I am PAO'd

Update

2011-04-25T13:23:00.004-04:00

On a daily basis life is certainly a lot easier to move around in. I am walking and do stairs with no resistive devices other than a crutch in the morning to lower myself onto the toilet. My back has not changed much and neither has my coccyx. Once the day is under way everything loosens and I must say I do find myself thinking less and less about my hip which is fantastic. The joint itself never hurts. The only discomfort I may feel is muscular. If I can get my back under control I'll be golden. I am back at the gym doing cardio 4-5 times a week for up to an hour. I have very little trouble doing the elliptical or a bicycle for that entire time. PT ended a few weeks ago and I am on my own with finishing the strengthening of my hip.

What I have found is that it is relatively quick to get back to say 80%. Once you start PT things progress quickly and you'll be amazed from one day to the next but then you hit the slow patch. I say this because there are certain things that are just going to take longer to strengthen. We took the dogs for a 2 mile walk the other day and by the time we got home I was really sore. Actual walking is a very different action to the elliptical apparently. It makes it easy to get frustrated with your body. But then it takes being reminded that I am only 4 months post surgery and wow I've come a very long way. So life is good and getting better the more time I spend strengthening my back and my leg muscles.

I've also started a diet to lose some weight. I feel I owe it to my hips and my knees. I don't know how many others have had knee problems due to their hips but I want to avoid any future surgeries for as long as possible. I'm 33% of the way to my goal. I've done it relatively quickly by doing the Clean Cleanse. You don't need to buy the supplements though. Add in your own protein powder and fiber to save a lot of money. It's definetly something to check out if you want to drop some pounds before or after surgery. I feel great doing it and have totally rewired my palate. I now crave fruit and vegetables more than I ever did before. The program runs for 3 weeks but I've kept most of it going for 5 weeks now. I probably will keep it up for another 2-3 months until I hit my goal weight.

So this is where I am right now. You probably will hear less and less from me but of course as always feel free to reach out if you need someone to talk to. Take care.

PT - I Can't Complain

2011-03-02T16:59:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Mark at Physiotherapy Associates in Midtown I am 10 weeks post surgery and just about off the last crutch. In fact I walk around work and home without any help. If I concentrate hard I can even walk limp free. I think that I will transition to my cool African walking stick for long distance walking & stairs and ditch the crutch all together.

My only complaints at this point would be that I have bad lower back pain in the morning that tends to prevent me from bending over and some stabbing coccyx pain when I get up from my desk chair or any chair that I have been sitting in for too long. The leg is stiff at night and I don't feel comfortable sleeping on the surgery side or my stomach just yet. Although I have managed to spend some time on both - they still feel kinda funny.

On a positive note I am showering standing up, using regular toilets, putting my shoes and socks on and so much more. In fact these developments have been so for about 2 weeks now. I no longer need assistance for anything. I have been driving for 4 weeks already and life is getting back to normal. I have no pain in the joint the only pain I have now is muscular. I have a feeling that my posts will begin to dwindle and that is always a good sign. It means that life is returning to normal. As always though I am available to answer any questions that any of you may have. Feel free to contact me through here or email. Ciao!

6 week checkup

2011-01-31T14:24:00.005-05:00

Last Thursday (27th) was my 6 week checkup and first look at x-rays since surgery. The visit was fine and all went smoothly. No long wait, managed to get into position for x-rays and then Dr S arrived to review the x-rays with Juli and I. The very good news is that things are healing so well that he gave me the go ahead to walk at 6 weeks. 6 weeks! 2 weeks earlier than last time. I was sooo not looking forward to having to get through another 2 weeks and then he said well you can go to one crutch and 100% weight bearing for the next 4 weeks. Then ditch the crutch and see me in 6 weeks. No more counting days! And tomorrow Tuesday I start PT. I asked for the referral because I want to be up and running as quickly as possible. I want this all behind me and to be a normal person again.

Currently I use 2 crutches when we leave the house. Around the house I use one whenever I can. Walking is tiring stuff. It's amazing how quickly muscles lose strength. On the first day back from Schraders I walked around the house for a while and eventually needed to take a nap before we went out that night. I'm getting stronger every day. Can't wait to start PT as painful as it will be to re-engage muscles. Good news is my same PT guy is still working at the one place my insurance company will let me go to. So I at least don't have to explain it in as much depth again. Dr S. gave me a referral for 2 times a week for 8 weeks. Insurance gives me 20 visits in a year so that leaves a few if I need to go back.

I will start back at work next week. 2 weeks earlier than I thought I would. I'm sure I'll start with half days and go from there. So here is my 6 week x-ray. Remember right and left are in reverse order and this time around he placed the screws differently. They are all facing down. Dr S. does this now because they are easier to remove later. I am not sure if I'll do that or not. All depends on whether they bother me. He can do both sides at the same time though which is nice to avoid going under more than necessary.

Home just in time

2011-01-18T16:52:00.002-05:00

Day 22 - we packed up all of my stuff and moved me from my mom's home to my house. It was time to transition and with being more active and able to do a fair amount for myself the timing was right. And boy how right it was. I moved home on Friday and on Sunday the snow came and Atlanta shut down.

I started to get a fair amount of sympathetic phone calls because after 4 days trapped in their houses friends and family mad with cabin fever started to understand how I felt. For me unfortunately due to the snow and ice it took longer to get out of my home and so 10 days (day 32) after the move I finally got to go out in the world for the first time. Dinner and a movie were marvelous, fresh air and seeing the world again was one of favorite moments since Christmas.

Day 28 - Yippeee! No more TEDs and no more Baby Asprin. Taking the TEDs off was awesome and I am so glad to feel the sheets on my legs again. Winter certainly makes TEDs that much more bearable but at the end of the day you're always excited to see them go. I haven't yet decided on what ceremony to preform with them - suggestions are welcome.

I sit at Day 33 with 23 days left before I get to walk again. Now it is just a long, dull wait. I have to admit the second time around has been harder. There are no highs - you already know how to do things and so as you learn how to do them again there is no excitement at the accomplishment. Look I can go to the bathroom by myself - yippee!

I was up and moving quicker this time. I stopped taking pain medication quite a while ago during the day but on occasion I take it at night to help me sleep. Sleeping on your back can get old quickly. My leg had more strength in it from the get go and so I didn't have the 200lbs weight attached to me that I did the last time. And NO NUMB PATCH AGAIN that's frigging lucky. These are all good things but I've got to work hard to not let the wait get me down. I have started working part time from home, the snow has mostly melted so I will get out of the house more, I have been lucky enough to see lots of friends because company helps pass time and kills boredom. Once the majority of the physical challenge is behind you the harder challenge begins - the mental one.

I will be seeing Dr S. in 9 days to have my 6 week xrays. I can't wait to see how the bone is growing and gaps are closing. I will take photos and post them here for sure. So all that is left to do between now and then is keep my scar in good shape so that it keeps healing, don't lose my mind and start lowering the number of pillows under my leg. For the first 4 weeks I had to sleep with 3 pillows under my leg. I can now get rid of them as quickly I as I like. I am down to 2 but getting to 1 is tough. Every time I remove the second pillow my muscles spasm. Basically I am having to stretch muscle and tendons back to normal after being in a shortened state for a month. This may take some time. I remember it being a difficult process the last time and there is no getting around it. It has to happen. So I am setting the goal to get down to 0 degrees before I see Dr S. Yippee!

Day 11 until today, day 21

2011-01-06T15:42:00.005-05:00

Day 11 - I moved from Percocet to Darvocet for pain control. This is a step down in strength. Pain still under control and all is well.

Day 14 - Hi my name is Lauren and I am a teeth grinder. I have been for the last 4 years. I have a mouth guard that I wear at night but on this day I took a nap and didn't use It. Sometimes this is not a problem. I don't always grind with the same ferocity but unfortunately this time I aggravated the hell out of my jaw. Thus began days of pain. At this point swapping to ibuprofen seemed to help my jaw more than the Darvocet. This is one way to cut back quickly on the heavy narcotics. I did however start taking some muscle relaxants to help speed along relief.

So here is my first wound picture at 2 weeks. You've got to love the symmetry of the two scars!

Day 15 - New Year's Eve - there were 11 of us on the night celebrating the coming of 2011. I certainly was not ready to start on alcohol so it was a quieter celebration for me. All in all a good night was had by all.

Day 17 - Period started (only 4 days late). Everything is now officially in working order.

Day 18 - My first trip out of the house. This is a good week earlier than the last time. Getting into the car wasn't too tricky and I used 2 pillows to prop my leg up and get the right angle. Off we headed to Gamestop to get a new game for my new Wii system. Parking was tricky so I ended up staying in the car. This Christmas gift should help pass some of the next weeks to come. From there we headed to Target and I got to take my very first electric scooter ride around the store. Most people get out of the way quickly and are polite. I'm sure there is fair amount of curiosity due to my age. After Target we headed to a burger joint to get take out food. For this I got out of the car and walkered in to order. You certainly can get some strange looks on a walker. People really don't know what to make of it. This was our last stop and armed with burgers, fries and shakes we headed home. I must say that this was a very tiring trip. Getting in and out of cars and walkering around can take it out of you. It was a lot of fun and well worth the fatigue to get out of the house for a few hours. Thanks Mom and Todd!

Day 19 - Wound care is not always easy. It is possible for your wound to split around the leg crease area. This is the spot that gets the most movement. Dr S's advice - keep the wound dry, don't use Neosporin, use butterfly strips to close the split areas where the Steri-Strips have come off and use gauze to protect the wound.

Day 20 - In less than 24 hours the wound filled in and in other areas closed up. We will keep a close eye on it and make sure that it doesn't get worse. It all looks like it should be just fine. Over the next few days it should scab over and continue to heal.

Day 21 - 3 weeks down, 5 to go!

Day 9 - Christmas

2011-01-06T15:34:00.002-05:00

Christmas was fantastic. There had been uncertainty regarding how much I would be able to do this close to surgery but I was able to do a lot more than anticipated. I managed to sit in the wheel chair 3-4 times that day for over 2 hours at a time. Family and friends, great food and good spirits made for a very successful Christmas Day. It snowed to boot. The first time on Christmas in apparently over 100 years. Thank you to everyone for your gifts of love, finding the energy after days of little sleep and the time to help me do all of the basic tasks that take so much longer than ever before.

Day 8 - Shitty Situation

2011-01-04T15:33:00.003-05:00

My biggest problem at this point is that I still haven't managed to have a bowel movement. This as far as I am concerned should be the last criteria that you should have to fulfill before they let you leave the hospital. It can get quite scary if you don't have one and I am now 8 days post surgery.

I have regularly taken (stop reading if the subject makes you feel ill because this will only get more graphic as I go) fiber tablets, stool softeners, laxatives, fiber in liquid, prune juice and 2 suppositories. Nothing is happening. It's the day before Christmas and so Dr S. is on vacation but Dr. Axelrod is on call and tells my mother that there are 3 options left. 1. Laxative suppository 2. Enema 3. Back to hospital for no doubt an enema. Now just so the absurdity of an enema is as clear to you as it was to us look at the position they expect you to get in to.

There is no way in hell I could do either of those two positions with a broken pelvis. Not to worry option #1 worked and order was restored to my bowels. The swelling went down and I felt less toxic. Truth is there are other ways to administer an enema but the box did make me laugh and feel ill all at the same time.

The best part of this day was my very first shower. After 8 days of sponge baths and wipe downs this was a glorious moment. Juli and my mom got me showered, shaved and moisturized before our fantastic Christmas Eve seafood extravaganza.

Oh and moving around has gotten a whole lot easier. I stopped using the commode and now I am walkering to the toilet and of course got myself into the shower which takes getting in backwards. These are all good things to practice before surgery. The lip on my mom's shower to too high to go in forwards. Having done this surgery before we knew how to get me in. I must say that waiting this time was harder than last time but the surgery itself has been easier. You sweat less of the small stuff and just know what to expect. Still glad I don't have a 3rd leg going through this twice is more than enough for this gal.

Day 6 and 7 - Not much new

2011-01-04T15:27:00.002-05:00

Day 6 - I started using the commode and moving around started to get easier as the Valium helped with spasms.

Day 7 - I managed to use the walker all the way down the hallway and into the living room. This is where I would have liked to have been before leaving the hospital but oh well. This movement wise is about inline with where I was the last time around. At least it didn't take a snap to get me moving.

Day 4 and 5 - Out you go

2011-01-04T15:10:00.002-05:00

Day 4 was really more of the same so nothing new to report.

Day 5 - Time to send me home. My case rep from Kaiser came to tell me I was checking out. That unless there was a medical reason for me to be there I could not stay any longer. I would have preferred another day but I had no choice. Even Schrader admitted that having trouble moving around was not a reason that he could give for me to stay. The case rep said that I could go to a rehab hospital for a few days or have a PT come to the house. I declined both. I asked the nurse to see if Dr. S could give me something to stop the muscle spasms. He prescribed Valium which did not make a big difference in hospital but after a few doses at home it did help.

In order for me to go home that day it was agreed that I would do my 2 PT sessions and that Apria Healthcare would get a wheelchair delivered to the house. The Apria saga is better told from my mother but needless to say Abby who was their representative at Northside was not at all helpful. Long story short after a mouthful from my mother the wheelchair was delivered to the house shortly before I got home. We chose to pay a private ambulance company to transport me home because it was just easier that way. Kaiser would not pay for it this time round. It was the best $200 we've spent. It takes all the worry out of getting in and out of cars, the house and bed. They literally take you from one bed to the other. So now I'm home. It's Tuesday and Christmas Eve is Friday.

Day 3 - Unhook Her

2011-01-04T14:40:00.003-05:00

Dizziness diminished but muscle spasms kept going strong. They were the overall factor for my lack of walking. I did make it to the chair and sat in it for over an hour. I think I managed to do it twice on this day.

This is also the day that the drain, catheter and IV tubes came out. The actual IV they keep in your arm just in case anything needs to be hooked up again. Now that the catheter is out you have 2 choices - bed pan or commode. Since my ability to walk wasn't really great and getting out of bed every time I wanted to pee didn't sound like a great option for me I went with bed pan. I know for many the commode is not a big deal and they find moving around easier than I did. Everyone's body is different is all I can say. With bed pans you have 2 types - the fracture pan or a regular sized one. The fracture pan is easier to get under you but doesn't hold as much. You do have a trapeze above your bed to help get up and down so the regular size one is the way I ended up going.

I must say I missed my catheter but having all the tubes removed does make getting up and out of bed so much easier so there's my silver lining for the day.

Day 2 - first day out of bed

2010-12-29T16:50:00.003-05:00

Not everyone agrees with my numbering system but for those following I consider surgery day - day 1.

I probably won't be blogging to the same degree that I did the last time. This time around I plan on telling you if anything was different in either a good or bad way.

So I made it through the night. The nausea finally calmed down and I had my first real meal - breakfast. PT came around and it was time to get me moving. The last time it took my mom and 3 others to do it. This time we got me to the side of the bed with my mom and 2 PT's. I can't lie I yelled a lot, I cussed a good amount but they got me there. About the only thing I can say now looking back 12 days is that there is no way around it. You have to do it. The more you do it the less it will hurt. blah blah blah it stinks regardless. I felt really light headed so we didn't push it further than sitting on the side of the bed for the first try.

Of course that meant that PT came back around that afternoon and this time we got me standing. Fuck it hurt. There were muscles spasms that felt like things were ripping when I stood up and I was so dizzy I couldn't imagine trying to walk. Everyone is different so remember this is my experience yours could be quite different.

The rest of the day was spent sleeping a huge amount and talking to family when I was briefly awake. In a previous entry I told you about the gift bags a group of us made for the nurses and techs. We started to give those out as soon as I got to my room and certainly they went down a treat.

