Hip Op Minus 5 days

I went to my "hip education" class today (where all the best hips go, my dear, put yours on the waiting list now...). It was a slightly surreal experience, if only because I was at first mistaken for a daughter or caregiver of one of the other potential victims, and then because there were all these references to things like meals on wheels and seniors helping seniors which I won't qualify for. I may be of a certain age, but I'm not THAT old!

However, I've been feeling progressively more nervous and - yes, okay, I'll admit it - downright scared in the last week or so, and this did serve to make me feel better in some ways, though in other ways it opened my eyes to some of the potential difficulties. The biggest problem is that you are absolutely forbidden to bend your leg at the hip at less than a 90 degree angle for three, count them, three months. This means that you cannot lean forward in a chair, reach over for salt on a table, reach down a bathtup to turn on taps (if you were allowed to take a bath, which you are not), bend down to the vegetable crisper in the fridge, etc etc etc.

On the other hand, it does sound as if once the initial effects of the surgery itself have passed, recovery should be fairly swift and that I can anticipate a very rapid relief from the pain of the arthritis. This is in itself something of a liability in the above instance, as I don't bend at the waist _now_ because of the pain, and I'll be able to once the pain is gone but will have to remember not to! Mobility will be less of an issue perhaps than it is now - I'm just going to have to learn to cope with not being able to bend down (no picking up dog poop!)