New doctor: hello and good-bye

My hip surgeon cruelly left me in January, moving to Florida to open a private practice. He transitioned all his patients to another doctor in the practice, who also does hips (although I think he's more of a knee guy). I met Dr. Heard for my final post-op appointment.
The appointment was really brief. I don't have any complaints, and the things that cause me pain are exactly as expected. He wrote me a prescription to continue PT, and told me not to come back, so I guess that's that!
I reconfirmed with him the return-to-running date Dr. Van Sice had set - 12 weeks post-op. Dr. Heard is actually more conservative (I don't even see how that's possible) than Dr. Van Sice, and said he usually has patients back at 4 months, not 3, but he gave me the go-ahead. He said his choice of dates is mostly based on patients' reported pain, so just don't run if it hurts too much (but he reminded me again that it will hurt a little. Yep, I know!).
I did clear with him running the Crescent City Classic in April, and he said that was fine, too; he just made me promise to walk if it hurt.

The next thing on my recovery agenda is to start working on range of motion. I delayed that a lot, waiting for my internal stitches to heal, but it's time. I am pretty stiff and the ends of my range of motion cause pain - and I definitely want that taken care of before I return to running. I don't want ROM limitations to affect my form. I know it's going to hurt, but it's got to be done. Time to be friends with the stretching strap again!

The plague is back

The very next morning after I completed my antibiotics for my revolting throat infection, my symptoms returned with a vengeance. I'm just as sick, if not worse, than before. I'm sure my paltry little amoxicillin prescription couldn't put up enough of a fight against whatever vicious, resistant, super-bug bacteria I picked up at the hospital.
Here I am, sick as a dog, going on two and a half weeks - and we have so many plans and guests for Mardi Gras. Great.
My big plan this year was to create a savory king cake to bring to a parade party, but I don't think anyone wants to eat anything I've touched unless I have a sudden recovery (But don't steal my idea. It's happening next year, promise). I was also going to make a bacon and brown sugar king cake for my bacon-loving hipster church friends. My church is full of hipsters. They all wear plaid, ride bikes, drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, grow beards, and like bacon in non-bacon-appropriate places. They'll be disappointed.

Heading upstairs with a mystery/crime novel. It's pretty good, although the language is atrocious. 

Tonight we were supposed to bike down St. Charles to the Nyx parade, but I just don't feel well enough. Instead I'm going to bed with a cup of tea and a good book.

Week 8 post-op: hip physical therapy

I thought I'd share with you my daily PT now that I'm able to extend my range of motion a little (I'll be at week 8 in two more days). Today, it looks like this (reps vary based on time constraints):

1. Planks. Front, left side, right side (about 1 min each).
2. Quadruped series: On hands and knees. Leg lifts straight, then knee bent at 90 degrees, then fire hydrants, then hurdles (10 - 30 of each, each side).
3. Squats - usually 25 or 50; sometimes wall squats; sometimes one-legged if I'm feeling ambitious.
4. Bulgarian split squats (I put my back leg up on the second stair step - 10 each side).
5. Walking lunges: the length of the house and back (it's 34 total. My house is 17 lunges long).

Just walking through the house.

6. Monster walks with resistance band - length of the house and back with band around calves and then thighs while squatting. I didn't count these.

7. Clams series: with resistance band, then with extension. Twenty - thirty each.
8. Bridges series: with resistance band (abduct at top of bridge), then one-legged. Thirty each.
9. Leg lift series: side lying, with toe neutral, pointed up, then pointed down; front leg lifts. Ten each.

I do more when I'm actually at PT (he has the cool toys, like ankle weights, exercise balls, kettle bells, straps) but this is a nice, short series I can manage in the mornings before the gym.

Parading

If you are in the middle of winter, I'm sorry that I am about to show you pictures of the sun filtering through oak tree branches out of a cloudless blue sky on a 70 degree day.

Really, incredible weather for a day of parading. We hung out with friends, had some beer, and did what New Orleanians do best - run into people we know. That's kind of how you do Mardi Gras: you share your food and drinks with whoever you end up seeing.

We stayed for two and a half parades, then ducked out so David could make it home in time for mass. I went home to wash my hair - I got my bell rung by a huge bag a beads that clocked me on the forehead, and I had blood in my hair (those throws are dangerous!).

But it's not a good parade without a little blood, right?

The fellow turned forty

I gave my husband explicit instructions to not turn 40, but his big birthday rolled around anyway. David is about eight years older than I am, a fact that I discovered accidentally several months into our dating relationship. I had been talking to a friend who was weighing the pros and cons of attending her high school reunion.
Me: "I don't know what to tell her, David. Do you think you'll go to your ten-year reunion?"
David: "Huh? I already went."
Me: "HOW OLD ARE YOU?!"
And that's how I found out that the man that little 21-year-old me was dating was 29, going on 30 pretty soon. It's not a big age difference now, but when he was a successful 30 year old lawyer and I was 22 and hadn't even started graduate school yet, it was.
David is lucky, because no one ever guesses his age: he looks very, very young. He had maybe three gray hairs by now (my fault entirely, I own it), but he's wrinkle-free and still pretty adorable in my opinion. So we can still pass for a young couple.

