Statrix Redux

This showed up in my email today via the Brooks Despatch, the newsletter from Brooks Saddles. While the video is more or less an extended advertisement for their saddles, I actually love it because it has great scenery, great bikes, great saddles (I ride ’em as documented many times here), and NORMAL CLOTHING!
Yes the blokes in this video are riding bikes and look like normal people. In the US we seem to have this, some would say unhealthy, fascination with tricking ourselves out in racing kit, even when we are simply going for bike ride.
While I’ll admit to being careful about what I wear when I ride long distances, underwear that doesn’t bind or have painful seams, things that dry quickly after a rain shower, and so forth, I mostly look like a normal guy. I don’t have special shoes, in fact I wear plain old sandals (though with socks to prevent chafing). I love these guys in the video.
The helmet thing. They don’t wear helmets. I generally do, though not always. It’s up to you.
Finally, I’d love to do this ride. In fact, I’m going to do this ride. Tomorrow. Okay, maybe not tomorrow. I am going to do this ride though.

Enjoy!

Now that my hip is fixed I figured I’d better keep it that way and, because I can move again and be mostly pain free, it was time to up my activity.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted…a whole month. To be honest, that’s how little I’ve thought about my hip recently. It’s not that things haven’t happened, it’s just, well my hip feels completely normal for the most part so I just don’t think about it.
It’s been three months since my surgery and this past week I had checkup. My incision has almost completely healed and has filled in very well. I no longer have a ‘pit’ on my leg. It’s not quite done but oh well. I was told by my surgical team that out of about the last 100 folks they’ve only seen in this in 2 or 3 folks. It’s not normal but it happens. Basically it seems my body rejected a bit of the suture. I’ve had a few minor scrapes and cuts since I had surgery and they’ve all healed normally so this isn’t something systemic thank goodness.
My team also commented on how well I’ve done physically since surgery. As I reported I was kicked loose from PT early. Since then I’ve continued to stretch, walk, and yes, bicycle. I’m back to cycling more or less normally. I haven’t done any real long rides (meaning 50+ miles) but have been very happy with rides in the 20 mile range. My team said I’m doing very well for someone after only three months – in fact they did a double check to make it hasn’t been 6 months.
One of the best things that’s happened is that I was able to dance at a friend’s wedding this past weekend. I haven’t danced for years. I’m not a big dancer (well I am kind of big so when I dance I guess I qualify), but it sure is nice to be able to do it when I want!
The wedding was on Hawaii Island so I had to travel…in fact I’ve traveled a lot lately, Olympia Washington, Boise Idaho, and Hilo. I’ve not been flagged by the TSA, no bells have rung and I haven’t been pulled aside for extra scrutiny, besides the normal random checks of course. That’s great because I’m told that sometimes hip replacements to trigger the devices, sometimes they don’t. I don’t.
The only other thing I can think of is that I have a six month check up scheduled, but barring complications, I probably won’t be posting on my hip till then. All is good. If you need one, don’t wait.

There’s just not a lot to say about this anymore, but a final update or two are probably still out there in the future when I meet with my plastic surgeon again next week and my hip team again in late July. Let’s go from the low points to the high points…
My incision is still healing. It is healing. It is just healing slowly. I’ll see the plastic surgeon again next week and get an official answer on this, but to me it looks better than it did a week ago, two weeks ago, and, of course, when it was downright nasty.
On the other hand, here we are eight weeks out from surgery, and I have no trouble from the replacement itself outside of the incision (though technically I guess the hip itself in “inside the incision”). Let’s be realistic, I’m fifty-six and ache a bit from time to time. That’s probably not going to change no matter how much stretching and exercise I do (though that does help a lot), but my hip really isn’t part of the equation anymore. Thank goodness.
The highlight of the week has to be my twenty mile bike ride yesterday. Twenty miles isn’t a particularly long distance, at least not for me or the friends I tend to ride with here or on the mainland. But it’s the longest I’ve done since getting back on the bike two weeks ago. I could have gone further but the sun was going down and…well…it was time to go home and eat. Besides I really don’t want to overdo it. I haven’t added any hills yet, but probably will see how it goes later this week. At the rate I’m going, and with the breaks I must take due to travel, I expect that by mid-August I should be back in the shape I’d need for a nice long ride to Haleiwa. I’d also be willing to do a wee bit less but haul camping gear. In fact I’d love to go camping in August…who’s up for Malaekahana?
And finally, at least for now, I’ll be flying soon and am perversely looking forward to finding out if I set off the sensors at the airport. Will they want to check my scar? It’ll be an adventure.
That’s it for now!

