My Hip Replacement

I’d been suffering for lots of years with my right hip. Could it have been the nearly 30 years of aikido, happily flipping through the air in high falls? Lugging my synthesizer up and down a sixth-floor walk-up in the East Village back in the 80s? That time I dropped my then-boyfriend’s racing bike on a tight, fast turn in the Adirondacks? They must have all combined to take their toll. By 2002, the pain while walking was nearly unbearable. I had an x-ray taken by a local orthopedic surgeon who told me my pelvis was crooked, making my right leg slightly longer, that I’d have to wear a heel lift in my left shoe to compensate. I breathed a sigh of relief that my x-ray didn’t show a crumbled hip laced with arthritic cobwebs. I bought some heel lifts, shrugged the rest of it off and trained my way through aikido anyway.  Headed for my sandan, my 3rd-degree of black belt, I'd be darned if anything would stop me.

Several weeks later, an aikido buddy told me he’d had problems with his ankle, that something called Bikram Yoga had helped him heal it. I signed up immediately, and within a month of hot, sweaty yoga, I had begun to align my pelvis and no longer had that agonizing pain when walking without a heel lift. I was amazed! For the next twenty or so years, I did the yoga poses, even more when the pain, prompted by lifting stuff, returned. I was able to realign myself until a few years ago, when yoga just didn’t help anymore. Sorry, yoga. I still love you.

Lifting things was not going to leave my life. I was already showing my handmade creature dolls at craft fairs, basking in the appreciation for my art, and lifting booth stuff for shows was part of it. How I managed to keep skiing every winter bewilders me although I’m sure if someone took a video of me they would see that my left turns were stunted compared to my right ones. But hey, if you could ski like me at my age, you’d do anything to get on the hill. It’s pure joy.

Last summer the pain became unbearable. I could no longer sleep on my right side, and I limped most of the time. Even sitting on the couch hurt. Getting in and out of my car was a teeth-gritting, five-part process to angle myself without sharp stabs of pain. I had a two-day craft show in mid-July up in Bend, where I should have brought my cane from The Great Fall of 2014, but didn’t. It was brutal, hobbling the three blocks to the artists’ breakfast pavilion, and grimacing at every move during set-up.

I finally caved and wrote to my primary care doctor, explaining the situation. I told her about the pain, that I’d done some research on my own online, was fearful of wrecking my liver from excessive use of Tylenol, and wondered if I might be a candidate for a hip replacement. She immediately ordered me an x-ray. Turned out I have severe osteo-arthritis of the right hip.

A referral was made, and by late August I was in the examination room of Southern Oregon Orthopedics, studying my x-ray with Lark, the physician’s assistant. I had bone-on-bone contact in the right pelvis. No wonder it hurt so much.
“Oh, yes, you’re a perfect candidate,” Lark told me. “We have a new outpatient surgery center over by the airport. The procedure takes about 45 minutes, and they’ll get you upright and walking out of there on the same day (with a wheeled walker for the first few days). “Then,” she said, “After a few weeks’ recovery, you’ll never have that pain again.”
Wow! I’d assumed a hip replacement meant a hospital stay, and months of recovery.
“You mean I can actually have this?” I thought.
“Our earliest appointment is on September 23,” Lark continued.
“I’ll take it!”
In two months’ time I’d be strong enough to do my holiday shows and soon after that, ready for ski season! I have a buddy from high school who went through the same procedure last year, and skied happily in winter 2025. He’s been a great source of inspiration on this subject.

Meanwhile, my pain became markedly worse. Maybe it was the effect of seeing my x-ray. Setting up for the Saturday markets took twice as long. Even with the help of Tylenol, I was working half-speed at best, hobbling around on my cane. But, you know, I’m not the kind of person who drops everything and sits around in pain. Not if I can help it. Plus, watching peoples’ reactions to my dolls is always more spirit-lifting than staying home. A few other artisans told me they’d had the same procedure and yes, I’d feel wonderful afterwards. September 23 couldn’t happen soon enough.

A week before the procedure I met the surgeon – cute younger guy, actually. Most everyone working professionally is younger, come to think of it. Maybe it’s my age, but I appreciate so much about younger people than I used to. They’re not something to compete with, mistrust, or weigh my self-worth against. I just enjoy them.
The doctor seemed jazzed about my procedure, giving me a pre-surgery pep talk. I asked him what he was actually going to place into the right side of my body, and he went back to his office and returned with a model.

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“Okay, that looks cool,” I said, nodding.

