It has been a week!!!!!

I may not exactly have Happy Feet but it has been a week since my hip injection and I do have a Happy Hip!!

I have been doing as advised and testing it out to see where my pain thresholds might be.  This has included stairs, walking, walking in woods with uneven ground and slopes and dips.  I have been getting in and out of various cars without falling over or being in much, if any pain at all.    I have attempted some gardening, walking in crowds, which can be hard going when the hip is bad, without any problems at all.  I have sat, stood, crouched down etc and a part from one incident it has been a massive improvement!!

I can get my socks etc on without any problems but I do need to sit down when getting boots on, still a little weak and wobbly for that task.

I will have a follow up appointment in the middle of May and I am going to bring up the topic of possibly having the other hip looked at as well.  Even that has improved, probably due to me walking much better over the past week or so.

The NHS is wonderful and we are so lucky to have it!!

I have been working on my Textile exam piece today and Sophie is off out with a friend tomorrow so I can spend all day on it if needed.

Will yo be watching the Great British Sewing Bee 8pm BBC 2?  It got mixed reviews last week but the show should be given a chance to grow.

Take care all

xx

All done and dusted....now the wait.......

Today was an early start for all of us and we arrived at the hospital for my hip injection at 8am.  The night before did not lend much sleep and hubby was not feeling very well either.  So he had only had a few hours sleep as well.  It was a glorious sunny day and blue skies as our clocks have just changed back to British Summer Time so a lighter sunnier start to the day.

I was not sure what to expect and that was probably just as well.  I had numerous forms to fill in, temperature taken, weight noted down (not too bad)   The most surprising outcome was my perfect blood pressure!?  I am a teacher who has been in pain for months and months with work coming out of her ears and poor sleep pattern and my blood pressure is good!  Years of perfecting the skill of keeping calm I suppose.

I will not lie that despite the local anaesthetic (I will spell check that) when the cortisone was put in it was very uncomfortable indeed and felt like a bolt was being tightened to extreme in my hip, a very odd feeling. Now, nearly 9 hours later I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable and the anaesthetic is has now worn off.

Due to sterilising solution I have a bright pink upper leg which I have resisted  showering off so that I do not disturb the dressing which stays on until tomorrow morning.  I also have a black marker pen arrow on my left thigh, (just to make sure that the right leg was looked at and could take a bit of getting off).

It may well take several days and up to 14 days before I see any real change in pain levels.  I have been up and down the stairs, walked around, worked on my sketchbook standing up etc and all is ok.

I have to fill in a pain diary until my out patients appointment in 6 weeks time and then see what happens then.  When I walked into the theatre my right hip clicked all the way up the corridor and in through the door!  May be I shall be back again in the near future to have the other one done.

Just as we got back in through the front door after the 60min plus drive back, we had our neighbour's daughter round for the afternoon which gave me a chance to potter around while hubby went to do some work.  I feel (and have) been up for hours and I think an early night will be upon me soon.  I did enjoy a quite afternoon and after I felt that I had done enough wandering around I enjoyed a peaceful hour reading Jamaica Inn.....I think it was so quiet that I nodded off for a few minutes.

Many thanks for all of the supportive comments I have received since Christmas concerning my dodgy hip and even though the consultant said it is "not a good hip" as it is, hopefully today will enable me to delay a replacement which is a much bigger deal and go about my daily life more upright and in much less pain. 

Take care all....off to read another chapter.

xx

Hospital Date

Today I had confirmation that on 2nd April I will be going into hospital to have my cortisone injection in my hip.  I have the early stages of osteoarthritis and hopefully the injection will help ease the pain that I am in.  The pain is constant at the moment.  If it works I am going to ask about having one in the right hip at a later date.  I have had a letter explaining the procedure and the pros and cons.  I have read it and taken it all in and I am now going to just ignore the cons and keep my fingers crossed.

It is a cancellation, so a bit of a surprise.  They did want me at the hospital at 7am.  I live an hour away , so leave at 6am?  Get up at 4.30am or so...............with a 10 year old..........Mmmmmmm.....managed to beg and get 8.30am.  Not sure what to do with Sophie as Grandparents are on holiday that day and is it a bit early to impose on friends?  So poor Sophie is likely to be dragged along as well, I am not allowed to drive so hubby has to stay with me as well.  Family outing...........oh great............but such is life.

I have had some lovely post this week and I shall blog here about it on Friday when I can sit still and write it properly with pictures etc.

Best wishes

xx

Did not see that coming!

Image found on Google images

Hubby drove me to my hospital appointment and Monday.  It was a bright sunny day with blue skies, lovely!

We did not have to wait long and due to the early hour, all was very quiet as well.

I had an appointment in January and previous GP appointments and I was told that for my age I should not really have any problems as such andt smoothing out this slight bump on the ball joint which showed up in an x-ray would probably solve the pain etc.

Well....fast forward 6 weeks and now the slight mis-shapen of the ball joint will not make any difference if smoothed off, I now have arthritis in both hips and the left one is the worst one.  Everything is too far gone for any treatment including keyhole surgery!

I have three options

1). Soldier on as I have done!

2). Have a cortisone injection into the hip, which may or may not work, you can not have many of them, they do not always work each time.

3). Have a hip replacement, but at my age (43) I am likely to have several in the years to come as they can have a life span, some last for 5 years some can last for over 30 years.

I was told quite categorically that I did not have arthritis as I did not have all of the symptoms (which have changed even since last summer!) and I was not the right age (too young).  One of my tutor group has arthritis so that is not strictly true.  He is 12.

So...what a choice.  Not what I was hoping to hear.  I am starting to get really tired and worn out with it and keeping up a full time job.  Hubby watched me get in and out of the car for the first time after school on Thursday and said that he did not realise how difficult I really was finding it after a full day on my feet.

So.......I have asked to be put on the list for a cortisone injection into my hip and this could take up to and beyond 10 weeks for the appointment to come through.  I will need to go to a hospital about 45 mins away and due to it giving you a "dead leg" I will need to have the day off.  It would not do to have me falling flat on my face in the middle of my classroom!

Today I have felt as stiff as a board and a little dejected as I have been told it will gradually get worse.  There will of course be good days/weeks as well and I know that it is not life threatening but when I have a house with stairs, a 10 year old, a husband to does work away and a full time job....I will not be able to completely ignore it.

So,  there I have it... time to move on and swap painkillers as my current ones do not really work at the moment.  Roll on half term next week.

Tomorrow I will be handing in my evening class coursework and I shall try and take some pictures as I do not think that I will get it back until the Autumn.

Have a good evening

xx

Keep your fingers crossed ladies.......

.......tomorrow at 9.20am I shall finally be talking to a consultant to see what can be done to sort out my hip, improve my walking and enable me to sleep more often without some form of pain waking me up.

Oh and to stop needing the painkillers that I have been taking since the middle of November.  Although I have only been taking one instead of two....could be a reason why the sleep is affected but I do not like taking tablets and nearly 4 months seems too long.

I am dreading being told, however, that there is.....

*nothing we can do

*it is not significantly bad enough for treatment

* come back and see us in 6 months/1 year and so on.

*You are not old enough for the treatment currently available.......

Hopefully I am worrying about nothing and a solution of some kind will be found.

So all together now.....

one

two 

three....

cross them now.....

(wish me luck)

Take care all

xx