I’ve spent a lot more time here talking about the recovery from a voice/throat/face perspective and rather less about the hip and pelvis. This is — honestly — mostly because the latter have been in a holding pattern for a while; my PT has been adding effort and exercises gradually, there’s only been so much that could be done until there was some measure of weight bearing. There was a lot that was done, especially towards the end in terms of strengthening the hip abductors to help reduce the incidence of Trendelenberg gait.

The surgery on the hip (an open reduction internal fixation, or ORIF) procedure was on Dec 5th, 7 days after I was hit. They plated the column fracture of the acetabular, put 43 staples in the wound, and then it was non-weightbearing for 10 weeks.

The internal hardware was fairly impressive on X-ray:

Internal fixation hardware

Yesterday, 76 days after the accident, we had the second followup with my orthopaedic surgeon. Joint spacing looked good, healing looked good and after those 76 days I was turned loose with weight bearing as tolerated (WBAT). I proceeded to walk (sort of) out of his office without the crutches, though my gait is still odd, my leg is still incredibly weak. However — thanks to my PT, and actually DOING my PT — I could walk. (Though my calf is so incredibly right it is not even remotely funny)

Now to the doctors orders: wean off assistance (even on day 2 I’m not using the crutches around the house), correct gait (a work on progress), and strengthen the leg. On to another 12 weeks of PT, though I now have planks, bridges, one-legged stands, and  even shallow squats on the list of things to do.

Progress!!!

Pelvis/Hip Recovery — aka the story of 76 days

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