D-day December 17th

2010-12-29T16:19:00.003-05:00

I must admit that the earlier your surgery is scheduled the better. Better of course because of the wait time for both you and your family but also better because you have to stop eating and drinking at midnight the night before. Food is not that big of a deal but I was certainly parched from the time I woke up.

My surgery was scheduled for 11am with a hospital arrival time of 9am. The drive there is never fun. It was rather a quiet one from my end as I was certainly not looking forward to surgery number 2. We arrived on time. Completed the required check in and waited to be called back to pre-op. Not long after I was called back on my own and told that my family one at a time could come back and see me in about an hour. I went back and changed into my gown, TED stockings, non-skid socks and signed the appropriate paper work. My IV was put in and they began to run fluids. The head anesthesiologist came back and we talked about pain control and previous surgeries. We discussed my options for my pain push pump although Dilaudid caused itching the last time it is stronger than Morphine so I chose to go the itchy route. Benadryl takes care of the itches any way. That all out of the way my family took turns coming to say hi. Dr S. came through around 10:40 to initial my leg. If he'd tried the other side he would have seen that he had previously been there due to my lovely scar :)

Not long after they came to wheel me away so my surgery actually started pretty close to on time. When I got into the OR there stood Dr S. and that's about all I remember. My surgery took less time this time around and so did recovery. I think I was in my hospital room around 6:30pm or so. Apparently while I was in surgery there was a fire alarm that went off for about 10 minutes. God knows what they if you are in surgery if there is a fire in the hospital but thank goodness we didn't have to find out the answer to that. Shortly there after they sent a harpist down into the waiting area to play for my family and the others. Who knows if that was to calm them but my mother of course said it made her think of cherubs and heaven perhaps not the best sentiment for people waiting for loved ones in surgery.

Some tips:
1. One of the things I did for my family before going into surgery was to make gift bags for each of them. 5 hours is a long time to wait so I filled them with things to help pass the time - books, games, chocolates, breath mints, and gift certificates for McDonald's the only restaurant in the hospital - a very strange option for a hospital. It's a nice thing to do for those who are waiting for you.

2. Ask for a room where your op leg faces the door it gives you more room to get in and out of bed. I have found that it is easier to get out of bed with you op leg first this is the way the first PT's taught me and I have found this time around it appears to still be the better way to do it.

3. Have someone stay the first night with you. Juli slept in my room the first night and set an alarm to tell me to push the pump every 10 minutes. It is awful if you get behind the pain. I would say the first 2 nights are really helpful. Juli ended up staying all 4 and it was great to have the company. She would then switch with my mom who did the day shift.

Oh and one of the first things I checked when I was in recovery was whether I had a numb patch or not - the good news - no numb patch. 2 legs numb patch free - well done Dr S!

Note: I chose to publish JC's comment to this post but I disagree. I would never tell anyone to have their family member push the pain pump. I pushed it each and every time - Juli however did remind me to do so throughout the night. Getting behind the pain is terrible. During my first surgery my pain got to an 7/8 on the first night this time I never got above a 3. There was no consideration for sleep that was made with my push pump system. I even had a conversation with the nurse about sleep and getting behind the pain. Do what is right for you. Talk to your pain specialist. I have to believe that things differ between hospitals.

My People

2010-12-28T12:38:00.006-05:00

December 14th - 3 days before surgery I had my pre-surgery appointment with Dr. S. My "fabulous" insurance company requires that we do all of my paperwork before I show up at Northside Hospital. Having gone through this before it takes all of 10 minutes followed by blood work so not a big deal. This is the appointment that I needed my referral paperwork for and by now you've all read the entry on how much fun that was.

This time instead of doing the appointment by myself I showed up with my people. When they called me through to see Dr S. I stood up and was followed by 3 more people as I walked through to his exam room - my mom, Todd and Juli (my fiancee). The nurse looked a little perplexed. They are mostly used to children and their parents not an adult and her entourage.

Schrader walked into the room with a big smile on his face because by now he knows we keep things interesting. Paper work complete and questions answered I headed down to do blood work. I was typed and cross checked and got my fancy red bracelet to link me to my donor blood. Juli and Carol did a direct donation to me which was a big help. It saved me doing it for myself which is quite draining prior to surgery.

All systems go!

Merry Merry Christmas to everyone

2010-12-25T19:38:00.003-05:00

I am now 9 days post surgery and doing great. Energy is still a little low so my apologies for not writing sooner and yes the holidays have kept us pretty busy too. I promise in the coming days to retell the events up until now. But I did want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday and please enjoy the snow. The first white Christmas in Atlanta history in over 100 years. How lucky we all are.

in record time...

2010-12-18T12:15:00.002-05:00

She made it through in record time. Well, she beat her old record of 7 hours in surgery, This time it was a mere 5 hr 23 mins - only only 2 hours in recovery, not 3 - but who's counting?

This first night was better than the last first night too. She slept comfortably and her pain level was much lower. I'll let her fill you in on the gory details when she is well enough, but for now our patient is holding steady.

~Juli

16.5 hours to go!

2010-12-16T18:32:00.004-05:00

Rather than talk about how out of sorts I feel, how my brain has been a sieve for the last month, I thought I'd tell you something funny.

Here's your multiple choice question for the evening.

Statement:
What lovely colored blood you have!

A. Bill Compton
B. Dexter Morgan
C. Northside Nurse
D. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Think hard now.
Isn't that just the funniest statement ever.
I guess my blood is well oxygenated but does it have legs :)

11am tomorrow morning I should be wheeled into surgery. Send me a positive thought or two.
L

I'm positive. O positive that is...

2010-12-15T19:58:00.002-05:00

Friday- surgery day - is almost here. All the prep has been done, lists are full of items crossed off... Holiday gifty bags for the nurses completed, pet sitter booked and blood stored. hunh? Yes, blood stored. Just some extra in case she needs some. Luckily two of us in the circle of friends share Lauren's blood type and were able to donate. I must admit though, I had a tough time with some of the questions...

Questions:
1) have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex?
2) have you ever had sex with anyone from Africa?

Uh, yeah, we are a committed, monogamous lesbian couple and she is from South Africa.

Wish her luck on Friday---

:)

Game On!

2010-12-13T14:23:00.005-05:00

With less than a week until my surgery a group of my friends, mom and partner went up to the North Georgia mountains for a girls weekend away. While we were there we put more than 5o gift bags together. These will be given out as Holiday "Stockings" to each nurse, tech and PT during my time in hospital. We thought it would be a great way to say thank you and of course make sure that they come when we call. There's is nothing worse than needing to pee or better yet pain meds and having to wait a half an hour. So my challenge to those of you with upcoming surgeries is to come up with your own super cool way to acknowledge and say thanks to the many people it will take to see you back to health after your surgery.

And of course don't forget your family and friends because they are there long after you leave the hospital. Their help and support are invaluable - remember to make sure they know how much you appreciate them too! Thank you ladies for helping to gather the goodies and put the bags together I know you will bring smiles to many hospital employees.

10 Days to Go

2010-12-07T17:15:00.001-05:00

Fuck!

Ignorance is Bliss. Or is it?

2010-11-15T21:51:00.007-05:00

On December 17th I will have my second and FINAL PAO. Thank god I don't have 4 legs because believe me 2 is more than enough in this case. Many of my hip sisters just said a resounding Amen. People have asked me whether it is better to know what is ahead versus not knowing. Is it any easier now versus before the first PAO. All I can say is that it is just different.

Before my first PAO my head ran rampant. It worried about every detail. I read every blog I could find. 3 years ago there were a lot fewer blogs to be found. By the time the surgery came around I think my family were ready to kill me. However I actually believe that I wasn't too far off base with what I thought would happen. The blogs I had read and women I had spoken to had all pretty much told the truth. The real variable is how ready you are to fight for daily improvement balanced with the ability to slow down and let your body heal at it's own pace.

So as I sit here waiting for PAO #2 I find myself thinking about all the things I shouldn't currently take for granted. It brings a new perspective before surgery that I didn't have the last time. After PAO #1 I realized how I took many things for granted. This time every time I step out of the shower, sit down on the toilet, walk up stairs, bend over to tie my shoe, get up off the couch, drive to work, workout on the elliptical, dance, carry my food to the table, roll over in bed or make love I find that little voice in my head saying enjoy every moment soon this will be what you're working hard to get back to. I know that I am sweating less of the small stuff with surgery #2. I know what to pack, I know the stages of recovery etc. but ultimately it doesn't shorten the recovery or lessen the pain. Either way it just sucks.

I still go back and forth every day on whether this is a good idea or not. Truth is I can't say no. I really can't imagine waiting for this surgery all over again. It's now or never. It has to be one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make in my life. I'd love to know what others think. Weigh in on your experiences. Drop me a note. Ciao!

The Health Insurance Hustle or Hassle

2010-11-11T22:35:00.004-05:00

Yip not a fun dance and I had forgotten how annoying it can be. So my insurance company (who's name I will keep undisclosed for the time being - I don't want to be denied) decided to no longer accept my primary physician in their network. The very reason why I signed up for their extended care package was so that I could see him but apparently they decided that doing it another way was better for them certainly not me. So why other than the 8 year relationship that I have with Dr R is this an issue because Dr S's office notified me that I need to get a referral letter from my primary before my pre-surgery appointment with Dr S. What is a girl to do?
I have no primary. I am biding my time until after surgery when I can hopefully change insurance companies and so now I have to find a doctor to write the piece of paper that allows me to meet with my surgeon for my already scheduled surgery. What a fantastic system this is, yay USA!

I call my insurance company and they tell me that I have to see a doctor and that the referral department can't help me over the phone. So I ask who they expect me to see seeing I have no primary and they tell me that I have been assigned a doctor 40 minutes from my house. Uh, no thank you. They find a doctor closer and get me in that very day. I head off for my 3pm appointment. Wait an hour, get carted off to have my vitals and weight measured and then wait another 20 for the doctor. I explain the situation to the nurse, again to the doctor and then after my entire hip saga he has the nerve to pat the examination table with his hand and say "hop up here so that I can check your hips." Excuse me - do I really have to do that? And he sheepishly says no, leaves the room and the nurse returns with my referral notice, very weird I must say. This means that I now need to visit the referral office to get a specific referral letter because all the doctor can decide on is a code that says orthopedic surgeon. Yay send me to whoever you like, uh no! So after people jumping ahead of me in line I eventually get to speak to the referral lady who asks for the name of the surgeon I want to be referred to and after looking and finding Dr S in the system she says, "Children's Orthopedics of Atlanta they'll take you?" with a have you been smoking crack look on her face. Yes mam they will because blah blah blah. 5 minutes later I am headed to my car with a referral letter to Dr S's office in hand. My only worry at this point is that the referral says I can only see him 6 times. I hope that covers the number of follow up appointments I will need post surgery. Here's hoping I don't need to see the creepy doc again.
Do the hustle!

Makes me go hmmm...

2010-11-05T18:30:00.002-04:00

In an email to a friend today I wrote the following:
My pain level varies daily and some days hourly. I've had pain in one leg or the other for over 3 1/2 years now and by the time I will have recovered from this next surgery I'll have lived with daily pain for well over 4 years. It is amazing how you can get used to pain. It almost becomes a friend that you miss on days when it doesn't speak to you. Juli asked me recently "what will I think about when I am no longer have to think about my hip or surgery?" Interesting question! I'm am not sure. Before I was diagnosed I didn't have a problem finding things to ponder so I'm sure I'll find something. But wow, it will be quite refreshing. I have found that I have lost some of my glass is half full attitude - my capacity is lower, I get frustrated easier but that could also come from running my own business for the last 8 years. It can wear on you. I do however wonder will I be a nicer person when I am not dealing with pain on a daily basis? I have tried hard to be cognizant of how I am treating those around me. I do try to not take my frustrations out on them. I hope they feel I've been reasonably well behaved. But then again Juli's never known me any other way and she managed to fall for me :)

So stay tuned for my answers. And talk amongst yourselves.

45 days and cold feet

2010-11-02T15:52:00.003-04:00

So I have 45 days to go! Two Dr. S patients that I know have both canceled their surgeries for different reasons but it leaves me questioning "What on earth are you thinking? Have you lost your mind?" And so I find myself on most days questioning the decision and must say my foot temperature varies from lukewarm to cold. The reason I haven't backed out is that the surgery is inevitably going to happen it's just a matter of how soon, so why not just get it out of the way?! So here I sit teetering but not wavering.

All systems go!

2010-10-08T17:54:00.003-04:00

I heard from Dr S. and we are good to go with LPAO.

There are no signs that the surgery shouldn't go well and there are no hidden problems. 70 days to go. 70, hell the last time I blogged it was 84 where have the last 2 weeks gone? At this rate the surgery will be upon me in no time. I guess the sooner the better. Get it over and done with and behind me. To my BFF crutches you will soon come out of storage and we will be reunited once more. Oh joy.

On another note I recently started re-reading my own blog. Not because I think I'm a fantastic writer but rather to remember how I felt 3 years ago. Memory is a funny thing you know. Well I came across one little nugget. I have to keep reminding myself of this and it helps me stay sane. I will leave it with you to ponder.

"I am lucky to even have PAO as an option"
Imagine the alternative.

Talk amongst yourselves.

MRI check

2010-09-24T13:22:00.006-04:00

The MRI went as smoothly as it could yesterday other than the very first hick up. When I first arrived at Radiology with my paperwork they greeted me and said "so you're here for an Arthrogram MRI" and in my head a whole bunch of expletives came gushing out. Thank god I stopped my mouth from saying them. Needless to say we tracked down Dr S via cellphone and he reiterated that I did not have to do the Arthrogram, hew!

It took about 40 minutes which was much quicker than the last time. That was a relief. The only negative of the experience is having to keep your legs in position. My feet tend to rotate outwards and they need you to keep them straight. So instead of taping my feet together - ow - the tech used a sandbag to help keep it up right. It still hurt - groin, thigh muscles and back spasms but really not that much worse than any normal day.

So now I wait to hear from Dr. S. It should be sometime next week. I have confidence that he'll give me the go ahead for surgery. Then we wait. I have 84 days left to go. Gym, gym, gym!

What I have come to realize from my awful mood the day before the MRI is that the second time around really isn't much easier than the first. I now know about the process which is helpful at times - certainly like yesterday when they wanted to do the Arthrogram - but overall it is the same emotional roller coaster. And this time I feel even less sure than the last time. The last time it was a case of make the pain go away and this time it is more a case of I don't want to think about my hips any more. The left hurts but not all the time and so when it is acting properly then I find myself questioning the decision. In a way this is harder because I keep swaying in my own head. However it is not in my personality to quit. It took me a long time to say "yes" to this and I am not going to let fear change my course. I know that ultimately a year from now when I look back I'll be thankful it is all behind me. And I will be overjoyed on the first day that I realize I haven't thought about my hips all day. Now that will be a day to celebrate!

Oh boy, oh boy

2010-09-22T12:35:00.002-04:00

Okay so I have decided to go ahead and do the surgery. My left is not as bad as where my right got to but why wait. Right now I am in pain every day. It does affect my life and those around me. I am sick of being my hip!
So right now I am penciled in for December 17th. Yip that close to Christmas but it makes a lot of sense for my family and work schedule. And what better Xmas gift than a shower - yes Dec 25th will be day 9. I will be having my MRI tomorrow and of course it has the final say in whether I am good to go or not. I am not worried about it. I don't feel like there is anything scary lurking in the joint because I would have felt it by now.

So the good news in all of this:
1. I have gotten my ass back into the gym and am now working out 5-6 times a week. Even after only 3 weeks I can see and feel a change.
2. Dr S. no longer needs an Arthrogram MRI so I don't have to worry about large needles tomorrow - yippeee!
3. Dr. S no longer requires Lovenox injections after. Instead he uses baby asprin to deal with blood clot prevention - another yippeee!
4. Well the fact that I will dance at my wedding in Oct 2011 and this will all be behind me.

Now if only we could get him to change his mind on the TEDs.
I'll keep you posted once I have heard the MRI results.
See ya!