I was so not going to write a post on my hip today but I’ve just received great news. Today I was told that I’d progressed to the point that, as long as I keep doing the exercises on my own, I don’t have have to come back for the last eight scheduled PT sessions.
In truth I’ll miss the them. It’s great to have your own trainer, but now that I’m back at work they do eat into my day. I was scheduled to go into early July with them, but today was it.
Now comes the hard part, motivating myself to continue doing them on daily basis.
And with this post, I hopefully won’t have much more to say about my hip till July when I go back to my plastic surgeon to check my wound. Other than having to deal with that my life is pretty much back to normal. Now we can set about going from normal to super!
Have a great day…I am!

Whew…my life has almost, but not quite, returned to normal. I’ll have a few further hip updates, but hopefully I won’t have much more to say about it.
This is the third day I’ve ridden my bike and I’ve had only one small problem. Okay, two. As I mentioned in my last hip update I was doing my laundry on Tuesday and hoping to take a ride once I was done and before the sun went down.
I did. It was great.
I did my favorite ‘easy ride.’ That is, down to Ala Moana Beach Park from Makiki where I live. Then I follow the shore as I head west through the park, through Kakaako Waterfront Park, and on to Chinatown. Then I head back through downtown along Hotel St, through the capitol district, and on home. It’s about 10 miles all in all and takes about an hour as it’s a city ride and I obey traffic stops and such, not to mention all the stops to see the sites. Like this one at the shore:

I didn’t have any trouble during the ride with my hip. In fact I only noticed that I needed to take care with my other leg as I felt a bit of a twinge in my right knee. This is nothing new and generally isn’t a problem as I ride more and more often.
The next day, Wednesday, I rode my first commute to work and…first problem! I ride on Brooks B-17 saddles which I find wonderful for all around riding. I use them for commuting, long rides, and touring. they are on all my bikes. They aren’t ‘cushy’ by any means, but do support me very well when I need support.
After six weeks off the bike, and and big plush saddles when I did my stationary riding, I could definitely tell that my own saddle was not quite up to par. Yeah, that’ll take a few days of riding before I’m completely comfortable again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really not bad…just noticeable.
The other problem I had was a front tire flat. When I left work yesterday I discovered that my front tire was completely flat. The only thing I can figure is that I left the presta valva open when I pumped up the tire on Tuesday. Luckily I had everything I need to swap tubes and get home. I haven’t looked into it more, but things were fine this morning on my third day of riding.
The best thing I’ve noticed so far? Even before surgery I could ride my bike, right up till the week before surgery when it became just too painful to get on and off the bike. I could still ride, but I simply couldn’t mount or dismount.
Today? I can get on and off with no trouble at all. Swinging my leg up causes no pain at all in my hip. That’s a biggie for me. A real biggie.
I know this sounds manini, after all I’m only riding to and from work for the most part so far, but darn it, to me it’s huge! Yes!
Aloha

It’s now been six weeks since my hip replacement and that meant another check with the doctor, this time with x-rays and changes to my daily regimen. Good changes in fact.
Yesterday I had a regular PT appointment in the morning and my therapist said he was recommending I be allowed back on my bicycle. He also intimated that I wasn’t going to need all nine of my remaining appointments as my progress has been excellent. I’m not sure how many I’ll need, but I am headed back tomorrow and suspect I’ll find out.
Since last week my incision continues to heal and looks much better than it did in past weeks. I saw the my plastic surgeon today (there’s a statement I never thought I’d make) and he is very happy with the way things are going. So much so that I don’t need to see him for about three weeks. It would have been two but I’ll be on the mainland and it’s not urgent, unless there are bad changes.
Then it was off to the x-ray department where I had some shots taken of my hip for review. It was pretty unremarkable.
And then my it was back to my surgeon’s office. I saw his assistant again who is a great guy. He checked my wound as well and was happy with the progress as well and happy with the plastic surgeon’s work.
He then showed me the x-rays and said that he could see no gaps that would suggest the device had loosened anywhere: this would lead to trouble. In fact he pulled out earlier x-rays and pointed out where it appears that the bone has done some healing and filled in some spaces between bone and device. Yes!
Then he confirmed that I was allowed back on my bicycle subject to common sense. In short, if it hurts, don’t do it. I’ve been on the stationary bike and doing well so pedaling on flats isn’t going to be the problem: long distances and major hills will come in time.
I’m also allowed to stop using compression hose on a daily basis, though I’m encouraged to use them for any airline flights, and I do have several coming up soon, as well any long drives I might be on. I don’t have those planned. He also said I could get new ones that just went to my knees instead of the one’s I’ve been using the climb my thighs. I’ll look around for some colorful ones.
All in all it appears that everything is currently doing really well. Yes, I still have more healing to do and won’t be able to swim for a while, but hey, I wasn’t doing much of that recently anyway. My bones need to heal a bit more too before I put them to big tests like rides across Iowa (I do wish I could do RAGBRAI this year but no).
And now? It’s time to do some laundry, put some air in my tires, and take my first bike ride in a bit over six weeks. Yes!!!

