Clint Eastwood's got nothing on me!
I have a new hip and as a result, a certain spaghetti western has taken on a whole new meaning for me. But more of that later. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………
You’re reading Home Truths, a newsletter from me, Susy Smith. I am many things: a parent of grown-up kids, a dog owner, a gardener and a compulsive mover of vases (I worked for years as a stylist). I am also a writer/editor and former Editor-in-Chief of British Country Living Magazine.
I write here on an eclectic mix of subjects about life, and a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Subscribe now for free and join the community! You can also support me and my work by upgrading to a paid subscription at any time – for either option, just tap the button below
A Total Hip Replacement or THR is a routine operation these days and I know many other people who have had one. In fact, so commonplace is the op, that over 75,000 are performed by the NHS each year including at the centre where I had mine done, where they can zip through 32 of them in a day! Imagine: five operating theatres and teams of crack surgeons happily chucking aside old, defective bones and substituting brand new, state-of-the-art fake joints, into the legs of an endless stream of senior citizens who crave another chance at mobility before they finally cash in their chips.
I think back to the 1970s when I was 18 and my mum had a new hip at the age of 59. It was quite a big deal then. I was oblivious to this of course: in that selfish way that teenagers have down to a fine art, I just got on with my own life and found it slightly inconvenient that my mum couldn’t make the family meals for a time.
I’m unsure what my prosthesis is made of – I forgot to ask, but the paperwork from the hospital tells me it will probably be a mix of be titanium and plastic. Not that I mind, so long as it is an improvement on the old bones that have been with me for almost 66 years and really haven’t been serving me at all well for the last 12 months.
I was amazed to discover that the very first hip replacement surgery was performed in Germany way back in 1891! Ivory was used for the joint then and in the ensuing years, glass (it shattered - now there’s a surprise), stainless steel and ceramic joints have all been pressed into action until the current metal and plastic mix became the medium of choice in the early 2000s.
As everyone tells me how amazing it is to get a new hip and that it will change my life, I expected it all to be very straightforward and approached the impending event with enthusiasm rather than apprehension: it would be wonderful to get back to doing all the things I want to do - gardening, walking, pilates, dancing and golf without the accompanying pain I have had to become used to in the last year. I was therefore totally taken aback, when the hospital team issued me with a list of detailed instructions prior to my operation.
I was told to stop taking all regular medication two weeks beforehand. I didn’t think to ask why but I presume it must be something to do with existing drugs in one’s body causing complications with the anaesthetic? At my pre-op assessment I was handed an anti-bacterial body and hair wash to use every day for five days before the operation. After doing so I had to sleep in clean bedlinen every night and wear completely clean clothes every day!
The clothes weren’t too much of an issue, I got several tops, pairs of trousers and underwear ready in advance, but I mean, who has five sets of sheets for their bed? My husband pointed out, however, that we do have three beds (now that my girls have left home and their rooms act as guest rooms) so I played musical beds for a week, swapping from one to another. My husband had no idea where he was going to be delivering my cup of tea each morning.
During the day, I was changing and washing sheets. I felt like I was running a launderette. There was no ironing of course. As far as I was concerned, it was a triumph just to get sheets and pillowcases washed and dried and back on the bed before climbing, exhausted, in between them each night. I suspect these are all anti-infection measures so I guess I can’t really complain if they help me and others like me get in and out again with less chance of contracting MRSA or something similar, but it does seem a little extreme.
The forty-page booklet the hospital team sent me in advance was immensely thorough, giving me all the information I needed to know about having a THR - and more. So much more. I had to keep re-reading it to ensure I hadn’t missed anything vital. There was the fully illustrated guide to the exercises I needed to do both before and after the procedure, the explanation of the different types of anaesthesia I might be given and which materials my new joint might be made of. I wasn’t sure if I had any choice in these matters but I guess it was good to know they were keeping me fully informed. It also told me in no uncertain terms that if I had an open wound, cut, scratch or even so much as an insect bite, they would not go ahead with my surgery.
“Really?” I said to the nurse on the phone “why is that a problem?”