Wow, it's been a while since my last post.

2010-08-31T18:21:00.003-04:00

So here's the latest update, for the few people who may still be following my blog.

I went to see Dr. Schrader on August 23rd because I have had a decent amount of pain several days out of each week for a while now. I've kept a pain journal since my last visit in March 2009 and can see that it is generally getting worse, especially around my period. I was sure the joint had changed since my last x-rays. The good news is that it hasn't. The joint still looks like a good surgical candidate. Due to this discovery Dr S. is no help with should I or shouldn't I do the surgery. He says that it is my decision and I know my body better than anyone. When I am ready just make the call to get the ball rolling. Wow, big decision!

Other good news is that he no longer requires an Arthrogram MRI, instead a regular one is good enough. That makes at least pre-surgery a lot more pleasant. He also doesn't use Lovenox injections post surgery anymore. He says Baby Aspirin works just fine. That's another plus. He explained that he has also changed how he places the screws to make it easier to get them out should I decide to do that at a later date. So what am I waiting for?!

Well for those of you who have been through it or watched me go through PAO the last time you know that it is no walk in the park. This is a pretty weighty decision. However I believe I am leaning towards doing it not only to hopefully take care of the pain but more importantly I want to stop being my hips. Before 29 I never thought of them, much like I don't think about my elbows often. When's the last time you thought about yours? I want to get past them ruling my life and I want to feel 32 and not 75 some days. I want to stop lying around with a bean bag on my left hip because that is the best way to dull the pain. I want to think about other things for a change. So for that reason I believe the answer is yes. I'm just not ready to pick up the phone just yet. I've already gotten my ass back in the gym though. It's time to get stronger again and shed some pounds. Upper body strength is such a huge help after PAO without it life can be tricky. I'll keep you posted.

Update 1 week before Uma's 2nd Bday

2009-11-01T00:32:00.002-04:00

I know it has been a while since I last wrote. In fact it has been a long while and in this case no news could be considered good news. So what has been happening with lefty?

In March I went to see Dr. Schrader pretty sure that I would be having surgery sometime before the end of the year. The pain had gotten to a point where it was consistently present each day to a level that made me think that I was starting to decline enough to seek advice. I had said to myself that if it did not subside in 4 weeks that I would go and visit Dr S. He took xrays and found that that my hip space looked good and that there were no apparent issues with my ability to have surgery. A MRI would of course tell him much more but he said not to consider going through one, more than 3 months from a surgery date i.e don't do it until you are sure. So I left his office feeling calmer knowing that I would yet again be in good hands when the time was right. It just so happened that a day or two later the pain subsided as if Dr S scared it away.

I decided to keep a pain journal so that I could track the course of my hip's cycles because lefty is taking a different course to Uma. This has been quite disconcerting because when Uma started to decline it pretty much was a steady downward slope. Lefty is more like a roller coaster with many ups and downs. There are times I just wish that it would make it's damn mind up one way or the other so that I could have some certainty as to what is ahead of me. It's frustrating and annoying sometimes. Not that I want to rush into surgery or have it at all for that matter. So back in March after seeing Dr S I started keeping a pain journal on my iPhone to keep track of daily pain levels, major differences, basically anything that would cause the pain to shift or change. What it has shown me is that my memory has a strange way of recalling pain, I would imagine that I am not the only one. When asked how I have been, my memory of the pain is not accurate. On the whole I remember having less pain for longer periods of time than what has actually happened. I highly recommend keeping a journal for yourself. For instance I have found that my period makes the pain worse a few days before, during and a few days after. Dislocating my toe on my right foot caused pain in my left hip because it had to compensate for my limp. And then more recently I have noted that I now have pain sometimes when standing on hard surfaces for a period of time and on only a few occasions pain or discomfort when walking. About a week ago my girlfriend commented that I was limping which is the first time that anyone has mentioned it. Strangely enough this happened in Costco the place where Uma first went pear shaped. I don't yet have the terrible night pain so I am getting sleep which is a wonderful thing. What the journal has done is allowed me to see when new symptoms have started and if they increase in occurrence because we tend to forget such things.

Lefty is still not at a point where I think surgery will happened soon but I won't even attempt to guess yet when it will happen. All I can say is that it is getting worse but I still have many good days and there is a cycle to things. I'll have 2-3 weeks of pain and then a 1-2 weeks of little pain. My notes on my pain level are a score out of 10. 10 being the level at which I believe I should be having surgery. So on average I range between a 3/10 and a 5/10. To date I have not gone higher than a 6/10. Truth is it's even hard to remember what a 2 feels like when you've had a 5 for a few days in a row. My mother told me that we are actually not able to remember pain and I think she may be right. I should research this further just out of interest. When I start getting into the 8 range I will reconsider and probably have the MRI. Everyone is different in how they feel things. This is the system that I have chosen for myself and it makes sense to me. I'm sure you'll figure out the best way to document it for yourself.

We have a trip planned to South Africa in March. I will not do anything before then. We'll see what happens after. April isn't a bad month to do it, this is merely speculation at this point, but any way spring makes sense because by the time I would be allowed to walk again the weather will be nice enough so that I can start swimming and building muscle strength. So this is all I can report for now. Life otherwise is good overall. I hope you're all well. Please feel free to reach out if you need to talk. Ciao for now.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-10T15:00:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to write a quick note to wish all my hip sisters a very Happy New Year. I have labeled this year 2000 Divine and I hope that it will turn out to be that way for all of you.

My RPAO is feeling fabulous and I can now say that it feels like nothing ever happened. Well except for my beautiful scar that reminds me each time I look down how very lucky I am.

Lefty for right now is just an irritant. At this point I am not considering surgery. When she decides to truly start declining then I'll be the first to document my second PAO journey. Currently I am enjoying being able to function well and with only mild discomfort some of the time. So my previous blog entry jumped to a conclusion a little too quickly. It is true that the week of my last post lefty was seriously bothering me and I did think it was the beginning of the decline. For some reason she changed her mind and for now has decided to pull her act together at least for the time being and I'm certainly not complaining about it.

So until there is any real news of worth to report, please understand that no news is good news. Happy 2009! Feel free to drop me a line if you have questions or just want to say hi. Ciao!

Happy Birthday Uma – she turns 1 today!!

2008-11-06T00:20:00.003-05:00

Obama’s victory will always overshadow Uma’s birthday yet the 2 will be tied together for the rest of my life. I can’t begin to express what a year it has been for me. Those of you who have gone through this surgery understand, and those caregivers, family members, mothers, fathers and husbands know too what a triumph standing, walking and regaining independence is. Today I sit thinking about how Obama’s win and the rebirth of our country should be my only memory of November 4th 2008. Yet the bittersweetness of the day resides in the fact that our country’s worldwide redemption will always be tied to the decent of my left hip. As I stood in the snake like line waiting to cast my vote my left leg truly spoke to me for the first time. I have known for a few months now that something was not right but wondered / hoped that it was still learning how to cope with Uma. Standing in line it spoke and said quite plainly “me too!” I still hope that it is merely my left dealing with the new found glory and re-structure of the right but deep down I am pretty sure that I am 6-12 months off being the next one under the knife. Let it be known Schrader that this time it will be done in 5 hours, 7 is not an option. Uma is a tough act to follow. She is now strong and doing well. So pull out the big saws doctor because Uma’s sister won’t go down without a fight.

My latest brainchild

2008-09-07T14:35:00.004-04:00

So just a short update for me today. My team and I have been working hard to bring my latest business idea to life, http://www.explore404.com. I think we're on the right track to a great site so keep checking back as we will go live in the coming weeks and will continue to add entertaining content.

As for the Uma, she is well. We will be stopping physio next week. I have gotten far and will continue to do exercises at home. The muscle still has some stregthening to do but both Mark, the physio, and I agree that I can take it from here. I feel stronger than ever, other than when the muscle catches on the newly grown HO (new bone). I actually forget about my hip for whole stretches of time now. Which makes me wonder can I now say that I HAD Hip Dysplasia in my right hip? Are you ever cured? My hip feels pretty darn close to normal these days almost like none of this ever happened. I guess you can't ask for more than that : )

The day is finally here

2008-08-12T19:28:00.005-04:00

So for months and months now Sarah and I have been hinting at something big that we have been working on. Well the day is finally here for us to share it with all of you. My only request is that you spread the news and add the link to your respective blogs.

I contacted Sarah last year to see if she was interested in co-authoring a wikipedia article on Hip Dysplasia. We all know how hard it has been to find information. Sarah said yes and we began. Over the following months we worked hard and I finished up my part over Christmas while I recovered from my PAO. In January we were ready to go and unfortunately I dropped the ball. Sarah waited patiently. I believe it was some time in March (Sarah don't hold me to this) when I learned the code needed to publish our article on wikipedia. We were up for 10 glorious minutes and then yanked down with no explanation. Needless to say we were both devastated but willing to work on finding out why and what to do in order to keep it up there. In the mean time, my mother, met the founder of the site How Stuff Works (they've just been bought by Discovery) and through discussion it became evident that they did not have an article on human adult or child hip dysplasia. And before you knew it How Stuff Works was working with Sarah and myself to get our article published on their site. The HSW editors tweaked our article quite a bit in order for it fit the style of their site but we are ecstatic none the less.

I want to thank How Stuff Works for working with us and helping to give us all a voice. Now ladies it is up to all of us to spread the word. Perhaps this will be a way to help one more hip sister find out needed information before it is too late and THR is her only option. So go team, get the word out!

And of course I have to thank Sarah for her patience and being my writing partner. It has been a long and wonderful journey of us meeting in various states but we finally made it. Yay us!

P.S Other than the FO and PAO x-rays we had nothing to do with the pictures chosen i.e the happy woman using millennium crutches was not our doing. In fact I believe the old fashioned crutches work best but that is a personal opinion. Not to mention that none of us looked that happy post surgery.

PT is worth all the pain

2008-08-03T21:14:00.002-04:00

I just got home from having drinks with Sam and it was fantastic to catch up and share stories. I walked away from tonight with 2 overwhelming thoughts. Firstly, I have met some truly amazing and courageous woman through this experience. You are all so beautiful in your strength and through your journeys. Thank you to each and every one of you for sharing your stories with each other and me. As Sam and I talked about tonight it is so clear that when you are first diagnosed there is so little information out there and when everything is so fresh and scary any helpful voice is welcomed. Second, our talk reminded me of how each of our journeys are so different. That no one way is more right than another. Even the muscles that Sam and my physio's are working on are different. We both agreed to share our exercises with you in the next few days/weeks, so stay tuned. However know that your body may need something completely different to get you back on track. At the end of the day you'll know what's right because if anything, this journey, this surgery has helped you get far more in touch with your own body than you probably ever were before.

So all of you amazing woman when and where are we going to get together and do this reunion? I'm even happy to do it in Atlanta because I can provide free accomodation to everyone. I don't care where or when but let's start planning. Someone throw out an idea and let's get this ball rolling. None of us are getting any younger, although our hips are ; ) I'm happy to coordinate this, just give me some ideas. I think we should do a weekend together and it could be in NYC (which seemed to be everyone's favorite idea when I brought this up last) or we could choose somewhere cheaper and rent a house. I think the location is less important than just getting us all together in one location. E-mail me phone numbers or e-mail addresses and we can arrange this quicker away from the blog. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Uma's one tough biaaatch!

2008-08-03T20:59:00.005-04:00

So I thought I would put my leg to the ultimate test and yet again Uma came through swinging. What did I do you might ask? Having thrown myself down a driveway and the various other activities ones gets up to on a day-to-day basis what now? Well I'll tell you. I stood on concrete floors, only sitting for 2 or 3 minutes at a time, for a total of 26 hours. Why on god's green earth would I do such a thing? To direct the short film linked below.

My team participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. In a nutshell you have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 5-8 minute short film. From 7pm Friday until 7pm Sunday you run your ass off with little to no sleep. The awards ceremony took place this last Monday and my team won best screenplay and best cinematography. Yay team! What was especially awesome was as I stood at the front of the theater as a team leader / director I was the only woman up there. Yippeee! We rock ladies. So I hope you enjoy the link below. What else should you know, oh, on Friday you pull your genre from a hat. This helps to keep the pre-planning to a minimum - we pulled Sci-Fi. And then every group is given a prop: frozen drink, line of dialogue: "What do you mean, we're out of it?" and a character: Sydney or Cinthia Vintia to work into their script. 45 groups competed, 35 got their's in on time. And this 48 Hour is now run in 69 countries. So all in all we had a lot of fun and will be sure to do it again next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXyzGn2GYaA

What do you think?

2008-07-24T17:37:00.005-04:00

Hip sisters, I think we need to go ahead and start designing our gear. Here is a suggestion from moi, also take a look at Sam's T-shirt design and of course feel free to add to ours or come up with your own. The one we all agree upon I think we need to have made so that when we finally get our bums into gear and manage to meet in one location we will all have something to wear.

I don't typically wear pink but for some reason it just felt right for this. Color is open to suggestion.

Life Explained!

2008-07-23T16:36:00.002-04:00

No news, isn't always good news

2008-07-22T12:11:00.004-04:00

So I went to my 10:30am appointment today. I arrived at 10:15, 15 minutes early for paperwork. There was no one at the window so finally one of the therapists sticks his head around the door at 10:35am, okay fine, I know I need to fill out paperwork so let's get started. He asks my name, then looks at the appointment book and can't find me. Eventually he finds my paperwork with my name, date and time of appointment. He hands me the clipboard and I get to filling out sheet after sheet of info. At 10:50am the director of the facility comes to tell me that they have a problem. Unfortunately the woman who runs the front desk went home sick and apparently although they made an appointment with me it was not put in the book so can I wait an hour and she can do my assessment herself during her lunch break. No I would rather reschedule than wait an hour. So I will go back on Friday at 9am with my filled out paperwork in hand and report back to you then. Hopefully the soar taste in my mouth will be gone. I think what annoyed me is she kept saying that this has never happened before in the time I've worked here. Well aren't I the lucky one then. This makes me feel so very special to your physiotherapy practice. I'm sure I'll be calmer by Friday. Just one of life's little irritations.

Oh and Cassie to answer your question about the "special project". Sarah and I should be announcing what it is really soon. There were some set backs and then some cool new twists and I believe that within a month we will be unveiling our master plan. So hold tight we'll be in touch soon.

8 1/2 month update

2008-07-21T19:22:00.003-04:00

Well tomorrow I go in for my first physio appointment. I know right, shouldn't that have happened ages ago? Well Dr. S believes that you don't need it and I'm sure with most of his patients it is not needed. I however am glad to be going even 5 months later than I would have liked.

I look forward to recounting the physio story to you all tomorrow because I am sure that I will have to explain DDH, PAO and HO. They said I will be there for an hour and a half. I'll let you know how much of that time was spent talking about the surgery. Sam suggested we create a T-shirt with a glossary on the back and our x-rays just to simplify the process. It certainly could never be as bad as explaining it several times a day in hospital while high on drugs and afraid that someone may attempt to move you the wrong way or heaven forbid get you to walk on the operated leg. So I am sure it should not be too big of a deal although likely to provide us all with a chuckle. So look out for more info tomorrow.

Ciao!

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T14:38:00.005-04:00

Happy 4th of July to everyone. I hope you are with friends and family enjoying the fabulous weather. Our motley crue are gathering and I believe this year out of the 14 people that will be here 12 are foreign. We will do the traditional BBQ with hamburgers and hotdogs but of course will add in a South African dessert, German potato salad and a Dutch Apple Pie. We'll drink New Zealand white wine and English punch. All in all it will be the UN's version of the 4th.

