My 1 Year Anniversary

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of when my hip saga began. For anyone just beginning their journey, I can assure you that in the hands of the right surgeon, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am going to do a flashback to November 28, 2006.

Shit, my hip hurts. It hurts when I drive, and especially when I push the kids in the double stroller. It is a really annoying pain. It feels like something is in my joint. My friend/ PT is coming into work around 3, I will ask her to work on it and hopefully get some relief. She showed up and I told her I was dying of pain, she did a painful release on my iliacus/psoas, I felt better immediately, but in the car on my way home, things got bad again.

I went into work the next day, again, in agony. First I had one therapist stretch my hip flexors and ITB, thinking this may help. Then I had another one check it out. She said there is definitely some kind of impingement. Then I asked P for help. He was really busy so I waited until he was done seeing patients. What makes the day so memorable is that it was Jk's 1st birthday, and I was having a small dinner party, and lacking a few key ingredients. I used P's full schedule to run to the supermarket near my office but didn't find what I was looking for (which I now don't even remember what it was). P did all kinds of releases, ART, mulligan mobs...It felt good...until I was in my car again. Shit. What is this????

I got home, L had ballet and there was no food for my party! I ended up ordering pizza, Jk didn't know the difference! After we had cleaned up and the kids were in bed, I hit the computer. I had a feeling I had a labral tear, and the word impingement reverberated through my head. I think I first looked for a surgeon, before I did anything else, that is me, always thinking ahead! I was trying to remember when I had seen a hipscope, and who did them, and no one was popping into my head. At the time, there was a hipscope patient in my office and she was a wealth of information, but I wasn't willing to see her surgeon (he was in NJ), I knew it had to be someone at HSS. So I looked and searched, and researched labral tears, FAI.....Not just that night, but every night after that for weeks. After a week or 2, I decided this wasn't getting and made an appointment with Dr.Kelly. I was between him and another surgeon. I had emailed a professor of mine about this and he had recommended against the other surgeon for personal reasons. So Dr.Kelly it was. If things didn't go well, then I would pursue other options, it was just a consult, right. Hopefully he would order an MRI and get to the bottom of this. The rest is history....but in a nutshell...

3/5/07 R hip arthroscopy, Pincer impingement, labral tear debridement, synovectomy
7/2/07 L hip arthroscopy, Cam and Pincer impingement, labral tear debridement, synovectomy
11/12/07 R hip revision arthroscopy, Cam impingement, removal of scar tissue, synovectomy, upon examination, found to have beautiful psoas

11/28/07 Riding high on life (bc everything else makes me sick) and enjoying a painfree lifestyle, looking forward to ditching my single crutch very very soon! :-)

It is the Middle of the Night

3:45 as I begin. I can't sleep, yet I am yawning up a storm in front of the computer. J has taken the habit of snoring lately, which is not good when trying to sleep through anxiety. So here I am, 3:45am, nothing to do, but listen to his snoring symphony and long for the coffee which has been banned along with all food and drink past midnight. This may be the worst part of it for me as I NEED coffee. I actually become very scary without coffee. Which leads me to wonder if all the other times in recovery, when I had a hard time waking up, if it was just lack of caffeine in my system!

I worked on my quad all through Desperate Housewives, it feels better. My big toe is also very sore. Both having to do with my 'limpy gait' I am sure. I am freezing, probably related to my anxiety as I am a little shaky again.

Looking forward to this all being over very soon!

The Final Spin

I just retired my spin shoes for a while. The bike will be put to good use over the next few weeks as I have refused a CPM! My 'last ride' was great, I worked really hard but feel really good about it.

I am pretty nervous and my hands are even a little shaky. I have no clue what we will find in my hip. Any ideas? We should have a poll! What do you think is wrong? More FAI? Labral tear? Full thickness cartilage lesion? Psoas adhesions? Bursitis? Hmmmm, anything I am leaving out?

