Three Months

       It's been a long time since I posted. Yesterday marked three months since my first PAO.

       I have been going to physical therapy twice a week for almost a month now. Most people dislike physical therapy, and I am one of them! And because my hip needs the physical therapy, sometimes working with the therapist can be awkward and uncomfortable. And it's painful! Sometimes when the therapist is massaging and working on my hip, she'll put her hand right where one of the screws is, and I feel a terrible, driving pressure. She spends a lot of time working on my soas muscle as well as my adductors. On the upside, I am improving. When I first started physical therapy, I could only sit on the bike for three minutes (though my hip had started cramping at forty-five seconds). Yesterday, I made it ten minutes, and I probably could have gone a couple of minutes longer.

        The side of my leg is still numb. I can't feel it when something is against it. For example, when I shave, I can't feel the razor there, and honestly, it's a little scary. Nerve damage doesn't hurt. But it's almost worse to feel nothing. Because when you can't feel anything, even the touch of a hand, you feel vulnerable.

        I am still in pain much of the time. My hip pops a lot, but it doesn't dislocate anymore (how can it with so many screws to hold it in place?). I have also lost a very large portion of my flexibility - over half, and my muscles have atrophied considerably.

        To be completely honest, I am frustrated. This surgery was major, and I know that it's going to take quite some time before I'm back to normal, and that there's a pretty good chance I never will be completely normal. But this is really hard. I am tired of being in pain all the time. I'm tired of not being able to do the things that normal people my age, and even twice my age do. For example, I work in the theatre department at San Juan College. After a two hour shift filled with lots of lifting, and stair climbing, I was exhausted. Before surgery, I had done the same thing for fourteen hours, and hadn't thought anything of it. And I don't see an end in sight.

        On the upside, I have healed enough to have a job again, and so that's good. I'm doing well in all of my classes, and so, even with the whole  hip situation, I'm managing to move forward with my life.