Also, are you on any other meds (only share if you feel comfortable doing so). Is the hip replacement for osteoarthritis (if so, I would imagine you might be on anti-inflammatories or other meds for that).
Ideally your doctors will discuss with you (not "about you") what the plans are for post-op care including pain management and other things. The choice of medications used at every stage of your hospital stay will, among other things, depend on what, if any, other conditions you have and what medications you are taking.
I have had surgery multiple times for various things. It's hard for me to remember my first one but I remember feeling scared about having surgery - wanting to know what will happen, but also not wanting to know.
Some things are better if you are told beforehand, such as that you might have a sore throat when you wake up. This comes right with ice cubes etc and the pain medication also helps. It's caused by the small soft tube they place there that helps you breathe during the surgery. Most times it doesn't hurt afterwards - it's more likely to happen with oral or facial surgery because they place it differently.
When you wake up in the recovery unit, often there are other patients in beds behind curtains also waking up and getting ready to be taken back to their ward. One time I could hear a woman patient and the staff discussing her case with her and each other - she'd had a total knee replacement that had gone perfectly and she was in no pain at all (adequate pain meds). I, on the other hand, had just had my wisdom teeth removed and was in a lot of pain (inadequate pain meds). I learnt two things that I want to share with you:
1. Joint replacement surgery can be more successful and less painful than minor surgery, and as long as the right type and amount of pain meds are used, it's not as scary as I thought it would be. (I haven't had this type of surgery but I have a more positive view of it than I did before).
2. As a patient, it's in my interests to discuss with the doctors beforehand, which type of pain meds they will use, how much they expect I'll need, and where the safe upper limit is. If they assume that x drug will work for me because it works for most people, then they could be wrong. You may not know of any particular meds to avoid, but in that case you could ask them how flexible they are if the patient is in pain and other options need to be tried.
