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Becoming Bionic (Part 1)

When I first told my colleagues at Positively Aware about my upcoming hip replacement surgery, Enid, as is her wont, came up with yet another nickname for me and I went from “Sue-renity” to “Bionic Woman.” As I sit here in my sister’s kitchen in Springfield, two weeks into a six-week recovery, “bionic” is the last thing I feel like.

But since this surgery is becoming more and more common for HIV-positive folks of even younger age than my 54 years, I thought it might be beneficial to share with you some of what I’ve experienced. I hope this will enable some of you to go into it with a more realistic set of expectations than you may have had without it.

First, though I doubt surgeons would be as reluctant to perform the surgery when the cause is HIV-related as they were when looking at my x-rays of "just" an arthritic hip, be strong in the knowledge that you have a right to be able to walk and live free from the pain of that bone-against-bone grinding that is so excruciating, regardless of the probability that you may outlive your prosthesis and need to have it replaced eventually. As I told the first surgeon I saw in Chicago when he suggested I wait another ten years, I didn’t want to live another ten DAYS in the kind of pain I was in, let alone ten years. Thankfully, I consulted Dr. Jeffrey Schopp in Springfield, the surgeon who replaced my father's bum hip, and he understood that waiting was not an option for me.

This reminds me to say something about the absolute necessity of a solid support system during recovery. I chose to have my surgery in Springfield because my parents and my sister Kathy live there and there are only two steps in Kathy's house. My youngest sister Kerry also committed to coming to see me through the first week. Whatever your plans, do not think for an instant that you will be able to handle this alone. And if you're like me, someone who does not like and isn't good at asking for help, you'll have to get over it. Especially for the first week to 10 days, you will need help getting up and down from sitting or reclining; help getting up and down stairs; you won't be able to bend over, so picking stuff up off the floor, loading the dishwasher, tying your shoes, etc. will require assistance; standing for any length of time will be challenging, so waiting for the toast to pop up or the eggs to cook will have to be someone else's job. Face it - this is no time to cling to your independence.

A word here about THE THREE PRECAUTIONS. You will start hearing about these if you take a class as I did designed to prepare hip/knee replacement patients for surgery and recovery. The precautions are: You cannot bend more than 90 degrees; you cannot cross your legs; you cannot twist your hips. All this to prevent your new hip from dislocating before it has a chance to settle in for good. The bending thing is the most challenging for me, but luckily, I'm becoming an expert at the use of my "grabber" - an ingenius device with a trigger at one end, a 2-foot rod and a pincher at the other end with which I can pick up my cat's food bowl (but not water, oh, no, not water), discarded socks, and the TV remote from the floor without violating the precaution.

You’re likely to hear that most patients are up and about the day of the surgery, exclaiming their joy at the lack of hip pain. Bullshit. Yes, you might very well be UP the same day, but you will by no means be pain-free, even if you’re hooked up to a morphine pump. The fact is that that pain you used to feel will be replaced by the incision pain of layers of muscle and nerves being cut into and now having to knit back together. Every movement you make will hurt, but it is DIFFERENT and somehow holds the promise of getting better, though it’s hard to imagine at the time. If you're lucky, your doctor will be honest with you, as Dr. Schopp was with me when he told me I'd hate his guts for the first week - I don't really blame him, though - it's just the process.

Then there’s the swelling. If you ever wondered what it felt like to be a well-packed sausage, this will be your chance to find out. My legs, ankles, and feet swelled up to one and a half times their normal size, along with a colorful tattoo of bruising that spread from my butt to my knee. Ice supposedly helps, as does elevation, but it’s been two weeks as I write this and my toes on the surgery leg are still resembling cocktail wienies.

You’ll start your new era of movement with the help of a walker – yes, the kind your grandmother holds onto for dear life. While you’ll be grateful for the support and sense of security it offers, you’ll find that you can add shoulder, arm, and hand muscle strain to the list of bodily woes. My advice is to get yourself some wonderful sisters like mine to give you shoulder and neck rubs and remind you not to wear your shoulders as earrings! Friends, lovers, and other family members will also do! Once again, the need for support and comfort is essential.

I’ll end this first part with a mention of fatigue, since it’s the reason I’ll be ending! You’ll find that as your body claims 80% of your energy for healing that extensive damage and adjusting to the titanium it will now live with, you will have precious little left with which to do the work you usually do, keep house, answer email, or even get from one room to another. If you’re like me, you’ll struggle between beating yourself up for being such a wimp and telling yourself this is a necessary and normal way to feel, that to push it would only prolong the process. So even though you might hate it, stop, turn off the computer, and go take a nap!