“Infection.” she said “The bugs that are in your system if you have an insect bite can travel to the site of a wound very quickly and cause potential issues. We take this very seriously, so you must tell us if you have anything like that in the days before coming into hospital”
Blimey, I thought, it’s July, the chances of getting an insect bite are really pretty high, and I’m going to be wearing a bikini. I was going on holiday to Spain with my daughters: they are totally skint now that they are renting property in London and can barely afford to eat, never mind even getting a sniff of a holiday unless I pay for it. So I took them to my sister’s charming little house in La Manga and we had a wonderful time. I was however, so thoroughly sprayed and resprayed with insect repellent that even if a mosquito had landed on me it would have slid off before getting a chance of a bite.
When we returned home I was sweating my socks off in the garden clothed in trousers and long sleeves, my skin and outer layer thoroughly doused with anti-insect spray and at night, keeping all the windows closed in a baking hot bedroom and sleeping with one of those mosquito-repellent-plugs, so panicky was I that I might end up being cancelled.
On the day however, everything went swimmingly. To start with. On a Saturday morning in late July, I was in the hospital at 7am, being operated on by 8am and in the recovery ward by 9:30am. Every 20 minutes or so another trolley-bed bearing another post-op patient arrived in the ward. The speed was incredible. This was a very efficient production line. By the end of the day almost all of them had gone home happily married to their new hip or knee. But not me.
My Zimmer frame walk to the toilets with the physio didn’t go quite according to plan. It was all fine on the way down there and then, suddenly, I had a funny turn. The world began to swim, I felt sick and started to black out. The physio pulled the emergency cord
“Stay awake! Keep your eyes open!”
he commanded. I opened my eyes to find him looking slightly worried and frantically fanning me with one of those cardboard urine receptacles. Two nurses arrived with a wheelchair and got me back into bed: low blood pressure, they said, and also low haemoglobin levels, so a saline drip was set up and a blood transfusion discussed.
Thus, rather than going home the same day as expected, I remained, only one of two patients, with the ward staff overnight, all of the following day and another night. No problem for me: I was rather enjoying the one-to-one care and joking with the staff who by now had become old friends. I was glad I was still there, surrounded by people who knew what they were doing - and seemed to like me, rather than at home where this would absolutely would not be the case as my husband and daughters tried to assist me.
When Monday morning arrived, there was a flurry of activity: the team had the same number of post-op patients to service and fond as they had become of me, they wanted me out - as soon as possible. The physio arrived to issue me with my going-home package: a pair of crutches, a handy litter-picker - for putting on pants and socks, and retrieving anything that might get dropped along the way, plus a shaped sponge on a stick for feet and leg washing in shower and bath.
They got me up again, but gone now was the walking frame: I was onto the crutches to lumber up and down the ward and also out into the stair-well to show I could climb up and back down a set of stairs, which was a pretty vital skill to master, given that we do not live in a bungalow. And this is where the spaghetti western comes in. Along with my discharge papers and spare dressings for the wound, they sent me home with two printed A4 sheets of paper. I told my husband and daughter they had to be stuck somewhere visable, one at the top and the other at the bottom of our flight of stairs.
They are to remind me which order in which to use my three methods of support. Going up it is
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”
Coming down it is
“The Ugly, The Bad and The Good”.
It works. After a lot of tentative hobbling around accompanied by huffing and puffing along with moans and groans, three weeks down the line, I’ve got the hang of it all and although I can’t say I’m whizzing around, I am down to one crutch now and certainly speeding up in my movements.
I have been across to the shops a couple of times to see Claire in the Sainsbury’s Local, pick up more pain medication from the girls at the Maple Leaf Pharmacy and to chat to Hilda, the most amazing 92 year old Northern Irish woman who has owned the local antique shop for as long as I can remember - certainly for at least thirty years. We compared walking aids - she on her Zimmer, me on my crutches and passed the time of day. Even more adventurous, I went to the doctors on the bus the other day. Oddly daunting but I got there and back without mishap and I am gaining confidence.
It is my neice’s 30th birthday in two week’s time and I am determined to be able to go to the party. Whether I shall be up to dancing, who knows, but the card that arrived from friends two weeks ago is sitting on my kitchen table reminding me of one of my goals.
Thank you to those of you who wished me well for my op and offered your encouragement and your own experiences. I feel very honoured to have joined the new hip club!
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