Actually the title of this post, and future ones, should probably be “My Open Wound #XX.” As you might gather, I still have an open wound.
Our story so far involves a bit of infection, treatment for that, and a lot of wet-to-dry dressings. My incision up to this point sort of looked like this —O-o—. The ‘o’s represent areas that hadn’t closed. There was on larger area and one smaller one below it. When I got home yesterday I had only one open area, unfortunately it wasn’t that one of the two had gone away, instead they had joined.
—( )—
Bah! That’s all I could say. Bah!
Okay, I did in fact say a bit more than that, I called my surgeon’s office and said I’d noticed some changes in the wound that concerned me. They scheduled me this morning and took a look and the fun began.
First of all they said nothing about my would looked really bad. It is showing signs of healing, even if it had opened up a bit more. It is shallower they said which is good. I agree there. They also took a sample and are sending it out for culture to see if I still have any infections going on, though it ‘looks clean’ according to everyone who peeked in.
After debriding the wound a bit more they decided that instead of more wet-to-dry dressings (which according to my research are not state of the art these days) they were going to prescribe Collagenase Santyl, a “sterile enzymatic debriding ointment.” Basically this is an enzyme, or so I’m told, that will eat up any necrotic tissue.
Basically it seems the two area joined because there wasn’t much holding them together as far as live flesh goes. As the bit between the two areas wasn’t getting much blood it really wasn’t live healthy tissue or even live fat. So apart it came and voila, a bigger wound, though in fact the wee bit of healing was really only concealing an opening between them underneath.
Some other things were discussed including a negative-pressure dressing, taking me back to surgery and cleaning things up and putting me back together, or sending me to a plastic surgeon for a look.
They decided that having a plastic surgeon take a look was the best option.
So off to another office I went. I didn’t have long to wait, apparently he had an opening and in I went. A genial younger fellow (as in younger than me, not a teenager), he took a look at my wound and said it looked pretty good. He showed me the difference between good tissue and necrotic tissue and fat and said he felt he should ‘neaten things up a bit.’ That meant he went in with surgical scissors and such and snipped and trimmed things up.
He did this in his office with an assistant and blood splatters were kept to a minimum. Actually I’m pretty sure there weren’t any. As the nerves along the incision were cut and haven’t healed, I really didn’t feel anything, though I could hear the snip, snip, snip of his scissors.
Then he said that the Santyl was a pretty good idea for no more than a week and said I should come back then for him to take another look. He also suggested that if I wanted, after things healed up, he could have me back and make the scar much smaller. I thanked him but frankly, I don’t really care. Let’s just say that any bathing suit I would care to wear will conceal this scar.
So where does this leave me?
It’s going to be a while, perhaps a month, before this closes up completely but things look good. This does of course keep me from swimming. I did ask about exercise and the plastic surgeon said to have at it. It’s unlikely to do any damage as long as keep things clean and dressed.
I don’t know if there’s anything growing down there that shouldn’t be at this point. The culture will take a bit of time, last time it was over twenty-four hours, but not much more than that. No one is saying it looks infected though.
I have to go back in a week to have the wound checked by all concerned (well not me really, I am concerned but so far my medical expertise is pretty limited). That will be my six week mark and will include x-rays of the hip itself.
All in all things are good. I’m not happy about the way the wound is healing but there’s not really much I can do besides keep on keeping on. Frustrating? You bet. Dangerous? Not so much as long as I’m diligent about caring for it. Yeah, it’s humbug. Not only that, it’s expensive. My Co-pay on the ointment was $75. Ouch. I should have put a whole lot more pretax money away for this year but who knew?