Yesterday I went to see Dr Schrader. I started to get really worried, okay let’s be honest and say totally freaked out about the HO and I needed to know if it was growing (which to me it definitely feels bigger) and then of course what if anything we can do about it. He didn't take x-rays. Dr S said that they do not really give a clear picture of what is going on. Instead I put on the lovely paper shorts and lay down while he moved my leg in various directions. So the verdict is that the pain and trouble with my knees and right ankle are probably not related to the HO. Instead the quad muscle has not strengthened the way it should. It could be due to it attaching in a slightly different place due to the HO or perhaps because I stopped doing the 2 exercises he gave me feeling that walking, cycling and the elliptical would do the trick. The HO has gotten bigger but is not impeding my range of motion enough to be worried in the slightest. So he has given me the go ahead to do some PT. I feel really good about that decision because with my other joints giving me trouble now's the time to do the work to get everything back in alignment.

So that's all good news for a change! Ladies we certainly know our bodies well and there is a time to worry and a time to let them heal. Either way though, if you're concerned a $30 co-pay is a small price to pay for peace of mind. So if the various pains and aches don't subside over time see your doctor. After all it's a service industry and you are the client. You need to be happy with the end product!

We are the guardians of our own humanity

2008-05-08T22:33:00.004-04:00

I am not a religious person but I feel blessed. Blessed with my disorder. Hip Dysplasia has forced me to wake up. It has made me face life head on. The greatest lesson I could have learned through all of this is that there are no guarantees. At 28 (when this all started) and now at 30, there are no guarantees that I will be able to live the active life that I have taken for granted. I have a reprieve. I have undergone a surgery that will give me a certain number of years of little to no pain. What I choose to do with those years is completely up to me. And how many I have is unknown. This journey of self-discovery has been a blessing. The women I have met along the way have been a blessing. You may find this macabre that I say this at my age but I am glad to have learned this lesson at 29. Many people find themselves dealing with health problems later in life and while I am fully aware and completely grateful that what I have is not terminal, I also know that Hip Dysplasia can be debilitating. I know that I may face many surgeries in my future. All for the sole reason of allowing me to walk further, longer and hopefully with less pain. These days every time I take a step that is not painful or every time I sit in a chair, turn over in bed, get out of the car, shave my own legs I no longer take any of this for granted. This is a gift. This has made me more aware. PAO has given me another chance. I do not intend to let this lesson go unlearned. I have already made changes. I will continue to do so. Any of us could walk out in front of a bus tomorrow, be told we have a brain tumor or hear that in the next 1-5 years you could have hip replacement surgery. How are you going to live the rest of your life?

Uma is a HO!

2008-05-06T19:41:00.003-04:00

I went for my 6 month post surgery check up today. More x-rays were taken and all is looking good. The screws haven't moved or broken and in many places you can't even see where the bone was cut. This is all great news and just what I expected to hear.

So why am I calling Uma a HO? Well because I asked Dr. S what this lump was in the bend of my hip and the x-ray confirmed that it was Heterotopic Ossification. That's the fancy name for saying that there is bone growing in tissue, fascia or muscle. In my case it is probably muscle. Apparently this happens more often with men but hey as Dr. S says and we all know from my surgery taking 2 hours longer, I have "stout" bones. His word not mine. So what does HO mean to me? It means some limitation in the range of motion in my right hip but I'd say that there is only a 10% - 20% difference. I use a range because my muscles are still strengthening and I am still stretching things so I can't be completely sure right now. Really in the scale of day to day activities I am not aware of it. So I am hoping that it does not continue to grow and that it is as big as it is going to get. The one tricky part of this is that the new bone is forming over the head of one of my screws. Which means that if it ever needs to be removed my surgeon or Dr. S is in for a treat. Let's hope that doesn't ever have to happen.

Heterotopic Ossification can mean more surgery for some people. I do not have any pain associated with it and as long as it doesn't get much bigger all should be okay. Surgery means removing the new bone and then having to do radiation and take medication to prevent it from growing back. It seems that if it has done it once it will probably do it again. I'm not signing up for that.

My left leg on the whole is doing good. My dysplasia on that side is so boarder line that who knows what will happen. I am feeling things on that side but it's too soon to tell. Of course Dr. S said that I was welcome to go and have a MRI. Wow, really, sign me up then. I just love arthrogram MRIs. So for now I am focusing on continuing to strengthen my right leg and well just living life. It certainly feels a lot better now that I am on the other side of surgery. I'd truly recommend PAO to anyone suffering from hip dysplasia who has decent cartilage to work with. That's all for today. Happy Tuesday to all.

Costa Rica

2008-04-28T20:21:00.013-04:00

Here's a little update on what I have been up to recently. So with 5 months of healing behind me it seemed like a great time to take a vacation. This time we decided to head out of the US and so off to Costa Rica we went for 10 wonderful days. My mother has been contemplating buying property so we took a look at some while we were there. It is a beautiful country with a stable political system, friendly people, gorgeous scenery and plenty of sun, food and fun. I must however say that the road system is awful. It is the first time since my surgery that I actually knew that I had pins in my hip. The potholes are unavoidable and after a few hours of hitting them well let's just say the stabbing sensation got old rather quickly. However I was told that the roads have improved a lot over the years. For instance what used to be a 6 hour drive from San Jose to Manuel Antonio (the second place we stayed) is now a 3 hour drive because of the new 2 lane "highway". At least it is paved and not sand. But as far as complaints go that is a small one. It didn't damper anything.
So we had some adventures, read some good books, got plenty of sun and down time. I returned to Atlanta ready to take on the world again. If anyone it thinking about where to go on their next vacation just look at the pictures and I think you'll see why Costa Rica is a good choice.

This is the view from the first house we stayed in. This is in an area in the North West of the country. The climate is more like California's - dry and hot. Not too shabby huh?!

The bay at Playa Flamingo. The closest little town to the house we were renting.

The second house we rented is located in Manuel Antonio's National Park . It is a jungle with many animals, bugs, monkeys and frogs. Much to my moms chagrin the frogs loved to use our swimming pool in the evenings for a little dip.

Booyahh Baby!!!
The rainy season starts at the end of April so in a few weeks this will be even more lush.

What a blessing guest services is!

2008-03-24T20:49:00.008-04:00

My 30th birthday (14th March) just came and went and what a birthday it was. My mother is amazing at doing truly meaningful surprises and she once more managed to very successfully pull this one off without me having a clue. In fact there were a good number of women who all managed to keep me in the dark for months. Mom said this was credit to me that my friends would do this but I really think it credit to how wonderful they are.
So let me start from the beginning. Well my beginning and the others can chirp in if they feel I've missed a crucial piece of the story. A lot happened over this birthday weekend and I am not going recount every minute of it but rather give you all of the highlights.
So a few months ago mom mentions that she would like to take me out of town for my 30th. Great. I'm game. So where are we going? It's a surprise. Okay I'm up for surprises. I guess just let me know what to pack and when to be where. Flash forward. She tells me that we will be gone from Thursday to Sunday and sends me a list of things to pack including bug spray, swimsuit, book etc. So when she asks do I have an idea of where we are going I respond "the beach". To which she says why would you think that just because I told you to pack a swimsuit doesn't have to mean warm weather you could be getting into a hot tub after skiing. Touché. Last piece of info I am given is to be ready to be picked up by the cab on Thursday morning at 7:45am. Wow that's early for both of us. But ok I say.
So 7:45am comes around and instead of a cab pulling up outside my house there is my mothers car. As I walk down the stairs with my bag I can see that she is not alone. When I get into the car there are Jenn and Mike (friends of the family). So okay I guess it's not just mom and I - cool. Long story short get to the airport and Mike drives off in the car so it's a girl’s weekend - great. So I don't get to see where we are going until my boarding pass is given to me while I wait in line for Starbucks - Fort Myers. What's down there? Well beach I imagine.
So get on the plane. Land, rental car, drive, arrive at hotel & spa, carry bags to condo and head off to stock up on wine and snacky things. We get back and Jenn needed to do an important call at 4 and it was 3:15pm so instead of going to the hotel bar we decide to open one of our bottles. Now what I forgot to say is that while at Publix choosing supplies I had mentioned cheese because well cheese and wine go well together. At which my mother points out to me that Jenn is on a diet getting ready for Mike's daughter's wedding in May. No worries cheese then. Until my mother asks Jenn if she would like salami to which Jenn says yes. I had to ask Jenn if she was serious that she would not eat cheese but she would eat salami. Isn't it about moderation, I ask.
Flash forward to 5pm or so. Someone knocks on the condo door. Now my mom and Jenn are smoking on the patio when they are not supposed to so I jump up and start hiding their contraband while my mother answers the door. So in walks Jason, waiter, with a large cheese platter and a bottle of wine. Followed by this beautiful 6ft red head who introduces herself as Shelby from guest services. Wow, what attention, right. Although something just doesn’t feel right to me. Shelby looks familiar but what do I know. More importantly Jenn has gone silent and my mother is acting really odd. I keep thinking that Shelby must have something to do with the spa section of the resort and I'm about to get an in room massage. My mother asks her to join us for a glass of wine. Strangely there are 4 glasses on the tray. Jason the man who brought the cheese platter to us does at some point look up and ask, “This is the Fonseca room isn’t it?” I am sure he was very perplexed by the behavior. Shelby says that would be lovely she was on her way home any way. And we head towards the patio at which point Shelby turns around and begins to crack up in laughter. She looks at me and asks if she looks familiar? Yes in fact you do. It was Sarah Court from NYC. Now Sarah and I have been talking on and off for ma while and working on our secret project together for months. My mother had contacted her back in January to see if she would fly from New York and join us. Sarah said yes and there she was.

So there was the next surprise.
What I had been told when we landed in Fort Myers was that another good friend of my mom's and mine, Shelley was supposed to be with us. She had been a part of all the planning with Jenn and mom. Then last minute work needed her to be in Hong Kong and poor Shells couldn't be there with us. So of course we had to call her now that Sarah was with us. Of course when I called Sarah back in February asking her to help deliver an $8,000 cake to a client of ours in Queens. She was totally up for the challenge but I am sure thinking that we are probably the strangest bloody family. Mother wanting her to fly to Florida and daughter wanting her to deliver cakes and balloons. Sarah kept saying we were her kind of strange. At least she was honest about us being strange.
So Friday we wake up and head to the spa at noon. We had a body scrub, massage and facial booked for 2pm courtesy of my fabulous mother. We used the swimming pool and steam room before then. This was my first massage post surgery and while there were a few moments when I was nervous it all felt great. My massage therapist was a man in a wheel chair and my god was he strong. My left hip (non-op side) was bruised for days. He worked the knots out though. So we walk back half in a coma to the condo around 4:30 and all talk about taking a nap but some how get talking and no one lies down. At 5:30 or so there is another knock on the door. I again go to hide Jenn and mom's cigarettes and my mother calls me to the door. This is strange she says. There are a pair of silver shoes at the door. I immediately knew who it was. Ines, my business partner and good friend but where was she hiding. Then she popped her head out of the stair well. I thought I'd left her in Atlanta to run our company while I was out of town. She had flown down with her laptop to keep things going but there she was at the door. Yet another fabulous surprise.

That night we had dinner on the hotel's boat and then wound up at the bar. Saturday we went exploring the beaches on Sanibel and Captiva. I got nicely burnt. In fact I am still peeling and I did put suntan lotion on but not very well. Sunday back to the spa for a few hours, lunch and back to the airport.
This was a fantastic surprise weekend. Thank you so much to everyone for pulling it off and taking time out of your busy schedules to be there. It means so very much to me. To my mother, god I love you. You are so very thoughtful and caring. What a great idea it was to bring us all together. Shelley and Nico, I am sorry you couldn't be with us but we found out this weekend away that it is really a short flight to Florida and we should be doing girls weekends away more often so hopefully you can join us the next time. Ines how fantastic you are to juggle so many balls. And Shelby you are a blessing. The truth is that the hotel knew all about these 2 brave hip dysplasia girls who had never met before this weekend. One lady who had helped my mom with a lot of the details called us a blessing, we were so brave she said. In return Sarah and I did synchronized limping just to make sure she didn't think we were frauds. Seeing we are both pretty active and up right. Sarah more so than me but never the less I think synchronized limping should be an event especially if synchronized swimming is. To one and all many, many thanks and much, much love.

My apologies

2008-03-13T11:23:00.002-04:00

FO's are absolutely invited and they are by no means lowley. So if you have a scar on either/ both hips and metal in you then you qualify. So my PAO and FO sisters you're all invited. It seems like New York is the destination most commented on. Are there any other desired destinations that anyone would to put forward?
I'll be back in touch soon, once I return to Atlanta from my 30th birthday surprise weekend. I am so happy to be walking crutch free the day before my birthday. This time last year I had just been diagnosed. What a difference a year makes : )

PAO Party Time

2008-03-06T19:49:00.002-05:00

I think we need to do a PAO get together. Get the whole group of PAO bloggers together at some fun location and have one hell of a party to celebrate our strength and how far we have all come. It's about time we all met. I guess we need to either chose an exotic location or the best midway point for all of us. Suggestions ladies? Miami, NYC, Las Vegas, thoughts? I would think towards the end of summer would have most of you in decent shape to travel. Time to chime in. L

The 2nd Snap aka 8 week increments

2008-03-05T13:36:00.007-05:00

My mom has brought up the fact that falling yesterday was my next "snap". If you remember back to a posting I made months ago about the 3rd day after surgery and leg cramps driving me nuts followed by a rubber band snapping in my leg sensation followed by relief then yesterday's embarrassment would be the next "snap" event. I also found through speaking to other women and researching that major progress seems to happen every 8 weeks. And well yesterday would have been the 16 week mark for me. I can't tell you why I would be so literal as to do something exactly on the anniversary but that must be the over achiever in me.

So falling could explain the magical recovery from limping although I have really f#@ked up my left knee. It's kinda nice though, in a masochistic sort of way, to feel pain in another part of my body for a change. To no longer focus on my hip but rather how frigging sore and stiff my knee is today. It's lovely.

But the real good news in all of this is that for the first time today I can honestly say that the surgery has WORKED. I stood on the concrete floors at a meeting space today for 2 hours and 17 weeks ago I would have been in pain after about 15 minutes. I stood there at one point today and really focused on my hip. There was zero and I mean ZERO pain. My feet hurt, but that's due to the concrete and most normal people would feel that but my hip was absolutely fine. In fact my left one had more sensation in it than my right. Not to say that lefty was angry with me but there was something whispering hello. Uma however stood tall and proud and gave the concrete floors the finger.

Well don't get too confident

2008-03-04T21:29:00.004-05:00

Well I thought I had made my posting for today. Hell it had been more than a week since the last one but this had to be written about. I remember when I was in hospital I had asked Dr. S about how careful I had to be i.e. how delicate am I? His response, while he didn't recommend this, I could fall out of bed and not break a pin or knock things out of place.

So tonight I put that to the test, mind you I am now at 4 months post surgery. I thought giving it some time and working out the best way to test this was worth the wait. So what did I do. I threw myself down the gravel driveway. Well not so much as threw but fell and slid down the small slope. I think I had gotten to confident with the whole walking thing. For the last 16 weeks I have been careful as to where I put my foot down, how hard etc. I have been conscious of almost every step. So with feeling like I was getting really close to normal I guess I walked far to assuredly down the driveway to take the trash out. I stood on a large rock and my right ankle rolled. I tried to regain my balance and before I knew it I was down. I grazed both my palms, skinned both my knees, twisted my ankle and even managed to take a little skin off of my stomach right over my scar. I guess I at least thought quickly enough to let my left knee (the good side) take the brunt of it. It certainly is letting me know that right now.

Strangely though the whole experience has helped me stop limping even more. I think the rest of me hurts more than my hip so I don't focus on it and therefore walking just happens. I don't recommend this as the way to stop limping. I can tell you that at the 4 month mark your hip is healed and throwing yourself on the ground as if sliding into home base is safe for your hip but perhaps not the rest of you. Needless to say a little alcohol and some Advil and well tomorrow I think I'll really feel what I did to myself.