I’d have to fill some pre-surgery prescriptions – heavier stuff than I’ve ingested in more than a decade. A few words about oxycodone, and any heavy painkillers. They’re butt-plugs, every one. I learned this during my two-week hospital stay in 2014. Percoset was the culprit back then, causing an emergency call to the nurse one day with the phrase, “Oregon clay.” I won’t go any further. It was something I swore would never happen again. I ordered a side of prunes with every meal after that, and the situation was resolved in a few days’ time. So, having to fill a prescription for oxycodone and other things a week before my hip surgery, I stocked up on prune juice. As a bonus, I’m providing you with my tried and true instructions for the use of prune juice for constipation:

Hayleyanne’s Prune Juice Remedy
5-6 swallows = maintenance
12 swallows = a healthy discharge within 24 hours
16 oz. or more = mass anal explosion. I mean it. Do not go out! Intestinal gurgles and aftershocks will be felt for the next 24 hours.

My husband, Wayne, took me to the Southern Oregon Osteopathic Outpatient Center at 9 a.m. They set me up in my own private recovery room with a gown and hat. The anesthesiologist came in and described everything he was going to do – an epidural, then anesthesia.
“I’m a lightweight as regards heavy drugs,” I told him.
“Yes, but you’ll want to sleep through all the hammering and sawing the surgeon has to do.”

A nurse gave me a handful of pills – muscle relaxers and an oxycodone, with very little water allowed to swallow them. Wayne waited until I was ready for surgery, then took off to do errands. At around 10:15, when I was making little sense to anyone, the nurse wheeled my gurney into the operating room – a massive, fluorescent-lit chamber with silvery implements of human body realignment packing the shelves around me! They loaded me onto the operation table and instructed me to sit up with the backs of my legs against the edge of the table, in readiness for the epidural.

Then I was being wheeled back to my room. At first I wondered if a mistake had been made and they’d cancelled the whole thing – but I was done! I dozed on and off for a while. Then a nurse showed up with a tiny container of applesauce and some ginger ale. Things are a little hazy, but apparently the doctor stayed in contact with Wayne, who came back in the early afternoon. The highlights were, as I remember them, a nurse making me walk along a red line in the hallway with my wheeled walker, climbing up a narrow stairway holding onto its banisters, drinking water and throwing up (they have these great new circular barf bags that fit right over your mouth now), and the excellent nurses.

By 5 p.m. there were four of them in the room, coaxing me to pee in the private little bathroom so they could release me (and go home themselves, it later dawned on me). It took a while, one nurse explained, as my lower body had been numbed by the epidural. Dr. Jancuska stopped by to tell me everything went well, that he’d added a medical zip-tie to the bottom of the new hip because they’d found a crack in my right femur. Retroactive ouch! Around 6 p.m. I was finally flowing, amid cheers from the nurses! They got me dressed and sent us home.

The scariest thing was, when I was waking up from surgery, dozing on and off, I saw monsters. The kind you might hallucinate when your eyes are closed. Bad dream monsters. Just the heads, that would morph from one horrifying design to another. I think it may have been a warning about the drugs, especially the fentanyl. It’s just sinister. I've always thought that, in the aftermath of a colonoscopy, for instance. I mean, where do you go? It's not like sleeping, where you feel yourself dozing off, and return to shake off the grogginess. It's an empty page, as in, "This page intentionally left blank." I guess I'm not a great fan of having zero control over what happens to my mind in drug-induced situations. Anyway, as the day wore on, I’d go back to sleep and see the monsters. They were always illuminated on a dark background. “I saw monsters,” I remarked to Wayne when he was driving us home. I could still see them when I closed my eyes. Hard to explain, but I think he got it. The monsters stopped occurring a day or so later.

The first few days were tough. I took two of those oxycodone pills, and anti-barfing pills, but luckily, the pharmaceuticals don't seem to hold much allure for me. Still can't figure out why several friends said to "enjoy the meds." Blech. After a day or so, I downshifted to Tylenol. 

I got myself back up to my studio on the walker within a week. 
I drove after two weeks. When I could put my sneaker on my right foot without the help of a reacher device, I went to the gym. On my cane at first, of course.

Gave up the cane after four weeks. Initial post-op check-up with the surgeon gave me a thumbs-up! Healing was chugging along. In November I was able to do both of my holiday shows easily.
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Now, nearly three months later, I can barely remember how much I used to hurt. I feel like I’m twenty years younger and can’t wait for snow so I can get back on the slopes with my new hip!