The early stages of recovery

Training in my home gym with my trusty trekking poles in the corner

The morning after I had my right hip resurfaced, Koen De Smet came to see me in my hospital room. He seemed to be in a rather intense mood and said something to this effect: "You know, metal on metal is a procedure that can work quite well, but it must be done with absolute precision. In your case I was lucky to be working with my colleague from Rome, who is one of the best surgeons in the world." Then he took out the post-op x-ray of my resurfaced hip and showed it to me with obvious pride.

For the first six weeks or so after surgery, my recovery from resurfacing was a bit slower and more painful than my recovery from the revision surgery. A few days post-op I asked Bart (Dr. De Smet's assistant) if he knew why my hip should hurt more than after the revision. He said that they had encountered considerable muscle wrapped around my bone and that this had made getting a good cup placement difficult. The Argentine doctor who botched my right hip had also complained about the same thing. I feel very fortunate that I was able to do my other hip surgeries with De Smet.

By about seven weeks post-op, I shelved the crutches for good. At this point I was doing fairly long hikes (4 to 6 miles)  two or three times a week, using my trekking poles for support. I had also begun climbing in my home gym. When I first began climbing in the gym, I did not risk any kind of a fall and mostly trained down low on the wall. However, as time went by I began forcing harder moves higher up. Since about 5 months post-op, I will occasionally fall off at around this height, forcing moves at the top:

Occasionaly falling off at this height onto pads 3 layers deep doesn't
seem to bother my artificial hips. Still, I'm very careful about falling.

By about two months post-op, my recovery from the hip resurfacing began to improve faster than the recovery from the revision had. However, because of adverse weather, I was unable to begin outdoor climbing until about 10 weeks post-op (with the revision I began climbing outdoors after two months). The first day out we climbed in el Bosque on La Barrosa, the same place I had began climbing after revision. On the second day out we went to a new sector of routes on La Barrosa called "El Autodromo", so named because it´s situated on the west flank of the sierra just above the Juan Manuel Fangio Memorial Racetrack. Our approach to this small but interesting cliff started right from our front gate.

Gaby, Ceci and the dogs getting ready to head out for the climbs

Then we followed a dirt road for a few kilometers along the west flank of the sierra La Barrosa. Just below the fence to the right is the Juan Manuel Fangio Memorial Racetrack.

The hike in to the climbing area 10 weeks after resurfacing

To reach the cliff above, we hiked up this short, steep hill

Gaby and Ceci with the climbing area above

That day we climbed four short routes: three steep 5.9s and a continous, pumpy 10d.

Stemming out the first 5.9 with two artificial hips

Ceci top-roping the previous 5.9

These are steep 5.9s

There was a group of climbers from Peru Beach (in Buenos Aires) climbing at the crag

That's Ceci climbing in the background

Ceci styled this 5.9 on top rope

Ceci styling the crux of a 5.9

and managed all the moves on this 5.10d

It took me two tries to redpoint this 10d

We headed back home as the sun set

Beautiful sunset in Balcarce

Back to Ghent in February for resurfacing

Last Febuary I was back in Ghent to get my right hip resurfaced by Koen De Smet. Together with my wife María Gabrielia (Gaby) and my daughter Cecilia Jane (Ceci), we decided to make a vacation out of it. Before the surgery we visited a famous city.

Guess where this is!

where we saw sights that inspired us to think.

Rodin's Garden

We visited a renowned church.

Where's the hunchback?

Then we arrived in Ghent

A sunny day in Ghent, Belgium

About a week after the surgery we took the train to Bruges.

In Bruges

A couple of days latter we went to Barcelona.

Enjoying warmer weather on la Rambla in Barcelona

Walking in Europe is a nice way to rehabilitate 

While in Barcelona we visited some local shops

Lots of peppers in Barcelona

and took a day trip to Montserrat.

Looking up at Montserrat Monastery

At Montserrat we walked some trails

After a couple more days in Barcelona, we went back to our home in Balcarce, Argentina.

The start of my second blog

This blog is a direct continuation of

 http://tbratten.blogspot.com.ar/

since it will also be about my experiences rock climbing after having artificial hip joints installed. The previous blog documents my first year getting back to climbing after revision surgery. Briefly: about four years ago (in May of 2010) I had my left hip resurfaced in Argentina by Dr. Sixto Vilicich, who botched the job, terribly. After a difficult year and a half, I decided to have revision surgery with Dr. Koen De Smet in Ghent, Belgium. Koen fixed me up with a ceramic on ceramic THR that looks like this:

My left hip after revision surgery

Currently, I'm about two-and-half years post-op and this revision surgery has worked out quite well for my particular needs. My previous blog details the first 13 months after having the THR installed.

About seven months ago I decided to return to Dr. Koen De Smet and have my right hip resurfaced. My right hip now looks like this:

My right hip has been resurfaced 

My new surgery is working out quite nicely, as well, This means I am no longer just someone with a revision who has managed to get back to climbing but that I'm also in the rather unique position of being someone who climbs with two different kinds of implants: a THR and an HR. This is one of the main reasons I've decided to start a new blog. The title of my old blog doesn't even fit anymore, Another reason is that my mood has changed since those early days after revision, and I now feel like I will be able to continue rock climbing for some time without being inhibited, in any important way, by my hip surgeries. When I started the previous blog, I wasn't sure just how far my revision surgery would take me, in terms of sustainable climbing capacity. Right now I can honestly say that my hips are doing better than they have for years (eight years? ten years?). So I expect that this blog will be mainly about rock climbing. I'm stoked, as they say, and climbing has once again become a major focus in my life. Looking around and seeing where many of my peers are, in terms of their lives, I can honestly say that my fascination with climbing isn't a bad thing. I believe people really need (at least I do) activities they love, even if it's something as ostensibly ludricous as climbing on rocks.