Welcome back to The Hip Replacement Podcast. All right, this week, this episode begins a special five-part series based on the five things from my book, New Steel. And many of you may already know that I wrote a book titled New Steel. I'm holding it up if you're watching on YouTube, so you can see the cover of the book.
It's based on the story of being diagnosed with osteoarthritis and avascular necrosis, going through two hip replacement surgeries and the recovery process and eventually doing two IRONMAN triathlons. And if you're not familiar with IRONMAN triathlons, it's a one-day event. You have up to 16 or 17 hours depending upon the location. And it's a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride followed by a 26.2 mile marathon. All right? All in one day.
But let me just say this upfront. The book is not about doing the triathlons. It's not a book about triathlons or written specifically for active people. It's more simple than that. It's a book about struggling to come to terms with this major surgery, recovering, and then wanting more out of life.
So, this series is not trying to convince you to sign up for a triathlon or to go do something extravagant. You don't need to own a bike that costs more than a used car. You don't need to get up and swim before the sunrise. You don't need to run anywhere unless someone's chasing you. And even then, I'm not sure you need to run. And we can discuss other options.
But this series is really about something much more important. It's about what happens when life knocks you sideways or knocks you on your ass as they would say. It's about pain, fear, uncertainty, recovery, hope, and the possibility that your life may not be over just because one chapter of your life got really hard.
So in this episode, this week, and in the next four episodes, we'll talk about five themes from New Steel. The first theme from New Steel is this.
There is life after hip replacement.
And I know, I know that may seem obvious and it may sound simple, but when you're the person in pain, when you're the one limping across the room, when you're the one holding on the furniture just to get from one place to another, it doesn't feel that obvious. It feels so far away. It can feel like your life is shrinking and your world gets smaller.
And here's why your world gets smaller. You stop doing things.
Maybe you stop walking as much. Maybe you stop golfing. Maybe you stop doing yoga. Maybe you stop seeing your friends as much. Maybe you stop traveling. Maybe you stop playing with your kids or your grandkids the way you want to. Maybe you stop saying yes to invitations because you're quietly calculating how far the parking lot is from the event or from the restaurant or from the show.
How far am I going to have to walk? How long am I going to be on my feet?
And that's sneaky. That's terrible. But it's sneaky, isn't it? People ask you to go out and have some fun or to go on a trip and you're not even considering the trip. You're not even thinking about whether or not you want to go. All you're doing is you're thinking about how far am I going to have to walk? Will there be stairs? Can I sit down somewhere along the way to take a break? Will people notice if I'm limping? Am I gonna have to talk about this? Are people gonna ask me questions? How much pain am I going to be in when I'm there? And how much pain am I going to be in tonight or tomorrow because of it?
And slowly, without a formal announcement, your hip starts making decisions for you. It starts controlling your life.
That's one of the hardest parts about living with serious hip pain. Serious enough that you need a hip replacement. It's not just the pain. It's the loss of freedom. It's the loss of who you are. It's the mental math you have to do. It's all the planning. It's the quiet grief of watching parts of your old life fade away. It's the quiet grief of watching the old you fade away.
Before my first hip replacement, I was in constant pain. Standing up from a chair was terrible. It was awful. I had to do it in slow motion because my hip wouldn't move that fast. Walking was difficult. I had to hold on to furniture. I had to walk close to the wall so I could prop myself up by the wall. I was taking pain medication frequently. I was far too young in my 30s, at least in my mind, for something like this to be happening.
And I remember thinking, how in the world did I get here? This wasn't supposed to be happening to me.
And maybe you've had some version of that thought as well. Maybe your version is slightly different. Maybe it's I used to be active. What happened? I used to be strong. I used to be able to walk. I used to dance. I used to travel. I used to play tennis. I used to work in the yard. I used to be the person other people had to keep up with. And now you're none of that.
And now you may be wondering whether that person is gone. And if you're ever going to be or see that person again.
That's why I think this first theme matters so much because hip replacement surgery can feel like an ending, an ending to your possibilities.
But it may actually be the beginning of getting your life back. Not all at once, not magically, not without effort, but step by step.
One of the things I want people to understand is that the goal of hip replacement is not just to replace the joint. The joint is the means to an end. The joint. It just sounds so mechanical, like you're dropping your body off at a repair shop to get fixed and you know, you'll pick your body up later in the day. The point is not just to replace the hip.
The point is about life. It's about being able to move through your day without that constant sharp reminder that something's wrong. It's about walking into a room without thinking about every step, without being careful all the time. It's about being able to say yes again to things and activities and to invitations. Yes to walk. Yes to vacations, yes to golf, yes to playing with grandkids, yes to going outside, yes to possibilities, yes to whatever the hell I want to do if it weren't for this damn hip.
Now, I want everyone to be careful here because hip replacement recovery is real. It's a challenge. It's not as easy as social media may lead you to believe. If you spend 10 minutes in any hip replacement group on social media, you'll read dozens of posts about how easy it is, how people were up walking around and walking miles within the first week and off pain medicine two days later. That's not reality for most people.
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes physical therapy, walking, strengthening, rest, and some days where you think, “Golly, this is annoying.” And maybe you'd use some other choice words than that. I sure as hell did a lot of times. And a lot of those choice words I can't repeat here.
But the bigger point is this. Your current pain, your current situation does not have to be your permanent identity. You are not the bad hip person. You're not just the person who had surgery. You're not broken. You're not defective. You're a human being going through something hard in this particular point in time. And there's a difference.
