Waking up with a lovely view – it’s so quiet here, almost feels as though I am here all alone!  I get up to make tea to take back to bed and do some reading.  I decide to have a look through some YouTube clips – various headings.
– How to tie your shoe laces after total hip reconstruction
– How to put on trousers after total hip reconstruction
– How to sleep after total hip reconstruction
Seriously, what did we do before You Tube, there are some good tips on here and then there are some not so good tips – take the first subject for example, the answer is, buy elasticated shoe laces that are no tie!!  Yeah, good advice but what about when you are in the hospital and need to know now coz you can’t go out until you have tied the laces you have?  That said, there were some good tips on there.
I am feeling pretty desperate for coffee but have googled Café Santé which is in the building and they don’t open on Saturday and Sunday – I mean who runs / owns a café at the entrance of a hospital / rehab centre and doesn’t open at the weekend, at least in the morning.  Missing a huge opportunity there I think especially as there are lots of visitors on a Saturday morning and most of the rehab patients are up and about too and well, everyone needs coffee right?!  Anyhow, I have a look on the internet to identify a coffee shop that’s not too far away where David and I can go to have a coffee together.  I find one that is only a block away and looks as though it has a really nice little courtyard, so that’s where we’ll go when David gets here as we had agreed that he should come at 8 am today as Lexi will be sleeping in on a Saturday morning and I have to be down in the gym with the physio at 9 am.
Here goes, let’s try and dress myself.  Well, it takes a while but I manage to get support socks on and then leggings on top of that – I am so impressed with myself that I decide to take some selfies and post them on Instagram – hope you saw them.  Murphy’s law, breakfast is delivered when I am mid selfie – a quick tap on the door and in they march with the tray.
I wouldn’t mark the food at Waratah as highly as that at St Vincent’s!  The portions are miniscule, seriously.  However, having ordered a medium sized dinner the night before, and in my view that had been a bit less than small, I had decided to order a large breakfast.  What does large mean, well, it means a portion of scrambled egg with tomato, 2 slices of gluten free toast (anaemic toast, maybe the toaster broke) and two servings of oats – I guess the second serving makes this a large meal.
I decide to only eat the scrambled egg which will mean when David comes, we can go and have coffee and I can have toast and he can have a breakfast cos I know he won’t have eaten anything before coming here.
I have come up with a plan as I really don’t feel like I need to be an inpatient.  I’m going to get myself checked out tomorrow and go home and become an outpatient for rehab but get myself transferred to Wolper Hospital as that’s much nearer home.  I’ll chat this through with David when he comes.
David has arrived wearing only a thin short sleeved shirt – aren’t you cold I ask?  Yes, he replies but clearly didn’t bring a jacket – it’s quite a clear morning and now that it’s autumn there’s a nip in the air so why isn’t he wearing a jacket?
We embark on a slow walk to the earlier identified café – hmm, it’s amazing what can be portrayed in photos, the place we go to is nothing more than what I can only describe as a café that’s not really sure if it’s a café, an ice cream shop or a convenience store and I’ve seen cleaner more appealing places in the wild west movies than this.  So, we about turn and stumble across Westfield.  I say stumble because you can normally see the multi storey shopping centres but we were quite high up in Hurstville and Westfield is down in the dip so wasn’t obvious.  We head there and end up in Jamaica Blue one of the coffee shops in the centre.  Great, they have decent height chairs for me to sit on and serve good coffee.
Time for the gym is drawing near – David decides to go off and find a newsagent to buy the Saturday papers for me, I’ll sit here and wait I say.  However, he’s gone for a few minutes and I think it would probably be a good idea for me to start the walk back.  I send David a text to let him know I am making my way back and I’ll meet him at the hospital entrance.
As we draw close, we see that there are two fire engines there.  There has obviously been an alarm but we don’t see all the residents sitting outside on their hospital beds so it’s been a false alarm but all the security measures have been triggered and the lifts are out of action.  Thankfully the gym is only on the mezzanine floor so we’ll take the stairs and won’t be late.
Turning up at the gym there are two young physios on reception.  I announce my arrival and they think I am visiting somebody as opposed to being a patient.  We start with some timed tests.  I have to do as many sit to stand from the chair as possible in one minute – 34 achieved and I’m told that’s really good.  Then there’s a 6 minute walk just up and down the corridor – 6 minutes is a long time when you are only doing laps of about 15 metres a go.  David is taking pictures and videos to capture the moment – I’m moving freely and well, the physio is pretty impressed.