Look mommy no hands

2008-03-04T13:09:00.003-05:00

So for this weeks update I can officially tell you that I am no longer using a crutch or any walking assistive device other than for really long distances. I do still have a limp. But yesterday for the first time I found myself walking without a limp. It's rare and depends on how stiff I am after sitting for a while but as Molly and I walked to the car I had this stretch of hallway with no limp and it felt good. I felt normal for a few minutes. Yes mother I can hear your comment on that one!

I think I stopped using it completely about a week ago. My leg keeps getting stronger. There is still pain and the odd twinge. Lifting it to 90 degrees when standing is odd. It feels like it is catching but there is still improvement overall. Sleeping on my stomach feels great and pretty normal. Lying on the operated side is still tender and feels strange. I really can't explain it, other than to say if feels more rigid and thicker. I feel like I am lying higher off of the bed than on the other side which of course makes no sense but that's what it feels like. I am doing stairs with no trouble. Most activities are fine. I haven't tried running yet. I will have to put that on the list of things to report back on. If I go by Sarah's experience I'd say I've got some time before that is an option. Well I wish you all a happy Tuesday. Ciao!

How time flies when ...

2008-02-21T13:29:00.002-05:00

Well I'm not sure if you'd call it having fun but what a difference a year makes. Today, Feb 21st, a year ago I experienced my first symptoms. It was the first time I felt the real extent of the pain. In less than 9 months from that day I had surgery on my right leg for hip dysplasia. I am now 15 weeks post surgery.

"Was it the right decision?" you may ask. To be honest at this point I am not sure. I still have pain, of course now it is due to the surgery, but I am still waiting for my first pain free day. It hasn't happened yet. It has been an entire year of varying amounts of pain. I hope to report soon that it is finally over or at the least that I have a reprieve before my left leg chimes in. I still have hope. Deep down I do believe that there will be an end and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope that it's not blind faith.

The recovery process has slowed to a trickle. I continue my exercises and my leg is getting stronger just slowly. I am still using a crutch because of this very odd pain that I have in my groin area. I am pretty sure it is muscle but it feels like the groin pain I used to have has rotated 60 degrees backwards - odd I know. It's stabbing pain not a dull ache like muscle. It feels better if I keep off of my feet for good periods of time. I am sure this too shall pass.

So here I stand a year later. I absolutely feel 100% like I made the right decision as far as surgery goes but at this moment I do not 100% physically feel that way. So Happy "Today My Life Changed Forever" Anniversary to me. The next date that is really worth celebrating will be November 6th, the day that Uma was born, version 2.0 of righty.

Strange Looks

2008-02-11T10:52:00.000-05:00

My apologies for not writing more often but really life has gotten quite boring on the PAO front. My muscle strength is slowly increasing, as is my flexibility. Generally it feels as if recovery has slowed down. I am now in the slow slog of gaining my leg strength back and hopefully with that comes the end of pain. I am easily getting around and driving but really there is not much to report. I realize that there are some readers who check back here from time to time and it is not my desire to disappoint with not having any new posts. However I think we have hit that point where the posts will not be as frequent and in a way that is a good thing. It means that I am on the mend and figure that no news is good news.

I am now at 14 weeks and I went to the gym this morning before work for the first time. Let's just say that walking into LA Fitness on a crutch makes people do a double take. I got the "what is she doing here?" looks as well as the "poor thing, what a trooper looks". I had to laugh to myself. I quite like the attention. I figure it's the least I could get out of the surgery is the interactions with various strangers.

I cycled for 15 minutes (2.6 miles) and then did the arm weight machines. Cycling felt odd at first. My leg certainly needed to stretch out a little and get used to a new position. So it took a few minutes for the motion to feel more fluid. Then once it felt more fluid I then noticed a catching in the joint. It kept up for a few minutes. There was no pain involved just a deep in the joint feeling. I'm going to assume that all of this is the new joint working itself out. Things are moving and getting used to their new position or new neighbor. We'll see if it keeps up. My quad muscle felt fine. In fact it was not tired when I stopped. I just wanted to get a sense of what the rest of my day is like after x amount of activity.

There is a strange deep pain in my ass. I get it from time to time and usually after walking for a while. It is unlike anything I have felt before starting to walk again. It almost feels like the groin pain that I had has rotated backwards. Who knows what that's about. I then worked on my arms and I was happy to find that because of being on crutches for months that my arms have not lost any strength. All the activity feels great after being sedentary for so long. Now felt like the right time to begin again. I will not add leg machines in for a while I don't need to tear a muscle or cause damage. I will try the Elliptical soon and report back. I think the bicycle is great for getting range of motion back. I was on one that cycles in front of you (if you know which one I mean) not the traditional bike motion.

So there you have it. That was my morning. To those of you who have had or about to have surgery know that you do get through it and on the other end you will be walking again with less pain. I walked around the mall this weekend furniture shopping and I did great. So there is light at the end of the tunnel even if it feels far away it's there!

Day 92 / 13 weeks

2008-02-05T19:18:00.000-05:00

I saw Dr. Schrader today and got the go ahead to do whatever I like. In other words you can go go back to being normal or "as close to normal as you are "able" too" is what my mother said. So I can now drive, exercise and focus on strengthening my muscles, as well as officially work on leaving the crutch or cane behind. I used the cane yesterday for the first time at the office and was really sore by the end of the day. My muscles knew that had been used and abused. Now don't get me wrong I have left my crutch and gone walking out the room. This usually had a friend or family member yelling for me after me to use it. But now it is official that really work on no longer having to use it. I think however that it will be a gradual process of using it less and less. Like today for instance, I walked around the office mostly without it but now I am really really sore. It's the kind of sore that stops when you sit down though.

Dr. S gave me some exercises to do every day and said that cycling, Elliptical, swimming and so forth were great options. I have to do my exercises every day - 50 reps and then add in ankle weights when those became easy. At that point starting to do the weight machines at the gym is allowed. I will see him again in 3 months. My x-rays look good. There are still some areas that are filling in. The ossification has not gotten any worse and the bone spur hasn't been incorporated into the pelvis but he doesn't seem too worried about that.

So here are my before and after x-rays.
Before:
As you can see in the before picture, there is a 16 degree coverage on my left side and that is why it is borderline dysplastic. While on my right side I had a 0 degree coverage and needed surgery.

After:
On the after picture you can see how my right leg now has better coverage than my left leg. It is hard to see the after with great detail because I don't think I took the best picture and also the milkiness over the top of the PAO section is the ossification that I was talking about. It is bone growing in soft tissue. It can happen after trauma such as surgery . It doesn't seem to be affecting my movement but we'll keep a check on it.

In this one I have marked where the bone was cut in 3 places. And pointed out my 3 long screws, 1 short screw and where a bone graft was done to fill in the gap left behind from rotating the bone into it's new position.

I hope this is more informative than scary. The more you look at x-rays of this surgery the less scary it feels. I hope to put clearer pictures up in the future.

To Sam and Rachel

2008-02-04T19:47:00.001-05:00

I met today with 2 of my dysplastic sisters, well in the hip sense not by blood, Sam and Rachel. Sam, for those of you who are not reading her blog (http://tragicallyhip-sam.blogspot.com) is due to have PAO surgery on Thursday in Boston with Dr. Murphy. She lives here in Atlanta but will fly on Wednesday to Boston and at 11am on Thursday will have surgery to correct her right dysplastic hip. Sam just found out this morning that she will also have a FO at the same time. I hope that all of you will send your thoughts to Sam on Thursday (7th Feb) at 11am EST. I know she will do fabulously - she is a strong woman but of course as we all were before our surgeries she is nervous and just wanting for it to be Friday already. I know that she plans on keeping her blog up to date so you all will be able to follow her story, morphine and all.

Rachel has just been given a positive diagnosis that the treatment she had as a baby did not fix her dysplasia and she may now be facing a left PAO. She faces the wait as she has her CT Scan and Arthrogram MRI done to see what shape her cartilage is in. Rachel if she is eligible for PAO will most likely be using Dr. S for her surgery. She does not yet have a blog but we'll see if she joins us in writing her thoughts and experiences down for the rest of the community. More than anything writing is therapeutic. I highly recommend it to anyone going through the process of diagnosis, surgery and recovery. I wish Rachel the best of luck with her tests and hope that PAO is in fact a possibility for her.

Finally one last update from my side. I drove around the block last week Tuesday which would be 12 weeks post surgery. It went well and there was never a second where anyone on the road would have to worry about their safety. I haven't driven since then. I just needed to know I could do it. I see Dr. S tomorrow and hopefully he will give me the go ahead to drive and operate heavy machinery. I'll let you know how things go.

How quickly I have gotten so far

2008-01-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

Day 82

Well Tuesday will be 12 weeks post surgery and this is where I am:

- All hip assist devices have been removed from the house (shower chair, toilet riser, hip kit, step stool etc)
- I shower standing up
- I can put my pants on standing
- I can shave my legs in the shower without putting the razor on a stick or sitting down
- I can sit on all types of chairs at all kinds of heights
- I can put on my own shoes and socks i.e. my leg is beginning to bend pretty well
- I have walked plenty of stores, up and down office stairs and around our neighborhood
- I can sleep on my non-op side and on my stomach
- I can wear jeans again
- I can walk with one crutch as quickly as anyone on 2 regular legs
- I have been known to walk around the house with no crutch or cane
- I am back at working 5 days a week, 3 at the office and 2 from home

So what is left:
- To continue to strengthen my leg
- To continue to work on flexibility
- And the biggest of the bunch - to drive when my leg is strong enough - I feel like that is at most a few weeks away and is really the final step in gaining back all of my independence

To all of you who have had your surgery after mine or are still to have yours remember that you can do this and when you look back the time seems to have gone faster than you ever would have expected. Learning to walk again is quick. And before you know it you will be back or close to back to a normal life again. I can't believe after all that I have put my body through that at 11 weeks past surgery I started to cheat and would walk short distances with out my crutch. And by 12 weeks I want to leave it behind more and more. So hang in there. You too will be amazed.

My crutch has become a crutch

2008-01-15T11:06:00.001-05:00

My apologies for the lack of communication, my dear friends, but time flies when you set personal project deadlines for yourself and then return to work. Work has been busy and we have kept our noses to the grind stone often not leaving until 8 or 9pm. It's easy though when you love what you do and who you do it with. Wow, that sounds a little dirty but it's not.

I am handling the stairs like a pro and walking longer distances pretty easily. Muscle fatigue is still happening and I know it will for a good few months. If I sit too long I get stiff but please in the scale of things stiff is a blessing. I am not ready (or really allowed) to let go of the crutch but it is so becoming a pain in my ass. I could get up stairs quicker without it of course then I'd be stuck at the top without it. I would also be able to carry things a lot easier if I didn't have it. Listen to me whinge again. I should be happy that I have one hand free instead of when I had to use 2 crutches and had no hands free. Although I did work out how to use my armpit to move one crutch so that I could free a hand. I would have to demonstrate for you to really get the right mental picture - funny but it did the trick. So I haven't been to the gym yet and I feel really bad for not having gone yet. I am walking and doing some lifting exercises at home so I feel like I am doing part of the job. But I could be doing better. I'll get there.

I hit my deadline of last Friday for submitting my documentary, "Movement without Limitations", to the Atlanta Film Festival and 2 others - more festival entries to follow.

Here's the synopsis:
Alex Spitzer was born disabled with a muscle and joint disorder that left his arms and legs with little movement. Yet, Alex never allowed his limitations to limit his dream. A dream that to the outside world would, at first, seem unachievable. Through tenacity, creativity and determination Alex became a professional dancer and the first and only disabled dancer to graduate with a 4-year bachelors degree in dance. Alex’s courage and will has touched and inspired audiences, dancers, family and friends. This is the story of how Alex Spitzer achieved movement without limitations.

So that is part of the reason why I have not blogged in a while. I worked on business stuff during the day and then edited during the night last week. Keep your fingers crossed and I'll let you know if I get accepted to anything. If I get accepted I'll put a trailer up here for you all to see. But first I have some things I need to do with it before mass exhibiting it - such as sending it to more festivals, TV shows/channels and then viral. Oh yeah and cutting a trailer.

On my other personal project, Sarah and I are very close to revealing what it is. So hopefully by early February we can disclose what we have been up to. So there's the update. Oh, one last thing; a recent PAO accomplishment, I showered standing up and it was wonderful. Also people don't care as much when you are on one crutch. In fact they look at you like you're just in their way. So when I do get my ass to the gym I will have to go on 2 crutches to really get the desired effect. Hey, a girl's gotta have a dream!

Back to the Coal Mine

2008-01-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

Day 60

Friday was my first day back in the office. I have been doing some work from home but this is my first day in 2 months that I set foot inside my office. I had wanted to wait until I could do stairs without fear of dying. Now while you get better with practice with doing stairs on crutches I never got over the fear of falling. So it was lovely to actually walk down the stairs at the office on two feet.

Nico picked me up at 11am because her SUV could fit my office chair in it. When I found out about my hips I invested in a Herman Miller Chair in the hope that sitting in a better chair would help my comfort at the office. So that came to the house from the office for me to work at the dinning room table and of course it then had to go back. We took some new camera equipment I had ordered and my chair and headed off. I loved being around people again, well you know, my team. We ordered pizza's from a local place across the road and has lunch together. Seeing it was the 4th of January we talked a lot about this year and what Ines and I envision for it and how we intend on growing the company. So we did a bit of a 2000Great rah rah speech. By the time 6pm came around I was certainly tired and sore. My calf muscle felt like it had done 300 leg raises, never mind how my quads felt.

All in all I would say it was a good first day. They held the ship together very well other than the fact that no one seems to remember what the passwords are to get onto the server. The new server that needs to be set up and, of course, Ines has delegated this enviable task to me. I seem to be the more technical of the two of us. Mind you no one, not even Chance my editor, thought to write any of this information down. So right now until our computer guy calls me on Monday we have very expensive metal boxes sitting on our shelves in the storage closet.

By dinner I was dead tired and almost fell asleep on the couch while we watched a movie. I have managed over the last 2 months to completely mess up my schedule and so I usually have been going to bed around 2 or 3. Last night I was in bed and asleep at midnight. It was one of those nights where I woke up every few hours and had to adjust my body. At least I can now roll, well flip onto my side, and while initially the muscle is sore due to gravity (my best guess), it doesn't take long now for it to settle down and be relatively pain free. Tonight I may try getting onto my stomach again. I think it is time. So walking takes it out of you. I feel like the first few weeks after surgery where a nap in the afternoon was a welcomed gift. We'll see how today goes with the overall fatigue level because I want to go to the gym on Sunday.

2000 Great

2008-01-04T01:26:00.000-05:00

So Happy New Year to one and all.
I had my appointment today with Dr. S and I have been cleared for weight bearing. What does that mean,you ask? Well I can now work on walking with one crutch while placing 100% of my weight on my right leg. I can swim, cycle, do the Elypitcal and walk Molly. I have another appointment 4 weeks from now. My x-ray showed healing and no bent pins. It did however show a strange bone fragment that Dr. S would be grouped in with the rest. Which I guess means that my other bone will some how join it in with the rest of the growth and recovery in that region. I also have some ossification that Dr. S said is rare but due to my bone strength is apparently happening and as long as it does not impede movement will not be a problem. Bone ossification happens when bone grows in soft tissue. That means that there is confused bone cells growing in my muscle. The hope is that at some point it will stop, not detract from movement and will not need to be dealt with surgically. Right now Dr. S is not worried about any of that. But then again as Nina said today. Dr. S could call a "Code Blue" and still remain completely calm. So with regards to ossification we will watch it with each x-ray and it should not be a problem.

I started walking with one crutch this evening. I can tell you that stairs are already a lot easier on one leg. My leg, however, feels like when you first stand up and realize that your leg is numb and unable to calculate how much pressure it can take. So the next time you wake up with a numb leg or get off the couch with one, think about me. It seems that learning to walk and regaining the first phases of leg strength should not take long. And well then we will see about the rest and if Dr. S will let me do PT. But tonight I walked with one crutch and that is a big "step" forward - excuse the pun.

