My hip has been great for the last month. I was able to visit Washington, DC, and walk all over Georgetown without any limp whatsoever. That was fantastic.
Last week, though, I fell down in the hallway of Thing One's preschool. I don't know how it happened, although the fact that I was wearing flip flops (I know, I know) probably had something to do with it. It was the kind of fall you might have once in a lifetime, so I don't know why it had to happen to me on the three-month anniversary of my THR. My feet flew out from under me really fast--it was like an ice skating fall--and I'm not really sure how I landed. I just know I fell hard. I screamed when I hit the floor and really panicked about the whole thing. After all, I spend every day making extra-double-sure I don't cross my legs or do anything else that could adversely affect my hip, but then here I was flying through the air and hitting a rock-hard floor with my hip. It reminds me of a joke from Mad Magazine that has stayed with me since childhood: the cartoon showed a guy with sparkling teeth shaking hands with his proud dentist, and in the next panel the guy has all his teeth knocked out in a bar fight. That's how I felt last Thursday. But I called my doctor and he said, "If you're walking, you're OK." He said as long as the hip wasn't dislocated (I'd be tipped off to that by excruciating pain), I'd be fine. I've been very sore ever since the fall, but getting a little bit better every day. The worst thing about the incident was definitely the humiliation.
Everything else has been very hectic, especially with school starting. None of us has really recovered from the summer yet. It was stressful and painful (in more ways than one) that it's going to take a while for life to seem truly normal again. Nevertheless, the hip is doing great. I'm trying not to take it all for granted. I have to remember how much pain I was in just four months ago. No way I could have walked all around Washington.
