Update 1 week before Uma's 2nd Bday

I know it has been a while since I last wrote. In fact it has been a long while and in this case no news could be considered good news. So what has been happening with lefty?

In March I went to see Dr. Schrader pretty sure that I would be having surgery sometime before the end of the year. The pain had gotten to a point where it was consistently present each day to a level that made me think that I was starting to decline enough to seek advice. I had said to myself that if it did not subside in 4 weeks that I would go and visit Dr S. He took xrays and found that that my hip space looked good and that there were no apparent issues with my ability to have surgery. A MRI would of course tell him much more but he said not to consider going through one, more than 3 months from a surgery date i.e don't do it until you are sure. So I left his office feeling calmer knowing that I would yet again be in good hands when the time was right. It just so happened that a day or two later the pain subsided as if Dr S scared it away.

I decided to keep a pain journal so that I could track the course of my hip's cycles because lefty is taking a different course to Uma. This has been quite disconcerting because when Uma started to decline it pretty much was a steady downward slope. Lefty is more like a roller coaster with many ups and downs. There are times I just wish that it would make it's damn mind up one way or the other so that I could have some certainty as to what is ahead of me. It's frustrating and annoying sometimes. Not that I want to rush into surgery or have it at all for that matter. So back in March after seeing Dr S I started keeping a pain journal on my iPhone to keep track of daily pain levels, major differences, basically anything that would cause the pain to shift or change. What it has shown me is that my memory has a strange way of recalling pain, I would imagine that I am not the only one. When asked how I have been, my memory of the pain is not accurate. On the whole I remember having less pain for longer periods of time than what has actually happened. I highly recommend keeping a journal for yourself. For instance I have found that my period makes the pain worse a few days before, during and a few days after. Dislocating my toe on my right foot caused pain in my left hip because it had to compensate for my limp. And then more recently I have noted that I now have pain sometimes when standing on hard surfaces for a period of time and on only a few occasions pain or discomfort when walking. About a week ago my girlfriend commented that I was limping which is the first time that anyone has mentioned it. Strangely enough this happened in Costco the place where Uma first went pear shaped. I don't yet have the terrible night pain so I am getting sleep which is a wonderful thing. What the journal has done is allowed me to see when new symptoms have started and if they increase in occurrence because we tend to forget such things.

Lefty is still not at a point where I think surgery will happened soon but I won't even attempt to guess yet when it will happen. All I can say is that it is getting worse but I still have many good days and there is a cycle to things. I'll have 2-3 weeks of pain and then a 1-2 weeks of little pain. My notes on my pain level are a score out of 10. 10 being the level at which I believe I should be having surgery. So on average I range between a 3/10 and a 5/10. To date I have not gone higher than a 6/10. Truth is it's even hard to remember what a 2 feels like when you've had a 5 for a few days in a row. My mother told me that we are actually not able to remember pain and I think she may be right. I should research this further just out of interest. When I start getting into the 8 range I will reconsider and probably have the MRI. Everyone is different in how they feel things. This is the system that I have chosen for myself and it makes sense to me. I'm sure you'll figure out the best way to document it for yourself.

We have a trip planned to South Africa in March. I will not do anything before then. We'll see what happens after. April isn't a bad month to do it, this is merely speculation at this point, but any way spring makes sense because by the time I would be allowed to walk again the weather will be nice enough so that I can start swimming and building muscle strength. So this is all I can report for now. Life otherwise is good overall. I hope you're all well. Please feel free to reach out if you need to talk. Ciao for now.