In New Steel, one of the biggest shifts in my own life was going from feeling limited by my hips to realizing that new possibilities were opening up. At first, those new possibilities were not dramatic. I mean, they were pretty, they were very simple, very modest. I was able to walk more comfortably. No pain. Felt awkward for sure, but nowhere near the pain I had before surgery.
I was able to climb stairs without using a handrail. I was able to ride a bike without feeling stiff. I was able to play golf. I was able to move through my day with more confidence that built over time.
This is where I feel most people need to begin. Not with some giant goal, not with some wild declaration, just with the idea that maybe life can get better. Let's start there. Maybe you can regain more than you think. Maybe you can rebuild that confidence. Maybe you can become active again in ways that matter to you. Whatever that is.
There's so many people listening around the world that everyone has something different that they do that they like to do that they would love to get back to.
And just for a moment, this is where I want to speak directly to the person out there who is early in this hip replacement journey. And maybe you're waiting surgery and you're scared. Maybe you're a few days after surgery and everything just feels weird. You want it to go faster, but it's not. Maybe you're a few weeks into recovery and wondering why you're not farther along because you heard other people were farther along. Maybe you're months out and still trying to figure it out and you're trying to trust your body and you want it to feel normal, but it doesn't yet.
Wherever you are in your journey, I want you to hear this. You're not alone.
Other people get you. Other people have felt the same way. They felt the uncertainty. Other people have looked at their incision and wondered, “This is ugly. When is this going to heal?” They've looked at their walker, their cane, their physical therapy schedule, their swollen leg, the ice pack, and thought to themselves, maybe even cried. They thought, “Is this really going to get any better? When is this going to get better?”
And for many people, most people, yes, it does get better, but it's probably not going to be on your preferred timeline. I know I wanted things to go faster. A lot of times I'm not a very patient person. But the good news for me is that I didn't have social media trying to take over my time trying to tell me I was behind.
So that was helpful. But the recovery, it gets better, but it may not be a perfectly straight line. Improvement is not a perfectly straight upward line, but better is definitely possible and better is worth working toward. It's going to take some patience, too.
One thing that I love about doing this podcast is that the people listening or watching understand several things because of the surgery and thus we understand each other in very specific ways. There are things I don't have to explain that people who haven't gone through this just simply don't understand.
Like I can't explain to the surgeon or to my spouse the fear I had before surgery. I can't explain what it was like to go on that first walk after surgery or how weird it felt sleeping after surgery or even I can't explain the joy of realizing that the old arthritis pain is gone in my hip. I can't explain the frustration of tight muscles. I can't explain what that feels like. But you get that. We all get that here.
I can't explain how the first time someone accidentally overd does it because we feel good and then your body says, “Nope, sorry, too much.” Let's reconsider how much we're trying to do so quickly.
I can't explain that pain, but I don't have to to you.
And there definitely is comfort knowing that other people listening here or watching here, that these people, these are our people because we get it.
And this is one of the reasons why I created The Hip Replacement Podcast because people need the information for sure. Yes. But they also need encouragement. They need connection. They need someone to say, “I know this is hard. I know this can be scary. I know you feel like your life has been interrupted and you feel like it may never get better, but you're still here.”
And there may be a lot of good life waiting for you on the other side of this. Things will get better. You will improve. You can take it as far as you want to take it. I took it to the IRONMAN. You can take it as far as you want.
So the takeaway from this first episode in the New Steel series is simple. Hip replacement may change your life, but it does not mean it has to shrink your life. It may be the beginning of a stronger, healthier, more intentional version of you.
I remember just kind of coasting through life before my hip replacement. The pain stopped me, but then after when I was recovered, I really got intentional about what I wanted to do, what I wanted to experience, what my goals were. And that was a wakeup call for me to make the rest of my life better than the trajectory would have been without a hip replacement.
Maybe your goal, and hopefully it's not, maybe your goal is not an IRONMAN triathlon, which is good. That means you're wise. That means you'll sleep in and get the rest you need. Maybe your goal is to walk around the block. Maybe it's to travel without fear. Maybe it's to dance at a wedding. And by the way, I love going to weddings. If you send me an invitation to a wedding, I just may show up.
Maybe your goal is to play with your kids or grandkids. Maybe it's to get back in the golf course, back in the fitness studio, back to cycling, back to yoga, back to whatever, back to gardening. Maybe your goal is simply to wake up and not have hip pain dominate your first thought of the day and dominate your thoughts all day long.
Those are beautiful goals. Those are lifegiving goals. Those goals or whatever desires are important to you are within your reach after the hip replacement surgery. It may be hard to see when you're facing surgery or in the thick of your initial recovery, but there is life after hip replacement. And that life may be better than the one you left behind.
The hip replacement is the end of the previous period of your life and it's the beginning of the next period in your life.
So keep your chin up. I know a lot of people are going through some hard times now. Whether you're looking at surgery one day, one week, one year after surgery, if it's challenging, I get it.
But there is life after and a great life after.
This has been the first episode in our five-part series based on themes from my book, New Steel. No matter how difficult it may seem in your current phase of pre-surgery or in recovery, remember that there is a better life waiting for you to claim it after the hip replacement surgery.
In the next episode, we'll talk about the fear. My gosh, I was scared. The fear before surgery, the fear during recovery, and why fear is normal but doesn't get the final vote or decision on how you live your life.
Thanks so much for tuning in to The Hip Replacement Podcast. Until next time, I wish you the best recovery possible.
Take care.