When I was a kid I used to go to Hawaii Islanders baseball games at the Honolulu Stadium, nicknamed the Termite Palace. It is, of course, long gone. But while surfing the web I came across this old Hawaii Five-O clip with Christopher Walken and Jack Lord at Honolulu Stadium. The clip itself is pretty good (and I probably saw the show back then, even lived here then as well), but for me the real star is the stadium…
 

 
Aloha!

Lucky thirteen…no triskaidekaphobia here.

It’s now been four weeks since my surgery and things are really going pretty well aside from the issues with my incision.

The biggest news is that I returned to work on Tuesday. I was lucky in that, Monday being Memorial Day, I had an extra day to recover. But on Tuesday I got up earlier than I have in quite a while and headed to work.

I’m lucky that because of the nature of my work nothing is allowed to pile up so aside from jobs I’d normally tackle at the beginning of the week there really was nothing to deal with besides a full email inbox.

It was a busy day as I also had an early morning PT appointment and follow up at the surgeon’s office to check my incision.

Here’s the full scoop about work. While I did have to leave for the appointments I put in an eight hour day with no ill effects. I was tired at the end of the my workday which I find understandable. Normally I’d have a bit more get up and go and would probably have bicycles a few miles, showered, and headed out again. But my usual energy hasn’t quite come back. Still I only had a short nap and did head out in the evening to take care of some errands and stuff. All good.

In short, work is not going to be a problem. I more than recovered enough for it and I’m glad to have something to do. I was going a bit stir crazy last week.

My PT appointment was good. As far as I can tell I’m improving all the time and just need to keep plugging away. It’s been suggested that I begin stationary cycling and build myself back up to an hour or so. That shouldn’t really be a problem as I’m pretty sure thirty minutes or so won’t be a problem. I’m going to see what, if anything, I need to do to get back into the gym here at work: boy am I glad we have one.

After PT I headed back to work and then turned around and headed back out to see my surgeon’s assistant about my incision. As you’ll recall it hasn’t healed and I have a couple of spots where the incision never joined properly and I essentially have ulcers there. One is larger than the other.

Both were discharging till recently, though there was no pus or worse. I think the term is serous discharge. Basically fluid and dead cells and such. There has never been any aroma that I’d associate with infection.

In any case I’ve finished my course of antibiotics and the reddening around the areas is much lessened and things are much drier. I’ve continued with the the wet-to-dry dressing and results seem to be good, though I have to admit I’m not happy about it all.

I’ve also been told that cleaning the area daily with iodine or hydrogen peroxide would be good. I have the latter and started that last night in addition to regular bathing (and patting not scrubbing the wound).

My surgeon dropped by while I was there and told his assistant to debride the wounds, though in fact there wasn’t really anything to remove that wasn’t coming up with the dressings. I was then given a whole lot more supply materials, various gauze sizes and more tape. I mentioned that I’d had trouble with some of the tape tearing my skin when I followed the directions I’d been given last week.

I was given different tape and told that I didn’t need to use anything like the amount I’d been instructed to use last week. While it would be nice if everyone were on the same page I can understand why the tech might have been a bit overly careful. With the new instructions I haven’t had any issues and won’t have to buy the expensive blue tape I mentioned before – which did work just fine by the way.

I go back in two weeks for my six week follow up. That is, of course, unless I notice changes in the incision and have to go in quicker. It looks like I was on top of things this time as I mentioned things quickly and never developed a full blown infection.

Enough of that. I’d rather mention something that really shows I’m making progress…

I’m getting around the office without a cane! Yes! I can walk normally. In fact I can walk the block to the local Starbucks without a problem. I’m not going to do longer walks than that without a cane but it’s great to be able to use both hands for a change! I may even be able to get back to photography soon as it really does require two hands to use a camera well.

All in all I’m satisfied with my progress. The replacement itself is working great as far as I know or can feel. My muscles continue to loosen and get stronger, swelling and hurting less. My incision is, darn it, not making me happy, but it is improving though not as fast as I’d like. Oh well, that’s reality for you.

Aloha!