Irene is back at home since yesterday after her hip replacement, and she’s doing really well. The big challenge at the moment is getting her to eat. She occasionally feels dizzy or light headed, but I figure she’s been eating at most a thousand calories a day over the past five days, not counting the 24 hour fasting period before and after her surgery. My theory is that she needs to be eating more than a bird in order to have the energy for healing and moving around. But Irene wasn’t quite believing my theory about food intake until the Occupational Therapist, Greg, dropped by and agreed with me that she was doing well and the most probably cause for Irene to feel light headed was lack of food. Sigh…I’m just the husband, what do I know? After Greg’s visit I was able to convince Irene that I should pick up some meal replacements (Ensure) for her, and she’s had a couple of those now…and (surprise) is starting to feel perkier.
Anyway, Irene’s getting around well, both up and down stairs now. She had a shower this morning which I think made a big difference- sponge baths just don’t do as much for the soul as a few minutes standing in a stream of running water. I have to go upstairs in a moment to help her with her evening exercises. That’s the next challenge after food- getting the muscles in the leg that had surgery to start working again. But Irene is definitely being courageous about the whole process- other than the problem with needles while at the hospital. I imagine she’s one of a very small number of people to ever have a modern full hip replacement without having any needles while conscious. Its not easy, logical, or even necessarily very safe- but phobias, needle phobia in particular, are as real as the surgery itself, and neither I nor the doctors could force her to accept a needle.
UPDATE: you might be wondering what happened to the “Power chairs” and “flowers” portion of this posting. I had plans to take some pictures of the flower’s and such Irene has received from well-wishers, and of the chair I bought for Irene- but life intervened. I’ll update this entry with some pictures a bit later
Technorati Tags: Hip replacement, surgery, Needle phobia