We move over to doing some other leg exercises some are performed standing.  These are undertaken near a bar which you can reach out and grab if you need to.  Others are done lying flat on the floor.  All up, there are 12 exercises and I need to do 40 reps of each.  I complete these without too much trouble, the only one is a single leg raise – hmmm, I have to concentrate really hard to get my heel to lift off the floor.  Keep trying I’m told because even on the rep that you don’t get the heel off the ground, you are tensing and strengthening the muscles.  The gym is starting to get busy – there are all sorts of patients arriving but mostly I would estimate they are either over 80 or obese and they are all really struggling to get mobile after whatever surgery they have had.
Gym work completed, I retire to my room to read the papers.  Before that, I will call Wolper and see what I need to do to transfer there as an outpatient – it says on the website that they are open 8.30 am to 2.30 pm on Saturday.  Nope, that’s not right, there’s no answer.  I speak to the main switchboard and she says I can leave a message on the rehab extension and they will call me on Monday.  OK, that sounds like a plan.  She transfers me and guess what …… it rings and rings and rings but doesn’t switch to voicemail.  I guess that means I will have to call them on Monday.
I read through the Australian and come to the magazine.  I glance up out the window and as the weather is still quite good I had noticed there was Hurstville Oval not far down the road.  So I decide to take the rest of the papers and go and sit in the sun.  I meander down the road, arrive at the oval and there’s a cricket game on.  I find a seat and sit in the sun and call David who tells me that he is in the process of cleaning the fridge out as he has sold it.  He’s also had some offers on the washing machine.  Great – two more things we don’t need to worry about.  I tell David not to worry about coming out to Hurstville this evening, Lexi will come and we can go to the movies at Westfield and that will save David a few hours when he can be wheeling and dealing and divesting of the last few sticks of furniture
After a while, I wander back to the hospital and my room and finish my reading and before you know it, it’s 12.30 and lunch time.  Lunch is duly delivered … I had ordered chicken Caesar salad – uh oh a small oblong bowl of cos lettuce, half an egg, and three slices of chicken that are no bigger than 2 cms x 2 cms – this is a large lunch because they have given me a couple of desserts – I mean seriously.
Lunch devoured, I’m going to take a rest before I go back to the gym for my second session at 2.30 pm.
Down I go to the gym with my music – this mornings music was more geared to the other gym goers so I’ll take my own this time.  There’s only one other person there and he has the attention of both physios.  That’s fine, I can do my own thing.  One of the young ladies comes over just to make sure I am OK and I decide to mention to her that I may check out tomorrow and become an outpatient.  She believes that’s the right thing as I don’t really need the inpatient facilities because I am so mobile.  I start my routine and she goes off to write down all the info on outpatient that I will need.  She also gives me tips and advice on when I can start using some weight on my legs but resistance bands are a no until the 6 week post op point.
The old gentleman that is in the gym needs to go back to his room.  One of the physios finishes her shifts and goes home, the other is to help the gentleman back to his room.  She says I can stay and finish what I want to do, she’ll shut the door so nobody else can come in but I can stay as long as I want – that’s dangerous.  I complete the lower body exercises and decide to make the most of the opportunity and take some free weights and run through a 40 minute shoulder routine.
Back in my room, I again watch some cooking programs on TV and relax until Lexi arrives.  We hobble off to Westfield and find a bite to eat and then into the movies to see Red Sparrow.  I know it’s not what you should do but I do check my phone during the movies and see that David has sent a text – having busted his arse cleaning the fridge and moving it to the corridor for ease of the purchaser, the rude, disrespectful person who had undertaken to buy this for cash and collect at 7 pm had not turned up and was not answering text messages.  David’s pretty hacked off I can tell you.
The movie was brilliant – love the story line but it was a little too graphic and gory in some places.  Lexi escorts me back to my hospital room and then has to ride her Ninja home with the promise that she will text me when she arrives safely.
I make a cup of tea and give David a call – poor chap has been working hard today cleaning stuff up and emptying cupboards.  He tells me he has just had a chat with David and Fiona (our friends in Spain) and they have obviously perked him up a bit so all good. We say good night and it’s time to get some shut eye.  So, until tomorrow when I make my escape ………….
Hippy Times … 🏋🏻‍♀️
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