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