Six months ago, I underwent a total hip replacement. Recovery took some time, but I\u2019m about 90% back. My physical therapy (PT) appointments ended some months ago, but I get plenty of exercise going up and down stairways in parking garages as I go to various casinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I travel to out-of-town casinos, I\u2019ll usually take a walker, both for use in the casino and also for \u201cworking\u201d in the airport. If it\u2019s a short trip, my only \u2018luggage\u2019 is a backpack. Vegas has a pretty sizeable airport, and for someone like me it takes two hours to check all the slot machines in all of the terminals. Having a walker to carry the backpack is very handy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the out-of-town casino is fairly large, using the walker to carry beverages, snacks, and other things is useful. I don\u2019t \u2018need\u2019 the walker, but it has advantages I appreciate. I don\u2019t walk up and down staircases when I have it, but I usually walk more than if I didn\u2019t have the walker so that makes up for it somewhat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that the hip is fixed, it\u2019s time to take care of my left shoulder. I had arthroscopic surgery on my rotator cuff on June 18th<\/sup>. I also had pain in the bicep area on the same side. My orthopedist said he\u2019d evaluate that when he had me opened up and would fix it if it needed repair Turns out it was \u2018only\u2019 a bone spur irritating the bicep, so he fixed that while he was in there. I got lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m writing the first draft of this blog about 24 hours after I was released. So far, so good. I need to take hydrocodone-acetaminophen for pain if needed for several weeks and also an antibiotic every six hours for three days. I took the first three doses of the narcotic and skipped the fourth because the pain was manageable, and these drugs have side effects. I still took the amount of Tylenol that was mixed with the narcotic because that\u2019s supposed to help reduce swelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They gave me an interscalene nerve block which is supposed to help post-surgical pain. The average length of relief for someone my age\/weight\/severity of surgery is 12 hours or so, but each patient reacts differently. It might be that the nerve block was still working 20 hours after surgery when I skipped the hydrocodone. If the pain kicks back in, I\u2019ll take a pill. It\u2019ll take 30-60 minutes for the relief to begin. It won\u2019t be a lot of fun, but using the minimum amount of narcotics is a goal that makes tolerating a bit of pain along the way acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bonnie was a registered nurse for 40 years and is willing and able to help me with icing the shoulder and whatever else is needed. I won\u2019t shower until 48 hours after the operation, and she\u2019ll need to help me with that and getting dressed afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My first PT session is 12 hours after that shower, and I\u2019ll be going 3x weekly for some time. Friends who\u2019ve been through this tell me that the diligence required for shoulder PT is more important than for hip PT. I\u2019m planning to do that, but I also realize that I don\u2019t have a perfect track record on keeping with the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I might do a follow-up blog about my shoulder if I feel there\u2019s something interesting to say. Part of this will depend on what responses I get \u2013 if any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even after I heal as well as I\u2019m going to, I won\u2019t be done. I have arthritis in both thumbs and will see a different orthopedist in early August. I might get out of there with a steroid shot in each hand. It might be more serious. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six months ago, I underwent a total hip replacement. Recovery took some time, but I\u2019m about 90% back. My physical therapy (PT) appointments ended some months ago, but I get plenty of exercise going up and down stairways in parking garages as I go to various casinos. When I travel to out-of-town casinos, I\u2019ll usually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[557],"tags":[561],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861631,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861630\/revisions\/861631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}it<\/s>. Recovery would be longer and more painful if he had to sew up a bicep tear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n