It is 10:15, I have to shower and pack my bag. We plan on leaving the house at 5:15AM, so I estimate I need to be up at 4:00, to shower, blow dry and apply make-up. I always feel like I have to go into surgery 'pretty', I know, I am crazy! But it helps me feel better, so just for that, it is worth it!

I already located my crutches and brace, sweatpants, cel phone and wallet. I don't think I need anything else. J will have his laptop so I will be checking email/ comments until I go in! Feel free to drop me an email at suzq613 at aol dot com.

My quad decided to go into spasm yesterday, it still hurts a lot. I have to make sure Dr. Kelly doesn't feel the need to release it! J/K!

Ok, I am tired and cold. Time to start winding down, although I am oretty sure I will not be getting too much sleep tonight.

Scope Preparedness

In keeping with my OCD'ness, I am almost ready for Monday. I bought my waterproof bandages today to shower immediately post-op (5 days no shower...does anyone actually do that???), I went grocery shopping (I know I will somehow end up back in the grocery store with my mom at least 3 times next week), got waxed (my new waxer is great, she uses this blue 'sensitive' wax, barely felt a thing) and tomorrow I have an appt for a manicure/pedicure.
Obviously these are all pre-op essentials, especially since all will be bared to the camera!! hahaha!! I was assured that this would not be the case!
I will also 'borrow' ice packs tomorrow from my office as I will not have a gameready this time.

J has been out of town this whole week. He had a brief 'stopover' at home last night but left again this morning. He brought me these really pretty canvas paintings from the Dominican Republic, the only thing is, they need to be framed. I took them to a frame store today and was quotes WAY higher than I could have imagined. They are big, one bigger than the other, and need to be stretched or something....I was quoted $480 for both, this is with the 20% discount (for the coupon I did not have) and if I pay cash. I thought it was a lot, but have no idea as I have never done this before. Any thoughts?

Since J and I don't see eachother very often lately, and we have a lot to discuss (Jk's b-day party, where L will go to school next year.....) we decided on a date for Monday morning at HSS, since there is some downtime during the pre-op processing, we will be discussing these things since we never have a lot of time together! I can't believe we need surgery to get us in the same room for a significant amount of time!!!!!

All in a Day's work

I made it. I am exhausted. But I did it!! Yay!!! I feel so accomplished. Did it hurt? Yes, but it was sooooo worth it!! I am back to work! Luckily, I had a light schedule today. There were a few "issues" involving my work performance, that I had not anticipated. First, I was working with a lady who preferred to be on a low table, so in order to stretch her, I was kneeling, sitting back on my heels, I suddenly developed that deep, gnawing groin pain, and had to find another position to work in. The other issue came from left field. I work in an outpatient orthopaedics facility, with mostly surgical and orthopaedic conditions. We also have a pool. I had a new patient, wheelchair bound, who wanted to use the pool, and needed to be transferred from her wheelchair to the table. This almost never happens, my patients are usually higher level functioning. There was no way in hell I could pull this off, probably even on a good day!!! After some discussion and shuffling, I got the situation under control!!!

Besides for that, everything was going pretty well, until my SI joint decided to give me trouble. Yes, again, when it rains it pours. Interestingly, my dysfunction was a posterior inominate on the right, normally, I get an anterior inominate, I assume it is from the hip flexors tightening up and pulling it forwards. Today it was posterior. P hypothesized that maybe it went that way bc the hip flexors are weak? I muscle tested a 4,4+/5 on that side.....so who knows. He corrected it with a MET, he said I was "stuck" on that side. He also released (sigh, again) my iliacus and psoas, which REALLY hurt. I stood up and felt great, walked to my computer, sat down, and had groin pain (sigh). I am beyond frustarted at this point, I don't even know what to think anymore.

The rest of the day was uneventful,, the kiddies slept late, until almost 5:00, so we did not do anything this afternoon, other than a short trip around the block, L on her bike and Jk in the stroller. What a sight it was, since L is not great at riding, me pulling her with one hand and pushing Jk with the other! As I sit here and blog, my hip pain is back with a veangence, and just in time for my Target excursion!!

