Things That Surprised Me Post Surgery

1. My tastebuds changed: I am a chai-latte addict. My order: tall, non-fat, no water, extra hot chai latte with an extra shot of God-I'm-Such-A-Yuppie. For the first three weeks after the surgery, however, I couldn't stomach my beloved chai lattes, nor could I tolerate anything remotely sweet. Fruit? Too sweet. Corn? Too sweet. Vegetable soup? Too sweet. Apparently my freaky cyborg hip doesn't have a sweet tooth.

2. I lost a lot of hair: I wasn't expecting this to happen because I didn't have general anesthetic. Lucky for me, my hair before surgery resembled hair children draw on stick figures and it could have done with a thinning out. Now, when I walk down the street, people will no longer think, "Hey, there goes a six-foot tall woman with crazy-person hair." Now, they'll just think, "Why is that woman walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame?"

3. I needed a nap: Because of my pre-existing anemia and the blood loss from the surgery, I looked like a wax figurine and my "nap to activity" ratio was 1:1. Standing would make me faint. Sitting would make me faint. I felt like a Victorian lady with a too-tight corset and an opium habit.

4. I couldn't walk: Before the surgery, I was walking three miles a day, hiking and generally feeling like a health rock-star. After the surgery, my lazy hip decided to take a long, long nap. It took two weeks for me to be able to move my knee, three weeks to pick my leg up enough to walk with shoes on, four weeks for my abductors to return. I'm still working on the hip flexors, which means I have to go down stairs backwards. Apparently some of this is normal post-surgery, but with all the "they get you up and walking the day of the surgery! People skip out the door after three days" talk, I wasn't prepared for it.

5. Rashes: My skin's kind of a drama queen and I've had rashes all over since the surgery. So between the hair loss and the rashes, I'm red-hot sexy.