I told the nurse to shutup!!!

Yep I did, I told a nurse in the recovery room to shutup...The rest of the story is this I was waking up from the surgery and my head said "hey get comfy roll over and go back to sleep" but they didn't want me to and I wasn't awake enough to know what was going on and I told the nurse to shutup when he told me I couldn't roll over. The surgery only took about in hour and fifteen minutes and they had already started the trip to take me upstairs when they went and got Tracy my first recolection of time would be about 11 am (4hrs of time I don't remember 7am - 11am). Tracy came up to the room and we settled in I was able to get myself into the bed with very little help from the nurses. I told them not to touch my leg since if they move it and made my hip hurt I would get mad at them if I made it hurt I could only blame myself it was a simple system and it worked great. I was suprised at how good I felt especially when you consider I just had the bones in my upper leg romoved and replaced. The pain meds made me a little loopy and I was on an IV. I musunderstood the Dr as I thought I would be required to go to physical therapy on the same day as surgery and I was fired up and ready cause I was going to pass it and go home. No such luck no therapy till Friday (next day).

Next day I came to the conclusion that the pain meds SUCK and make you feel really crappy and cause you to have really freaky dreams (Cops episodes starring me as the guy getting handcuffed) anyway they came up early and got me for physical therapy which I aced and then aced again in the afternoon (there was no way I was going to fail it). I got the ok to go home about 3:30pm that day and Tracy and I whelled out of there at 5pm so only a 36hr stay for a hip replacement thats gotta be a record.

Now im gonna skip all the stuff about being home except to tell you I got off all pain meds a week after the surgery, drove the van 8 days after surgery and drove my truck 9 days after surgery (clutch gave me problems) Tracy wasn't thrilled about the last two things but I hate being stuck at home. I went back to work 3 weeks after surgery and did a lite work week but the next week I prettymuch went right back at it. If I had known then what I know now about the surgery I wouldn't have even considered putting it off. I can now destroy my right hip since I have a solid left hip but to be honest my right hip has improved since the left was replaced. Just an FYI I am not normal and the normal recovery time is more like 6 weeks im just not very bright and could have really injured and damaged my hip.

Off work 6-8 weeks:highlights of a summer hip replacement

So I have my surgery scheduled and I have to go to the hospital for whats called a "joint class" now my older brother was willing to teach me all he knows about joints but that would get me busted for posession so I opted to go of to St Joe med center for the correct class. While sitting in this class I realized im surrounded by people that could have grown up with my 84yr old gramma, surely they must have thought I was there to help somebody. The funny thing was that everybody in this class had a limp of some sort but I could have won any type of footraceor track and field event I know of, this again made me rethink having the surgery. I worked the day before sugery had a good meal then didn't eat again until after the surgery.

Thursday June 19 Tracy and I cruise into the hospital at about 5am and im first in line for surgery. I get changed into the lovely hospital attire and lay in a bed and just start to worry. The Dr comes in and rights a big NO on my right hip and puts his initials on my left so he doesn't make a mistake, hmmm left hip parts in a right hip, don't think it would work. Ok back to my story they started the IV and gave me some sort of antibiotic and it made me feel like I had poison ivy on my face it itched and Tracy said I looked flushed. Nurse looks in and says "oh you have redface syndrome" I said "yeah and I have bumps on my face". She proceeded to apologize for it saying the rate was to high on the IV and she got me some benydryl to be placed in the IV. I AM NOW A BIG FAN OF benedryl took the edge off my nerves instantly...oh yeah the itch went away also. At about 7:15am I kissed Tracy good bye shook Pastor Norms hand (he came up to pray with us at about 6 AM) and thats the last thing I rember until...

stay tuned

We can rebuild him.....we have the technology!

Ok, enough with the bionic man quotes but the last two years were pretty goofy for me since I was diagnosed with arthritis. I got used to being in some pain all the time and alot of pain most of the time. I was willing to deal with it as long as I could, but when we went through the marriage dymamics class at church I made a commitment to Tracy that I would at least go get it checked out again to see what type or prognosis I had. Well the bad news was that I had it in both hips and it wasn't going to get any better. My Dr said that the indicators to being at a point I needed to seriously consider the hip replacement were a burning sensation and being awoken at night fromt the pain of which I had both of these. So I went in in April and made the decision shortly after that to have the surgery then proceeded to cook chicken for Nelson's and was feeling pretty good (eating tylenol and Excedrin like candy) so I considered putting off the surgery till after Thanksgiving. Then I did a corporate and was in total pain all day with no relief from tylenol plus I had a 90 min drive home that was torture so I didn't change my mind afterall.

stay tuned.