I hope that the other positive side to all of this is my pain at night. In the middle of the night I wake up several times. This is usually caused by stiff muscles in my op-leg, painful when trying to adjust them or sore muscles from rotating out too far. I find that I constantly have to find the right pillow setup to not only try and keep my leg as flat as possible but also prevent it from rotating too much to the outside. There is one muscle in particular that causes me the most pain at night and I hope with walking and exercise, that over the next few weeks it will cease to be a problem. The last 3 weeks have brought with them memories of many stilted nights of sleep due to pain. I hope that this lasts for far less time than before surgery.

But pain and stilted nights of sleep aside, the truly good news from today is that I can start to learn how to walk again. A task I think we took for granted but one that hopefully is similar to riding a bike. I'll keep you up to date with how things progress. What muscle fatigue is like and how my first day back at the office, tomorrow, goes.

Happy New Year. Have a wonderful, 2000 and great.

"Normal" for a change

2007-12-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

Day 52

My good friend Nico picked me up this evening and we went out for a glass or two of wine and some great appetizers. This is not to say that I have not been out or left the house before now. In fact earlier in the day I was at the store buying a few things with Nina. I can now crutch with the best of them. But in order to get ready for Nico's arrival I realized how far I have come. I showered myself and dressed myself, which includes socks and shoes. I can bend over far enough to put both on unassisted. Tonight I wore pants for the first time. Now they weren't jeans because those still feel a little tight but still I wore pants that did not have an elastic band. Never mind what I was finally able to wear under, now don't blush dear reader, UberUma cooperated with me this evening. She is finally diminishing in size. So I crutched out of the house, down the stairs and got into Nico's SUV. No problems! We got to our destination and I got myself easily to the restaurant/bar and sat in a lower than usual seat. As we sat talking I noticed and later commented on how "normal" I felt. My legs we crossed at the ankle, a position I haven't easily been in for many weeks, wearing pants I haven't worn for months with no pain and feeling like the me from 2006. The me from before any of this happened. I can't really explain what that is like, it's hard unless you've been there in one way or another but WOW. To actually find yourself in a place where you are not thinking about your hip to then find yourself thinking about the fact that you are not thinking about your hip. Well hopefully that makes sense. I then crutched to another place around the corner so we could say "hi" to a friend of Nico's. Then back to the car and up the stairs at my house. So even though earlier in the day I was dead tired from being at the store and then my leg was not happy with me and I felt achy all over. This is how my day ended. Oh, the little things.

P.S. I also finally got to meet Nico's father and his partner Michelle at the restaurant tonight. They are in town ot spend the holidays with Nico and her brother. They joined us for a glass of wine. I have known Nico since 2003 and this is the first time we have met. Yet through Nico we have both heard a lot about the other. It was lovely to meet you sir.

Poor Kitty

2007-12-26T23:38:00.000-05:00

Day 51

Happy Boxing Day everyone! This posting is not about me. Instead, I wanted to share a picture of our poor kitty Bob who just came home from the vet. He went in to have his teeth cleaned and a bump removed from his nose. Now usually Bob is an active, talkative chap but tonight he is rather p'od at his parents. You see we know him too well to leave him unsupervised to scratch at his stitches. Hence the lovely Elizabethan collar that he now has to wear for the next 13 days. So for those of you, who may be feeling sorry for yourselves, just think at least when we (and I do include myself in this statement because lord knows I've had a moment or two of feeling sorry for myself) woke up from surgery we didn't have one of these on. Keep smiling!

Random Store Conversations

2007-12-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

Day 48

I must say that I am really enjoying the conversations that I find myself having with older people in various stores around Atlanta. Today, Nina and I went to Publix Supermarket to stock up on food for the holidays. Nina asked me as we walked into the store if I wanted to use the scooter we saw at the entrance. I decided against it because I thought I needed the exercise. I guess I may be a bit of a masochist but really it's because I love how strong and muscular my arms have gotten. It's my silver lining seeing my right leg has lost all muscle tone. So as I was standing next to the cart while Nina was getting us some chicken tenders for lunch - I promise we bought plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit too - an older gentleman came up to the cooler next to me on the store scooter I saw at the entrance. He smiled at me on my crutches and of course I smiled back. At which point he asked me if I had any titanium in me. I was slightly astonished. I don't remember there being a sign on my head. I answered that I had titanium screws in my hip. He then told me that he had had both hips replaced and that he could walk but the scooter was quicker. I told him I had done my surgery to avoid THR for as long as possible. He wished me the best of luck and said that he was glad he'd done both hips at the same time because otherwise he would not have gone back for the other one. We wished each other a Merry Christmas and headed off our separate ways. I guess he asked that question because I was on crutches and had no visible casts / bandages or maybe he has become that much more perceptive about other people's hips after going through surgery himself. Whatever the reasoning it was just an interesting, random conversation in a store and those seem to be happening a lot lately. I have to say this whole surgery experience has made me so much more aware of how people react to me, how I treat others, what the elderly and handicapped have to go through on a daily basis just to get through their day. Again these are all reasons why I am happy to have gone through this surgery. I feel like my eyes are a little more open to the world around me.
Merry Christmas to all of you who read this blog. I wish you all a wonderful day with your friends and family.

My 8 inch Scar

2007-12-20T18:03:00.000-05:00

Day 45

Well let's see, it is time for an update. Yesterday I moved back to my house. It has taken some getting used to, mainly because things are not where I need them so doing things is taking longer. Other than that it is feeling much like it did before my surgery and I am certainly happy to be back with Molly the pup. Last night we had our company dinner. It is the first time I have gone out for a meal since surgery. I must say I felt ready. Crutching around Atlantic Station was easy and I felt strong. Sitting in a lower chair with no arms was not a problem and it was great to see people again.

I slept badly last night. We went to bed late (somewhere around 2am) but I was awake at 5:30 and again at 8. My leg the last few nights gets really sore and getting up and moving it is about the only thing that helps. It has to be the muscles. I guess I have to stretch them even more than I am right now. The stiffness is now painful rather than just annoying. I am also having a lot of lower back pain. I had about 5 weeks with very little and now my old friend is back. Oh well I guess it's part of the healing process, at least I hope that's all it is.

My next appointment to see Dr. S is scheduled for January 3rd. This hopefully will be when I get the go ahead to put weight on my leg. I have to be honest that there have been a few instances now where I have put various amounts of weight on UberUma in order to stop myself from falling. My joint seems to be fine the only pain I feel is in the muscle and that is usually due to the quick jolt I feel as I stop myself from falling. I can't imagine what it will feel like to out real weight on it. I guess I'll know in 14 days.

Okay, so I thought it was time to share some pictures of my scar. It is 8 inches long and I have put 3 pictures together to show it's healing progress over time. I don't think it looks bad at all but then it is part of me now and I'm proud of my scar. They will also look a little different because they were taken at different angles, either sitting or standing. So if one section seems longer in one picture than the in another that probably isn't entirely true. Oh yes and swelling has been going down so that affects things too. Well here it is. You be the judge.

Lift Your Leg, Lift Your Leg

2007-12-12T13:34:00.000-05:00

Day 37

I was e-mailing with a friend of mine, Sarah, yesterday and she reminded me of the scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman is trying to convince her toe to wiggle. Now of course post surgery you can wiggle your toe but you will find there comes a time when you decide to work on lifting your leg. This is why I have decided to rename my op leg, UberUma. Thanks Sarah for the thought spark. At times it feels like an episode of Star Trek. Captain Kirk tells the crew to get ready and then yells, "Engage muscles now!” And Scotty calls up from the engine room, "Captain she's not going to hold for much longer. Be careful, she may blow." The leg doesn't always cooperate. It takes a huge amount of concentration but just as Uma triumphs so does UberUma. I apologize for my mixed movie metaphors but that's how my head works.

On another note, I am feeling much better mentally. It was just a lull and well to be honest, the anesthetic messed with my womanhood. I started my period yesterday - one week late and I feel a whole lot better. My energy is starting to come back and I have a feeling that in a few days I may feel less achy. Never mind the fact that my hormones are under control again. This is not to say that I don't think there will be highs and lows through this recovery process but now I recognize that the low doesn't last for long.

Oh, yes and my new trick is stairs.

Enjoy the following video clip. It is the Kill Bill scene Sarah e-mailed me about. It is not PG so you have been warned. I did however edit out the front half, which is the most violent piece of the scene. There are a few naughty words used in this clip so parental discretion may be considered for some.

To Danielle

2007-12-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

Danielle, thank you for the message. Feel free to ask Dr. S. for my cell phone number if you would like to call and ask any questions or just talk. You will be just fine. I actually think that the waiting is the hardest part. Once you are on the other side of the surgery then you focus on recovering. There no longer is a date out there that you are dreading. And while this is not the way you imagined your senior year just keep in mind that you are doing this for a future of healthy active hips that will no longer slow your life down. Good luck. You are in great hands with Dr. Schrader. He is a fantastic surgeon and human being.

Feeling Stagnant

2007-12-09T18:46:00.000-05:00

Day 34

I have pretty much stopped taking my painkillers. 48 hours will go by between doses and I will only take them when I am in real pain. That's not to say that my leg is pain free on a day-to-day basis. It hurts. The muscles are not happy with me many times during a single day and lately it has felt like they are not improving despite the fact that I am moving more. I don't know if it is the fact that I don't have painkillers in my system giving me the illusion of being able to do more or if my body is just going through a lull. Whichever way you cut it I feel stagnant. This is a similar feeling to prior to the big snap in the hospital. I am achy, restless and having a hard time doing things for long periods of time. I used to be able to sit longer in a chair. Stay up longer during the day. I now find that I am sleeping a lot more each the day.

Please don't get me wrong sleep is a wonderful thing. It is the time that our body can solely concentrate on healing. I sleep late every morning. I take a 3-hour nap each afternoon. I then sleep the entire night a way with no trouble whether there are drugs in my body or not. I wake up groggy after every sleep meaning I am sleeping deeply. I haven't slept this way in years, especially not this year. So my body is also catching up on a year of really bad sleep. I love it I feel like a teenager again sleeping my life away. So keep in mind that your body needs to be treated well and that you need to listen to it. This is such an important time in the healing process. I acknowledge this. I just find myself frustrated because the number of break throughs or daily tricks have diminished lately. I think this shows how the 4-week mark is a big milestone and then things may slow down again. In 4 weeks I will be able to put weight on my leg that feels to me like the next big milestone and I need to be patient until then. I will continue to move my leg and actually have some non-weight bearing exercises that I will start this week. I will continue to be good to my body however frustrating it may be. The overachiever in me will just have to be muzzled for right now.

Gravity's a Bitch

2007-12-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

Day 32

Well last night I decided to roll onto my un-operated side for a change of positions. The rolling over was not difficult but once in that position I was in pain. My muscles obviously are not used to being pulled in that direction. I put a pillow between my legs and then started to massage my quad and abductor muscles. The massage felt great but every time I stopped they started hurting again. I ended up falling asleep in this position for an hour or so. I did decide to try this at 5am so fatigue won. So around 6am when I woke I rolled back onto my back. I found this to be a big relief. However it seems that my leg has been angry since then. I don't think it appreciated the world titling on it. Well it was worth a try. I certainly know that I can do it but I think I will wait a few weeks before I try it again.

1st Post-Op Dr's Appointment

2007-12-05T13:33:00.000-05:00

Day 30

I saw Dr. S today and there is a lot of good news:
I can ditch the TEDs. I am certainly happy to see them go. I can also stop the Lovenox injections. Again not too sorry to stop taking those but certainly you get used to them in no time at all. I would imagine that if I had to take them for the rest of my life, they would become as much a part of my daily schedule as brushing my teeth. But don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, Mr. Lovenox syringe. I can also begin teaching my leg to be happy flat on the bed i.e. 0 degrees to whatever degree is now allowed therefore no more restrictions!

Today for the first time I also got to see x-rays of the surgery. I was taken back to the x-ray room and had to lie down on the table. This is when I could definitely tell that my leg is going to take a while before it is truly happy at 0 degrees. I will begin tonight by reducing the number of pillows under my leg when I sleep or lie down. The x-ray showed that the bone is healing nicely, that nothing has shifted and that none of the screws have bent or broken. This is all fantastic news. Dr. S also looked at the scar and there is quite a bit of scar tissue underneath but I can now start using vitamin E oil or any scar solution I like. I can also rub it to break down the scar tissue and keloids. In fact I think I may order silcone sheets to put on it at night. A previous surgeon of mine had me do that on other scars and it made a big difference.

So I have been given the go ahead to do pretty much anything with my leg except place any weight on it. I can bend and move it in any direction. I can really start working on flexablity and stretching the muscles. I can swim or get into a hot tub if I like. I am moving quicker than ever on my crutches and I would say in a week I will be a star at them. My next appointment with Dr. S can be made for 3-4 weeks from now. Due to the holidays I will probably be able to see him in the first week of January. That unfortunately puts me into my nineth week post-op but I certainly will not do anything between now and then to jeopardize my hip healing 100% successfully. So that is today’s update. Have a great day everyone.

Oh, one last thing. Thank you to all of you who have left me comments. It is great to know that someone is reading this and if I can help just one person this will blog will not have been written in vain. To Carrie, I don’t have an e-mail address for you but congratulations on the news. I hope everything turns out well for you. I know Dr. Millis is a great doctor and you are in wonderful hands. Please let me know what surgery he decides on and of course how it goes.
To the others, such as Ginger, please feel free to contact me directly at any time. My e-mail address can be found on my profile. RK, Sharon, Sarah, Courtnee and my mother thank you too. And if I haven't mentioned your name my apologies, but thank you too.

A New Trick Each Day

2007-12-03T13:46:00.000-05:00

Day 28 - 4 weeks

First let me say that by the 4-week mark you will feel considerably better. In fact you will feel great. You leg muscles and the joint hurt a lot less. I am hardly taking my painkillers any more. I am now taking them every 12 hours and Dr. S has stepped me down once more to Darvocet. My plan is by Wednesday (2 days away) that I will be off of the drugs, out of the TEDs and no longer shooting up Lovenox. That means that by Wednesday night after I have seen Dr. S, I will have shaved legs, painted toe nails and a glass of wine in my hand.

One of the things I have been doing to make each day a little more fun is what we have now coined "learning a new trick". So each day I try to learn something new. Thus far:

- I can get in and out of bed on my own
- I can use the toilet by myself
- I can shower myself
- I can get dressed by myself
- I can make coffee in the morning for myself (really with a back pack I can make food for myself and carry it too)
- I can sit on a bar stool in the kitchen and get back up on my own
- I can sit in the office chair in front of my computer and get back up on my own
- I can sit in the recliner and get back up with someone holding it steady
- I can sit on a chair in the living room and get back up on my own
- I can kill roaches (Georgia is known for having a lot of them). I use my leg lifter to knock them off the wall and my walker to squash it.
- In my wheelchair I can set the table
- In my wheelchair I can carry laundry
- I can get in and out of a car
- I can get in and out of a truck

... okay, so you get the idea. Until you have lost your independence you don't know how wonderful it is to be able to get out of bed in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom without having to call someone to help. Oh and today's trick was killing the bug.

It is wonderful to be able to sit on various chairs with no pain. I no longer have to worry about where my wheelchair is and how far I have to go to get it. It also means that my ass is less sensitive and there are even times now where I feel like my old self, sitting in a chair like I never had surgery. That has to be the very best moment so far for me. The first time I sat down and then realized that I felt “normal”. Yes family and friends, I know I am not really normal but you know what I mean. In fact this morning I felt so good in bed when I woke up, that when I moved my leg to get out of bed, I thought to myself "oh my leg is stiff". Well duh Sherlock, that's the leg that had surgery. I keep moving my leg when I sit and lie down so that the muscles are starting to get some strength back in them. I am able to move my leg more and more. That is a huge part of why the pain level is going down. The leg cramps are going away and the joint is not as stiff.

