There Is No Set Timeline for Your Recovery
The calendar in my head
My second hip surgery landed right in the middle of COVID lockdown.
I don’t need to tell you what was going on; the world had gone quiet as most of us stayed home. No one was stopping by my desk or checking in to ask how the hip was doing. Nobody could see how long any of this was taking.
You'd think that would take the pressure off. Unfortunately, it didn't.
A clock was running in my head.
I spent over 50 sessions in PT for that hip. Every one of them had to fit somewhere. I'd open my calendar, find the little box that said PT, and slide it around an online meeting. Then the meeting would get moved, and I'd slide the box again. Most weeks that box traveled more than I did.
Each time I showed up to PT, I did the math. How many more of these? How many more weeks of planning my days around my hip? When could I stop scheduling and rescheduling this part of my life?
Nobody had given me a finish date. I made one up anyway, and then I measured myself against it. I kept checking, like I do when I’m waiting for the bus to arrive.
The myth: there's a set timeline for surgery recovery
Most of us leave surgery with a number. Maybe it's six weeks, or maybe three months. It comes from a discharge sheet, a surgeon's best guess, or a friend who had the same thing done. That number settles into your head and turns into a deadline.
Then week six shows up, and your body disagrees. It isn’t time yet, it says.
Why it's so easy to believe
This myth makes a lot of sense. Before surgery, you plan your life around dates and times, birthdays, holidays, meetings. You block off time at work, tell your family when you'll be up and moving, and pick a week to start driving again. That timeline, that date, is part of what made it easier to say yes to surgery in the first place. You knew there would be an endpoint.
For a lot of people, that number starts to sting somewhere between week six and week twelve. The early fog has lifted. You're doing your exercises. And then someone at a follow-up appointment says something small, like "We don't usually see people still on a cane at six weeks."
They said it as an aside. You drive home having heard it as a judgment or a grade.
If you've felt that, know that it doesn't reflect on how you're doing recovery.
Someone handed you a number, and you did what capable people do with numbers: you tried to hit it.
What's true
Recovery moves at the speed your body sets, and bodies have different paces.
Look at my brother and me. Four weeks after his shoulder surgery he decided he was all better and was mostly right. We call him the super-healer. Months out from mine, I’m still working at it. Same family, different speeds.
In one study of people after hip replacement, researchers found distinct recovery paths in the first six weeks, tied to patient characteristics. In the first two weeks, the fast group gained ground at more than three times the weekly rate of the slow group. Same surgery. Very different speeds1.
So the number in your head may not have been right for you. When week six comes and you aren't where that number said, it means the number was an estimate, based on averages. It doesn’t mean something went wrong with you.
What I'd do differently
Looking back at that little box sliding around my calendar, here's what I wish I'd known.
Aim at a thing you can do, not a date. "Back to normal by week eight" is tracked by your calendar, and the calendar doesn't know squat about you. "Walking to the mailbox without thinking about it" is something your body understands. Pick two or three of those things. Driving your own car. Sleeping on your good side. Carrying the groceries in one trip.
Ask for the range. When someone gives you a number, ask what the slowest good recovery they've seen looks like. Averages leave out everyone on the slower path.
Let the appointments be your life for now. I treated every PT session like something standing between me and my real life, which made each appointment feel like a hassle or a delay. For that season, the appointments were my real life.
By the time lockdown ended
By the time we made it through lockdown, I was walking again.
I couldn't tell you the exact week it happened. What I remember is the world opening back up, and my hip being ready to walk into it.
Your recovery has its own pace. The calendar can keep moving forward while your body does its work, one ordinary day at a time.
If the number in your head is getting louder than your progress, let's talk. Book a free, 20-minute call at turnstonewellness.com/contact.
Sources:
1Porsius, J. T., Mathijssen, N. M. C., Klapwijk-Van Heijningen, L. C. M., Van Egmond, J. C., Melles, M., & Vehmeijer, S. B. W. (2018). Early recovery trajectories after fast-track primary total hip arthroplasty: The role of patient characteristics. Acta Orthopedica, 89(6), 597–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/17453674.2018.1519095
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