If you have gotten this far in my post, I want to try something. One of the hardest things I found when my hip journey began was finding a list of symptoms correlated to a labral tear and FAI. If you would like to help, I want to compile a list of people's sympotms in the "comments" of this post, and in a week or so, publish it as a posting, so others have a place to compare notes.

Here were my pre-op symptoms: Groin pain, deep deep groin pain, not always excruciating, but so annoying I felt like cutting off my leg, tight hip flexors, pain with sitting, pain with walking uphill, pain with pushing my stroller. I did not have radiating pain down my legs, all the hip pain was anterior medial.

The Countdown Begins

Today was my official "pre-op/ post-op" appointment, after this they will all be post-op/ post-op.

My non-operated hip has been pretty bad since a little incident on Monday requiring me to sprint after jk to prevent him from scaling a fence close to a river! It was a close call, interestingly, I had zero pain during the actual run, but I limped home afterwards!

I only waited about an hour this time, not too bad! I happen to really like my surgeon, he is an excellent surgeon with great bedside manner, something you don't always find. The first thing he said was "sorry for the wait". I know he must say it a lot, but it is nice to hear!

Really, this could have been done for the most part over the phone...he moved my hip around, checked my range of motion, and that was pretty much it! He then proceeded to check the non-operated hip, which he had already done at my last visit. That visit consisted of me telling him the other side was torn and him telling me it was just "muscular". I have already had an MRI on it, there was no need to move it and check it, but he did...now it really hurts, and for no good reason!
I asked him if he needed an x-ray of the hip before the surgery, he was surprised that there won't one done last time. I, again, reminded him that last time he doubted that there was a real issue but I insisted on getting an injection, so he requested an MRI then.

I also asked him if I can have the same anesthesiologist this time, I loved mine last time. I am petrified of spinals (I had a spinal with sedation). He said we can try, but honestly, they are all great! And the ones that are not great don't last!

I also discussed my pain med issue, I do not want a repeat of day 3 from last time. To prevent this, we are going to try darvocet for pain, and zofran for nausea! Zofran is my favorite drug in the world, I discovered it during my first pregnancy, 8 weeks into it, I threw up 5 times before lunch! Zofran changed my life, and allowed me to think about getting pregnant a second time without fear of uncontrollable nausea and vomiting!!

When the tear was discovered in my other hip, I spoke to my surgeon and he said he does second sides 8-12 weeks out. I decided to wait longer, I was not ready then! Today, he agreed with me that it was smart to wait until now to do it!
After he examined me, he said "ok, I think we should proceed with the surgery, if you feel comfortable", "I alredy scheduled it for a week from Monday!!" I told him!
As much as I am dreading starting from scratch, I am looking forward to regaining the use of both legs and getting out of this pain once and for all!!!

Is this Real or am I dreaming????

I go through periods with no pain...ok, I had a steroid injection in my hip, but still...is this the magic answer??? I think about this sometimes, especially when having a few good days, and then bam, out of nowhere, pain.

This morning, Jk woke up at 6:15, yes, on a Sunday. After unsuccessfully trying to lull him back to sleep, we decided to take a walk, we walked for about 45 minutes, with a single stroller (as opposed to my double, which weighs 35lbs on its own, empty). I also walked yesterday for about 45 minutes with Jk, and then 45 minutes with my daughter, L. No pain in my unoperated hip!

A little later in the morning, I had to walk L (daughter, 3 yrs old) to ballet, not even half a block into the trip, I had pain, it was so random....why then and not earlier???? Why not during my numerous long walks earlier? The only difference I can possibly attribute it to is that I did have the double stroller, but even so, am I crazy???

I also noticed that I am compensating with my foot, I don't like to put the medial side of my foot down when I walk.....crazy!
So surgery is in 2 weeks, I feel weird going through with this when I have painfree days....but I should watch what I say, because I know that right after that comes out of my mouth....I will have pain!
btw- I don't use nor do I believe in painscales, so I will never refer to my pain being a "3", or whatever!!! Also, I really like orange strollers!!!!