So needless to say week 4 is definitely a great place to get to. Hang in there. The time goes quicker than you expect and your body will do new things each day. Our bodies are amazingly resilient.

Out into the World

2007-12-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

Day 26

I've been really content at my mom's house and haven't really felt the need to go out into the world. I will see Dr. S in 5 days so it was time to make sure that I can get into a car since I came home in an ambulance. We decided that Nina's car is higher off the ground than my mother's Honda, so Nina came over this afternoon for us to try this out. After much discussion it was decided that if I was going to leave the house that I had two choices, I could either use the wheelchair or the walker. Nina and my mother feel that I haven't had enough practice on crutches to go into the world on them just yet. Of course I've been swearing blind for days now that I will not be caught dead on a walker and that I will not be going to my Dr. S appointment on a walker either. I guess I have some practicing to do before Wednesday.

It took no time and little effort to get into the car. I decided that I would like to go to CVS (a local drug store) for some supplies. So off we head. The bumps and corners didn't hurt which is a nice surprise. At CVS I get out of the car and head to the entrance on my walker. This is when it starts to get interesting. People really aren't sure what to make of someone so young using a walker. Their faces show surprise followed by not being sure what to do with themselves. I headed over to the stationary section looking for a white folder for a small side project I am walking on. As I am standing there scanning the shelves an older woman walks over to me and says, "Bless you heart. I should be using a walker too. I'm just afraid that if I start to use one that I will become too dependent on it." Before I could respond she continues, "I am half blind can you help me find those sticky things. What do you call them?" Nina has joined us by then and she leads the woman off to the Post-its.

I had been too concerned with my own discomfort in public on a walker. Instead what I found is that it is the opposite. People are far more uncomfortable with me than I am with being in public. So don't blame me for getting a kick from people’s reactions to me. I’ve got to have at least some fun with this whole surgery as warped as it may seem to you, dear reader.

Kudos, Suggestions and Top 3's

2007-11-28T12:26:00.000-05:00

A. Kudos go to the entire Orthopedic Team at Northside Hospital.
Here is some of the memorable crew. They were all superb and I thank you for helping me through the toughest time of this surgery - the first week.

Nurse Courtnee - tons of fun and very attentive
Nurse Martha - she helped me with boluses when I needed them most
Nurse Sandra - "yah man you hooked us up"
Nurse Yva - was there when the great snap happened and kept mom and I as calm as possible
Tech Jeff - helped for an hour to try and get me comfortable before the snap happened
PT Ryan - was there when I walked my first long distance - 68 feet
PT Craig - got me to 120 feet
Tech Larry - made me laugh which is priceless when you don't feel great

B. Here are some suggestions on what to take to hospital with you and what to leave at home:

Leave:
1. Jewelry
2. Credit Cards
3. Makeup
4. Nail polish
5. Books - you won't read them
6. Panties - they are uncomfortable with the scar

Take:
1. Baggy clothes to come home in
2. A Sleep shirt - when your IV is done you'll be able to change into one if you like
3. IPod - a lot of doctors feel that patient is getting better when they start to listen to it
4. Non slip socks
5. Ice packs - they helped me with muscle cramps and swelling
6. Tissues
7. Your favorite lotion - you get dry
8. Wet wipes
9. No wash shampoo - I've seen on other people's lists, I didn't use any but it's a thought
10. Fruit / dried fruit - great for when you feel hungry but easy on the stomach
11. Individually wrapped candy - if the nurses like coming to your room you'll see more of them
12. Lip Balm - your lips get really dry
13 Basic Toiletries
14. Your favorite pillow from home
15. Notebook and pencil - to write notes or questions for when you see your doctor or PT
16.Simple puzzle books or Sudoku - it's about all your brain can take

C. Things to think about buying or renting for when you get home:

1. Hip Kit: Includes a shoehorn, extended sponge, grabber and sock aid. There are variations on this set but the grabber is a must.
2. Leg Lifter: Helps you get in and out of bed, in and out of chairs as well as re-adjusting your leg in bed. This tool is invaluable for lifting your leg and becoming mobile
3. Walker: You may feel sturdier on a walker initially. Later you may choose to use crutches. Make sure that PT knows what you intend on using at home so that they teach you on the appropriate tool.
4. Crutches: There are a variety of styles. Which ever you choose make sure you take them to the hospital so that PT can go over how to use them with you.
5. Toilet Extension: Is an option for use on toilets. They range in height from 2-7. Test the height before surgery to make sure that you can get on and off of it okay.
6. 3 in 1 Commode: This commode can be used next to the bed as a nighttime toilet. Remove the bucket and it can be used as a toilet extension or as a shower chair.
7. Transfer/ Shower Bench: Can be used over baths. Allows you to sit on the outside of the bath and lift your leg over and slide into the bath.
8. Sprayer: This is a good way to wash yourself in either the shower or the bath. It gives you control over how wet your wound gets.
9. Workout Gloves: Can be helpful with either the walker or crutches for extra hand padding.
10. Wet Wipes / Baby Wipes: Are handy for sponge baths and general wiping.
11. Foam Wedges: For the first number of weeks you will need to keep pillows under your leg when in bed. Foam wedges can help too. Either for under your leg or to prevent pillows from falling off the bed.
12. Fracture Bed Pan: Smaller than a regular bed pan it can be helpful for nighttime use initially.
13. Non-skid Socks: Are a must when walking.
14. Crocks: Light weight, easy to slip on and comfortable. They are a great option.
15. Wheelchair: Allows you to leave the house for longer periods of time. A reclining back will help keep you in the right position. There is no need to buy it instead you can rent one.
16. Large sweats and shorts: Your leg will be swollen and bruised. You won't want any tight clothing over your wound. So by some comfortable soft clothes for the first 6-8 weeks.

Top 3 things I did before surgery:
1. Got in shape especially building my upper body strength (shoulders and triceps were most helpful).
2. Got massages regularly to deal with stress. Your body deserves some pampering before surgery.
3. Started taking Lexapro roughly a month after being diagnosed. It kept my fear under control and has helped keep a positive state of mind during recovery. Your mental state is a huge part of how well and fast you heal.

Top 3 things I knew going into hospital:
1. Shave yourself. It is better than a nurse doing it on the day.
2. Ask for them to put your IV in your arm rather than your hand. It is easier to use crutches.
3. Ask for pain medication when you are sore. It is a patient's right to be given medication when in pain.

Top 3 things I have learned:
1. I am stronger than I thought. I did it. I made it through to the other side.
2. Time goes quicker than you think.
3. If you remember that you are doing this to have a new and improved hip then everything you have to go through is worth it in the end. Remembering this will keep you going.

Regaining Independence One Hop at a Time

2007-11-27T20:15:00.000-05:00

Day 22

I apologize to all my dear readers that I have not been on top of my game with regards to keeping the blog up to date. I fully realize that there are many crucial days between Day 9 and 22. Yet at the same time I don't always have a lot to write on a daily basis so here is a run down of my time moving forward from Day 9. As you will see now that I have 3 weeks behind me things are quite different and going rather well.

Day 9 - My First Shower = Yippee I feel like a human again

Day 10 - Moved from Percocet to Vicadin = it didn't go badly and I feel like I am able to step down at the rate my doctor would like so no worries about rehab for me. On the negative side meeting Steven Spielberg's kids at rehab is off the cards. Actually I don't believe they are in rehab but as a filmmaker you can't blame me for dreaming as warped as it may be. One side effect of taking the drugs is they make you quite emotional. I have been known to start crying for little or no reason. Believe me I am not typically like this. For some people the withdrawal symptoms are sore muscles and twitching. I do have strange twitching when I lay still at night but I am not sure about whether my muscles are more sore or not.

Day 11 - Allowed to Bath = This is what Dr. S said but I am not sure how on earth I would get into a bath never mind back out. So I will stick to the half in, half out showers for right now.

Day 12 - I am now taking my painkillers with 8 to 9 hours in between doses instead of every 4-6 hours.

Day 13 - A project has come into our company with a quick turn around time. Something that Ines and myself have become rather known for. Ines, my business partner and dear friend, has to fly back to Germany for her grandmother's funeral. Our company philosophy is family comes first. I felt I would be okay working part time to try and lessen Ines' load. The rest of the unitOne team are working hard as well to help hit this deadline. We have a great team! Thank you for all of your hard work.

Day 14 to 16 - Work from home. I am now able to sit in my wheelchair for up to 4 hours at a time. At which point it is time to lie down and reset my ass. But this is a huge jump from 10 minutes the first time I sat in a chair at the hospital. We hit our deadline with what I believe to be some great work.

Day 16 - Used the bathroom by myself = I managed to pull down my pants, put my leg up on the step stool and get all the way back up on my own. Here is some advice for how best to use the toilet. Use a toilet extension of course and find a plastic step/bowl/bin that is about 6 inches high. When you sit down put your foot on top of the bin and lean backwards. Another good piece of advice is to tie your drawn string from your pants onto the toilet extension handle so that they don't fall all the way to the floor.

Day 17 - Thanksgiving = Mom and Mark went to friends for a meal away from home. Nina and I watched movies and ate turkey. I only received one phone call from my mother who was suffering from separation anxiety. I reassured her we were absolutely fine and to have a good time with other adults. I do feel like a 9 month old sometimes. They left at 4pm and got back at midnight. So I would say that telling her to have another glass of wine worked. I completely understand caregivers being worried the first time they leave the house for an extended period of time but you have to realize that your patient will tell you if they need you back or not.

Day 18 - Got out of bed and into my chair by myself = I have been getting in and out of bed with some assistance but today I did it all by myself and then got into my wheelchair and wheeled down to the office and my laptop.

Two tools that are invaluable - the grabber that comes in the hip kit and a foot lifter. With these 2 tools I can grab most things I need and lift my leg to get in and out of bed and into my wheelchair. Due to having to disconnect quad muscles to get to your hipbone regaining use of your leg takes a while. I can't remember the first time my mother said, "Let you leg hang. You are lifting your own leg" or when I lifted my foot on to the footstool in the bathroom but is was around the 2-week mark. Up until now it has felt like I have been dragging a 100lbs slab of meat around with me.

I am also now taking my painkillers with 9 to 10 hours in between doses instead of every 4 to 6 hours. The pain is diminishing.

Day 19 - Showered (all the way in the shower) by myself - I had assistance getting into the shower due to having to go in backwards (30-70 rule) but then I took care of the rest by myself with no one watching over me. I then had help getting back out. My mom called Dr. S today to ask about how much I am really allowed to use and move my leg. He is now allowing me to go to 90 degrees but still not to 0. We don't want to over stretch the muscle yet. I can also really start working on moving it and starting to use the muscles as much as I can. They don't do much right now. I am also allowed to leave my scar uncovered too. And have dissolvable stitches and steristrips to hold everything in place. I now water my wound when I am in the shower to help the strips come off.

Day 20 - Painkillers now every 11 to 12 hours.

Day 21 - 3 weeks!!
I can now go to the bathroom on my own, get dressed on my own, get in and out of bed and chairs on my own. I sat on the couch today and on a bar stool in the kitchen. It was only for 20 minutes each because they feel so different to what my bum is used to but it was great to have something different to sit on for a change. Walking is easier because my leg feels lighter. I am now practicing moving it into different positions. It is hard and my muscles don't like me much BUT muscle pain is a great thing. It represents recovery to me versus bone pain, which represents pre-surgery trouble. I will try my best not to complain too much. So you leave hospital with little independence and then over time you learn how to get it back. Every little victory feels wonderful. Keep faith in yourself and you will move mountains.

I am a Dirty Girl

2007-11-25T14:13:00.000-05:00

Day 9

Mom and I are starting to establish our routine. Once it is in place things are so much easier to deal with. So we start off most mornings with coffee and ER - we have this macabre fascination with hospital shows now. I'm sure a few hours on a couch could help us but really I'm not too worried about it we still have to look away when things get too bloody. Then it's time for a sponge bath, clean clothes, brushing teeth etc. I go for a walk on my walker as far as I can. I sometimes practice on my crutches. I want to feel really sturdy before changing over. I do not want to fall. But by the time I have my 4 week appointment with Dr. S I will be on crutches. I will not go into public on a walker. I do not want to feel like a geriatric. My arms are getting stronger but my shoulder now hurts from pushing myself up in bed to get out of bed. I then get into my wheelchair for a few hours. It's then time for lunch and a nap. When I wake it's time for more exercise and a little more chair sitting. Followed by dinner, back to bed and time for some season 2 Nip/Tuck episodes.

Friends have been coming by too. It is great to see people and I have to admit I like hearing how surprised they are at the speed of my recovery. Of course they're going on the fact that they were all sure that I would be flat on my back for the better part of 4 weeks. So just seeing me sitting up makes them think that miracles have happened. I have to admit there are times that I am amazed to be sitting too. This whole surgery is like becoming a baby again. So I am a 29 year old stuck in a 9 month old's body. As the weeks pass it is all about gaining your independence again. So every little achievement is monumental. The first time you can get yourself to the toilet with no assistance. Dress yourself with no assistance. You get the idea.

Today is shower day - yippee. It is the first time that I have been allowed to shower since before the surgery. That means that there are 9 days of grunge on me. Sponge baths just can't cope after a while. The 2 showers I took before surgery have long worn off. Too bad we can't stock pile them for times like this. So we prepare for this whole event. My mother's shower is huge and can easily fit the commode and another person in there. The trouble is getting me in there. I will have to go in backwards (due to the 30-70 rule), suspending myself on my walker in order to raise my good leg enough to get it over the cusp. I then have to get my walker into the shower to help maneuver myself over to the commode. I have to admit I didn't feel strong enough to do this so we put the commode at the cusp and I sit backwards into it. This means that my legs are outside of the shower and the rest of me is inside. My mother puts her swimsuit on and takes the inside and Nina sits on the floor and takes care of my legs. I can't remember the last time one person helped me shower never mind two. IT FELT AMAZING! I had my hair washed, my legs shaved, my whole body soaped and cleansed. I came out a new woman. It has to be the best shower I have ever taken. Plus I was allowed out of my TEDs for an hour and that was heavenly too.

The Great Escape (by ambulance)

2007-11-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Day 7

It was decided that we would wait until today to be discharged. We now all felt comfortable with my coming home to my mom's house - no stairs, wide hallways and a large master bedroom. Yes I have taken the master bedroom. I can now get out of bed with the help of one person. I feel stronger and more able to balance on one leg. I am ready.

OT (Occupational Therapy) has been stalking me and finally get to me before PT. So the 2 of us get me to the side of the bed to learn how to put my socks and shorts on. I suggest buying a hip kit online. There are utensils in there that you will find invaluable. So I put my shorts and socks on and then get back into bed. This was the first time that I have worn shorts since pre-op. Another thing you may want to think about is when your cycle begins. I started my period on surgery day. In a way it is easier to deal with in hospital. I won't have to worry about it for the first few weeks at home. It's up to you but I'd keep it in mind when scheduling your surgery. In my case it didn't work out the way I wanted but you don't have to worry about the amount of blood loss with your period. We lose a very small amount of blood when menstruating.

PT comes and goes in the morning. At this point PT takes 1-2 hours depending on how long I walk and sit. I can now sit for a little over an hour. Dr. S arrives around 3:30pm and he signs my discharge papers and writes my prescriptions for Lovenox and Percocet. My Kaiser Permanente caseworker arranges for a walker and I am all set to go. Around 6:45pm the ambulance ladies arrive - yes 2 wonderful women - to take me home. It was decided that this would be a much easier way to go than trying to get me in a car. I know that many ladies go home in a car and even sometimes fly. I would be able to do that at 2 weeks but 1 would have been challenging. So they lift me from my bed onto the gurney and wheel me through the hospital to the ambulance. We then drive the 30 minutes to my mom's house and they take me all the way into the bedroom and place me on the recliner.