And to prove it, I made David take this picture, just woken up and deathly ill. 

I threw him a big party at Phillip's for the occasion, and as luck would have it, became deathly ill right before that weekend. I'm afraid I wasn't much of a hostess, and to top it all off, my gift to David was my bad cold. It was still a nice party - it was so easy to have Phillip's do everything (I talked to them just once - we go there all the time, I trust the owners, and I just gave a check and they handled everything). And it was lovely to see a lot of old friends.
No pictures, because we were too busy partying! And my phone stayed in my purse, which was a really cute textured purple clutch. I don't love purple, but just a tiny accent piece works well (the rest of my outfit was black).

This is the watch I got him.

Since it's the splurge birthday, I got David a nice watch- some Rolex that cost as much as a used car. Just kidding. He'd kill me. I got him a nice watch, but nowhere near that cost ballpark. It's understated and classic, just like him!
And on his real birthday, I bought him cough drops and Delsym. Sorry about that, babe.

Seven weeks post-op

I feel so much better after this surgery than the last one. I don't want to jinx myself by saying it, but I really think this surgery was quite successful and will heal with minimal lasting impact. Seven weeks after surgery on my left hip, I had a depressing visit with my doctor. I was in quite a lot of pain, and he wondered if the surgery had failed because the damage was so extensive prior to surgery. It turns out that I began feeling much better in a few weeks, but at the time I really didn't know if I'd made the right choice by having the surgery done.
This time, I just haven't had as many issues. I have had more stiffness and less mobility, because range of motion restrictions were extended due the repair rather than debridement of the labrum, but the joint doesn't really hurt very much.
Right around 6 weeks is when I would have been cleared to do a lot more activity, but unfortunately I haven't because I've been really sick for the past week. I actually went to the clinic and got an antibiotic, because my throat and tonsils were terribly infected (pus in your mouth. GROSS.). For the last week, I've done virtually nothing - no PT, no exercise bike, no strength, no core work. I was just too sick. But this morning I went to my PT appointment, and I ran 15 minutes at 70% of body weight on the Alter G. It felt pretty good, just about painless, and the plan is to do 75% next week, 80% the week after that, then 85%, 90%, then - cleared to start running.
Now that I'm starting to feel marginally better (and I'm not coughing so much), I will be heading back to the gym or at least exercising at home. I can now:
- Elliptical with no resistance or ramp restrictions
- Bike outdoors
- Add in a little range of motion work

I also have to get back on the PT/strength bandwagon, because my week off (plus general weakness from sickness) had me doing pretty poorly with my PT. He was totally making fun of my puny lack of strength. He wanted me doing 1:30 front planks x 3, and I am so serious when I say that I was about to collapse on the third one. And I was sweating buckets.
I better get on it this week. Christian is threatening me with a 3 minute plank.

Pool running vs. Alter G

In my last post, I explained what it feels like to run on the Alter G. I got a similar question from Cris (although I prefer Darkwave. She has a lot of aliases), who asked me to compare the Alter G to pool running. So here it goes:
1. Similarity to running:
Alter G: Very similar. Just like a regular treadmill.
Pool: You can mimic the motions, but without push-off and rebound, it's not very like running.
2. Effort required:
Alter G: Depends on the %weight setting, but obviously, there is less and less effort as you decrease weight. You feel like you're running, but not working out.
Pool: I've finally figured out how to get more out of pool running, so I'd say more effort required here. You're pushing against water, so that adds resistance.
3. Impact on body:
Alter G: Although this is dependent on your weight setting, your foot still strikes on the AlterG. There are plenty of injuries that I don't think it would be safe to rehab on the Alter G, at least not initially, like a broken foot.
Pool: No impact if you're deep-water running. Probably the safest rehab exercise, although you can stress soft tissue by pushing against water resistance. When I'm pool running after an injury, I eventually transition to running on the floor of the pool, and I would say that amount of impact is comparable to what I feel on the Alter G at 50% body weight.
4. Place in training:
Alter G: Because you can adjust the impact, you can use the Alter G anywhere along the rehab continuum, all the way from early rehab to back to racing. However, for most of us the Alter G is only appropriate for rehab, not regular training, since a. no one has regular access to one and b. there is so little effort that you are not really "exercising" - and unless you are a pro runner, I'm sure your time available to dedicate to running is limited and you don't want to waste hours without getting some cardiovascular/endurance benefit from it.

Pool: Although there are only two levels - deep water (no foot strike) or shallow water (foot strike), you can still use pool running in a variety of rehab and training scenarios. Actually, pool running is good cross-training, and I keep saying that I'll keep it in my schedule once I'm back running. I probably won't because I'm lazy, but it would be a low-impact alternative to running.