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Imagine you have been plagued with a sore hip for a long time. You take medication for the pain but for some reason or other it goes on and on. You may feel it is the result of arthritis and let it go. But it does not get better and the pain continues. Your doctor orders x-rays and confirms the pain is caused by the wearing away of cartilage in your hip and you agree to a hip replacement. Sometime later you undergo the operation and come through it with flying colors. The next morning they get you up out of bed and you take a few steps using your titanium hip. Medication to thin your blood and help with the pain gets you through the next couple of days and you are discharged on the fourth day. Once you arrive home you will have a booklet showing how to move around the home with the new hip using a walker and a cane. The booklet will have a series of diagrams with exercises you must do. Here is where the tough get going and the weaker play Russian roulette with death. How? Let me explain. During the operation the surgeon cut a gaping hole in your body anywhere from six to ten inches long. To do so your body will bleed. Plenty. The new steel ball is hammered into the end of the hip bone and you are sewn up to recoup. The area where the operation took place may have little veins that have been damaged and these veins may have tiny blood clots remaining. In order to avoid these little clots from causing a pulmonary embolism the hospital gave you that booklet with the exercises outlined. Now it is your job to get moving and keep moving as much as possible. The booklet tells you what to do, how to do it and for how long. Do them each day for the amount they tell you. No it is not fun and yes it is so easy for you not to do them. But they must be done. Challenge yourself to do one more leg bend and one more squat and one more of each exercise every day. Increase that figure every second day. If your instructions call for ten squats every day, do ten the first two days, eleven on the next two days, twelve the next two and so on. On the twelfth day you will be doing sixteen squats. This is the way I came back from my hip replacement. From the tenth day on I held that number. Your quest with these exercises is not only to get back on your feet and get on with your life but to ensure that your body is totally free of any blood clots that endanger your life. Get up off the chair every half hour no matter where you are or what you are doing. Staying healthy is hard work but you will reap the rewards. Joe and Irma MacMillan have spent many years backpacking, skiing, and simply enjoying life in the mountains of British Columbia. Their website Whistler Outdoors is full of tips on snowboarding, camping, kayaking, rafting, camp cooking and fishing. They met on a blind date in 1957 and are still married. Take a look at their story here About us
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