elite level powerlifter, but I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to approach my lower body training now that I have the artificial hip. I would like to incorporate a hard and heavy dose of lower body back into my routine, but I want to be smart with it as well, and thought you would be one of the best to help. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Tommy