Gerry Moran's diary of a hip replacement operation reveals just how quickly patients can turn immobility into agility.
Day 1. Blackrock Clinic. 4.30 p.m.
After months of nagging, arthritic pain, pill-popping, limping and sleepless nights Hip-Day is almost here.
Tomorrow, at 8 a.m. the surgeon will slit open my left thigh, remove my arthritic hip and replace it with a prosthetic one.
An epidural will numb my nether regions while a sedative will put me to sleep - just an ordinary sleep, the anaesthetist tells me. I feel very nervous.
The anaesthetist was just one of many callers throughout the afternoon. First came nurse Betty: Have I had this illness? Have I had that? What tablets am I on? Do I smoke? Do I drink? Do I do handstands in the shower? (only kidding) but the FBI wouldn't be as thorough.
Then nurse Gabriel whizzes in. Nurse Gabriel is a phlebotomist and wants my blood. What nurse Gabriel wants, nurse Gabriel gets - especially when she puts on her specs and looks more formidable than Anne Robinson.
The hospital chaplain, calls later. We exchange the usual pleasantries and he blesses my hip. I find the ritual strangely calming and comforting - but wonder if he slipped in extreme unction as well? And now I'm off to X-ray. A sprightly young Dubliner sits me in a wheelchair and whisks me down the corridor - the highlight of my stay to date.
Day 1. 7.30 p.m.
Nurse Betty gives me a "bowel prep" for tomorrow's op. Bowel-prep? You don't want to know.
Day 2. 6.30 a.m.
The night nurse wakes me and wheels me to the shower. Soapy-eyed and shivering, I turn around and find the nurse right beside me in the shower! Wow! Is this a little pre-op perk, I wonder, the equivalent of the last meal for those about to be executed? Of course not. Nurse is there to scrub and sterilise those parts that I, with the arthritic hip, cannot reach.
Sometime after 7 a.m. I am wheeled into the theatre. The theatre nurse is chatty and friendly. I feel in safe hands and soon drift into sleep.
Day 2. 12.30 p.m.
Feel disorientated, sleepy and sore. Kathleen, my wife, hovers by my bedside. Tubes sprout from my thigh, my arm, my nose. The rest of the day passes in a blur of blood pressure and temperature checks.
Day 3
Last night was the longest night of my life. Woke around 4 a.m. Couldn't get back to sleep. Couldn't get out of bed. Couldn't turn on my side. Just lay on my back, feeling claustrophobic and counting sheep.
On the positive side - had my first "meal" in two days: soup and ice cream. Yummy.
Day 4
Took my first step on terra firma today. One small step - to my bedroom door and back - but one mightily nervous one for me on the Zimmerframe.
My surgeon tells me I could run a mile on my new hip. I laugh. I can hardly turn in the bed. Furthermore, I look like a transvestite in my pair of sheer white stockings, supported by a white suspender belt! I feel like a clot wearing these stockings but I could well develop a clot (DVT - Deep Vein Thrombosis) if I don't.
The good news - I'll only have to wear them for three months!
Day 5
Today, I get as far as the loo where I stand on my own two feet for the first time in three days and wash and shave myself. Big achievement, believe me.
"How many stitches do you have?", my kids ask over the phone. "ONE," I tell them. "One long, dissolvable stitch." They are so disappointed.
Day 6
Physiotherapist in bright and early. I swing my leg 30 times this way, 30 times that way. Push my leg 30 times forward, 30 times back.
I'd love to leg it out of here - not that there's anything wrong. Nothing wrong with watching tennis on Sky Sports at 8 a.m., wondering whether you'll have the medallions of beef or fillets of sole for lunch. Swap it all gladly, however, for a soggy salad sandwich and the full use of myself.
Day 7
Really on the mend. "Flying" around the hospital corridors on my Zimmerframe.
Day 8
Zimmerframe to crutches - that's progress. Feel more agile, more able with these crutches. In fact I feel like slipping down to the pub for a pint.
But I needn't worry - another day or two and I shall be released. Hip, hip . . .