My mom and I had painstakingly chosen this recliner after reading about some women finding it to be the only place they could sleep. In my case I found it too low to the floor and difficult to get out of. A lot of these issues, such as the car and recliner are due to the 30 - 70 degree rule. For those of you without these restrictions moving will be easier. So I sleep in the bed with 3-4 pillows under my leg, 4-5 pillows under my head and 1 pillow under my good leg to relieve lower backpressure. The moral of the story is you can never have too many pillows.

Mummy I can walk

2007-11-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

Day 5

PT came for my morning session. At this point getting to the side of bed was not too difficult and only took 2 people helping me. As I sat on the side of the bed Ryan, my head Terrorist said, "Yesterday you walked 3 feet. I don't care how far you go today but you have to go further than yesterday." I am a stubborn person and if you give me a challenge I like to exceed expectations. So I stood up and had my eye on where the 3 feet mark was and decided that I would walk to the door to the room. This was probably 10 feet away and so I headed off on my walker. Once I got to the door I thought well why not walk a little further and actually get myself into the hall. I had not been in the hall since I was wheeled to my room from recovery. Long story short I knew that my wheelchair was following so I didn't have to get myself back to the room so I kept going until I thought my arms couldn’t go much further. I made it all the way to 68 feet and the nursing station. It is wonderful to hear the nursing staff cheer because it is the first time you are out of your room. So my turning point was the "snap" the night before. Everyone will have a different turning point but it will come just have faith in yourself.

Of course later that day when Dr. S came to visit and my mom and I had to ask what on earth had happened to me the previous evening. His response, "It was probably a suture. It's nothing to worry about. You will probably experience this for the next 6 months. You'll put your foot down and feel some pain that will quickly go away." Thanks for telling me that sooner but it does make sense that sutures and scar tissue will need to "let go" so that muscles and tendons are moving the way they need.

For my second PT session I walked 100 feet.

Day 6

Dr Rikhter our GP came to visit. It was lovely to see him and to talk and laugh. My mom and Mark were there too and they all had a lot of fun trying to make me laugh. Believe me laughing is sore and coughing is even worse so make sure you keep all sick people away from you. When Dr. R got up to leave I will never forget the image of my mother standing between Dr. R and Dr. S saying "he found it" and "he fixed it". It was a lovely moment. I wish I had a photo.

The rest of this day was uneventful. I walked further again and went on a tour in my wheelchair. For the first time I felt like the worst was behind me. For the severity and length of my surgery it is amazing to think that they had me out of bed the day after surgery and that by day 5 I would be feeling so much. I had gone from needing 4 people to 2 people to help me get out of bed. I have gone from 2 steps to 150 feet. That is quite a quick turn around. Ours bodies are amazingly resiliant.

One of the last things I have to learn before going home is how to give myself my Lovenox injection. Nurse Tammi from Alabama came in to teach me. Instead of taking Coumadin tablets and having blood work done 2-3 times a week the injections do not need blood work to be done. So in all of 5 minutes Tammi has me give myself my first shot. It is not a big deal at all. It is so much easier to do than I thought. The needle is so small I don't even feel it going into my stomach. Again this was something that I had imagined would be worse than it turned out to be. I will also have to wear my TEDs for 4 weeks as a second line of defense against blood clots. They are not awful and for people who run cold these may make you happy. Some women have suggested using them as a way to move your leg by grabbing the fabric. In my case they make me hot but I have always run hot.

One thing that you may want to start at this time is your stool softener. You will need to decide for yourself whether you prefer to have your first bowel movement in the hospital or at home. For many people it is very painful. I have even heard them say it was the most painful part of the surgery. In my case I had no pain. I was very lucky. My mother fed me Activia everyday and on some days twice a day. It helps to regulate your stomach as well as prevent yeast infections sometimes caused by antibiotics. I am not sure if this led to no pain but it's worth trying.

Snap Goes the Leg (sung to tune of Pop Goes the Weasel)

2007-11-19T14:07:00.000-05:00

Day 4

2 PT sessions today. At this point it is less painful to get out of bed. I am not yelling anymore and only the occasional bad word exits my mouth.

The catheter was taken out and so on to bedpan it is. They used a fracture bedpan. These are specially made for people with fractures and so they are smaller and easier to get under the patient. So peeing was not that bad. Having the trapeze over my bed helped considerably.

As the day started I didn't know how worried my mother was until we heard that Dr. S would be in around 1pm. Around 12:20 Mark calls her from my room to tell her this. Of course this is the same day that they are trying to deliver wheelchairs and so forth to the house so someone has to be there. So rather than wait for Mark to get back and then leave my mother asks friends of ours to wait at the house while she and Mark drive to swap places. Needless to say she made it before Dr. S. Any way once he came to my room my mother did not have to put forth much of an argument because Dr. S said she’ll leave when you are all ready. We thought that might be around Sunday. Our guess is that someone at the hospital again got me mixed up with a THR patient. THRs tend to leave on day 4. So with a sigh of relief the day continued with far less worry.

The catheter came out at some point this day too. I had no idea that they actually inflate the tube to prevent it from coming out. So all that has to be done is deflating the tube and sliding it out. Again this is a procedure that has no pain attached to it. So do not worry. Of course the worry at this point is that you have to pee otherwise they will have to reinsert it and this is the part that no one really wants to be awake for. They give you about 6 hours to do this otherwise they will scan your bladder to see how full it is before deciding on whether to reinsert or not. The likelihood that I wouldn't be able to pee was rather slim. So about 2 hours later that worry flowed away.

After doing PT ones pain level is certain to rise. I believe I was transitioned from morphine to Percocet (AKA Oxycodone) on day 3. This is not that fun but at least I stopped itching. I believe I had to have another bolus or two during the first 12 hours to get the pain under control. So after PT ice packs really work well to help get the pain under control because the nurses do try hard to keep you on your med schedule and getting then to break it is virtually impossible.

Around 6pm that evening I was having a really hard time getting comfortable. We played with pillows, the incline and level of the bed trying every trick we had learned that far. My mother called the tech in to help and he managed to give me 10 minutes of relief but it started again. I was suffering from really intense muscle cramps in my quads and hamstrings. They were un-relentless and rather painful. After an hour and a half of trying to get comfortable, I believe we now had 2 nurses in the room trying to help, I remember grabbing the trapeze and pulling up. I made the mistake of arching my pelvis, which of course breaks the 30-70 degree rule. All of a sudden I felt the sensation of something unraveling in my leg and then shooting down my inner thigh to midway through my calf. The feeling was similar to an elastic band snapping down the inside of my leg . I screamed. It was the most terrified I have been through the last 4 days. At that moment I was sure that I had seriously messed something up and would have to go back into surgery. Everyone stopped what they were doing and in anxious voices asked what happened. I explained and one of the nurses asked if I still felt the same level of pain. In fact I did not.

Earlier that day my mother had asked Dr. S what was the difference between good pain and bad pain. His first response was there is no such thing as good pain. What my mother had meant is when should you worry and when should you take a breath, relax and wait to see what happens. He then said that good pain was the type of pain that happened and then dissipated rather quickly. Bad pain sticks around. So with this in mind the fact that my pain was diminishing meant not to worry. The miraculous thing at this point was my cramps diminished considerably too. This was my turning point in hospital. Of course I still wasn't sure what had happened but I would have to wait until Dr. S's visit the next day to find out.

I am not a PG13 show

2007-11-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

Day 3

The joke throughout this journey has been that Dr. Schrader does 99% of his surgeries on children. These surgeries take place at the children's hospital Scottish Rite in Atlanta. It is a fabulous institution but of course I am an adult so I went to Northside. The Northside staff are absolutely fabulous. They made my stay really comfortable. They were attentive, caring and quick to come when called. Of course friends and family have joked about the fact that I should have had my surgery at Scottish Rite. Wouldn't it be fun to have clowns coming to your bed and games to play and balloons etc. Well my response to that was PT session #1 for day 3.

PT came as usual in the morning and today not only was I going to stand up they wanted me to sit in the wheelchair for a while. Yes and pigs can fly. So I did it. Yelling profanities all over the place. At this point people started paying less attention to my yelling. I guess it is par for the course because at some point you realize that well you're not going to break, it hurts and PT is going to make, sorry persuade you, to do it any way. I believe I sat for 10 minutes in the chair and then back to bed. I felt lightheaded during this session and had the day before too.

So Dr. Schrader came earlier this day, before lunch. He removed my drain. There was absolutely no pain involved in that and yippee one less device to worry about while trying to get out of bed. He decided it would be a good time to give me my 2 units of blood back. They hadn't used them during surgery because they have a way to collect the blood that you lose and give it right back. Since I was feeling light headed and my blood count was down a bit he gave the order. So my blood was hung and in roughly 5 hours I had color back in my face and I felt a lot stronger. So if you have the time to give blood before surgery I would recommend it highly. It's comforting to know where it came from. As Dr. S was leaving the room he said that he also wanted the catheter to come out today too. Some how I got him to agree to the next morning. The thought of having to either get out of bed or use a bed pan was not sounding too good at the time.

The rest of the day is a blur. I believe I didn't have a second session that day due to the blood bags taking so long to empty. Behind the scenes my caseworker at the hospital was working with my insurance company to get a wheelchair and commode delivered to the house. What we all didn't expect was the news that they would be discharging me the next day - day 4. My mother says she slept little that night and had a ball of fear in her stomach. None of us felt ready. Hell it still took 3 people to get me out of bed.

Squirrels and Terrorists

2007-11-18T11:48:00.000-05:00

Day 2

Things are a little foggier at this point. The days in hospital ran together due to the pain meds but I'll try my best to give you the highlights.

A nurse that I had not seen before came into the room some time in the morning and asked me if I had walked yet. In my head I was thinking, "are you f@#king insane"? As far as I knew I wasn't going to be up until day 3. And I must admit is the part that I had feared the most post surgery. This was the first time I realized that no one knows anything about PAO in this hospital so this became the first question I would ask of everyone new to my room. "Do you know that I am not a THR?" Usually I got a yes and then admittance that they had no clue about PAO.

So I thought I had dodged a bullet and that I would be left alone for the rest of the day, how wrong I was. PT came knocking on my door later in the morning. Only my mother was with me at the time. They had decided that it was time for Lauren to sit up in bed. So with the help of 3 or 4 people they got me to sitting position with my arms holding me up from behind. I am not going to lie it hurt like hell. I screamed and my mother didn't know what to do with herself. I could tell how hard it was on her to watch believe me it was hard to be in my body. They let me back down and went on their way. I hit my button a few times for good measure. Remember it will only give you meds every 10 minutes so you can hit it as many times as you like but you're only going get one shot every 10 minutes. The hospital is not going to let you over dose.

This is when I have to put in a footnote of sorts:
Everyone has different pain thresholds. Every body deals with pain meds differently. Every hip and healing process is different. I am giving you my story but please read other people's too. I have listed them on the side of the page for that very reason. I have heard ladies talk about how within their own body how different each hip's recovery has been - with one being more painful than the other or one taking longer to heal than the other. So keep this in mind when reading my story. I want to be honest with you. I have had a lot of great stuff happen over the last 2 weeks. It has not been easy but it has taught me so much about myself and I want to share that with you, dear reader. I am not trying to scare anyone. I am only presenting my own experience. And of course I would recommend that you keep reading. Get up to Day 7 when I am released from hospital. Promise me you'll read at least that far.

Lunch came and went. Not very memorable were any of the meals, more functional than anything. Dr. Schrader came by after lunch and checked my toes for sensation and movement. He then checked if I had feeling all over my thigh and I am one of the lucky ones with no numbness anywhere. Apparently, and I knew this going in, one of the things that happens most of the time with PAO is that a nerve is cut somewhere around the crease of the groin this results in a numb patch on the thigh about the size of a dollar coin. In some cases it comes back to life over time and in other cases it never regains feeling. A small price to pay for a new hip. Dr. Schrader's response to my thigh not being numb was so sweet. He said, "Even a squirrel gets a nut every once in a while."

Nina arrived at some point after lunch and after Dr. Schrader but before PT. Yes, in deed, they came back for a second session. Three ladies walk in with smiles on their faces, "Time for PT. " So the head Physical Terrorist asks, "Feel like trying to make it to the side of the bed this time?"

Hell NO!

And my second thought is how about tomorrow.

I then think about it and what option do I really have? I have to start moving at some point and the sooner the better. It sucks. It is painful but believe me the more you do it, the exponentially easier it gets. However at this point I just want to hide under the covers. A reluctant "okay" comes out of my mouth. More screaming, slow, energy sapping motion to the side of the bed and I end up with my PAO leg over the side of the bed resting on head Terrorists crouched knee. During this feat I remember looking over at my mother and Nina and they were tearing up. I yelled, swore but shed no tears.

Then head Terrorist has the bright idea, "So seeing we got all this way would you like to try standing?"

What??????
Wasn't this enough for the second session. I have so little energy left and I still have to get back into bed.

"Tomorrow", I say.

Then I believe that Nina said that this is the part you have been dreading why not get out of the way today. I guess I heard her, I also know I was thinking okay I can do this. It is not going to be fun but seeing I'm on the side of the bed why not stand up.

"Okay".
Bleep bleep, bleepedy bleep!

And I'm standing with a walker doing toe touch on my right side with my leg in front of me at 30 degrees. "Great now help me back into bed". And with that the Terrorists leave to return tomorrow of course!

My lesson for the day: If your head is in the right place. If you believe that you can do something. You'll do it. We are stronger than we think and sometimes you'll even amaze yourself.

4, 10, 12, 238

2007-11-17T16:38:00.000-05:00

Day 1

5:30am
We wake up. I have that nervous ball in the pit of my stomach. It's D-day. I take a shower and finish packing my bag. No coffee and no breakfast mean I'm ready to go. I would like to think that I was holding it together at this stage.

6:00am
Time to leave the house for the hospital. I kiss Molly, Bob and Newton good-bye and off we go. Nina drives and I can't honestly remember what we talked about. As we get closer to the hospital I begin to yawn. A sure sign that Lauren is really nervous. And I give Nina a really hard time about not parking fast enough or in the right place. I kept watching the time and was anxious about being late. I would say I was really scared by this stage. We walk to the main entrance.

6:30am
We meet my mother and Mark at the check-in desk. I pay my $500 deductible and off to the surgerical waiting area on the lower level we go. My family is given a pager to get updates during the operation. We are told to sit and we will be paged when it is time to go into pre-op. Roughly 5 minutes later the pager goes off and at the desk they say that one family member and myself can go to curtain area 4. This is always hard because you want take your whole party with you but the space is limited.

7:05am
My mom and I go through the pre-op door and find my curtain area with bed, gown and socks. While we are waiting for further instructions I must admit that I shed a few tears of fear. My mother held me and I calmed down. A nurse came and told me to remove all my clothes and put the gown on. This is when I will re-mention that having taken the time to shave "properly" meant no embarrassing moments with a nurse and a razor. The pre-op nurse had me lie down and put the compression socks (TEDs) on (which I am still wearing 13 days later - more about that later). The anesthesiologist came to visit and this was when I was given the option of an epidural or going under and I chose to take the going under option. This is an individual choice for everyone. The epidural does have fewer side effects and they can sedate you to the point of not remembering anything. I didn't want to risk even the smallest chance of remembering a second of the surgery so that is why I chose anesthesia. Plus having had 2 previous non-hip surgeries before I know that I deal just fine with anesthesia. He agreed that it was the better option, saying, "That's what I'd do". So off he went and the nurse came back to do more paper work with me. This is when you basically sign away any liability should anything go wrong in the OR. She placed the I.V. and then it was time for my cocktail. This is the best part of the pre-op process. From this point on I was happy, or at least happier. And before they wheeled me off to surgery they give me one more and then I really didn't care about much of anything.

7:40am
Time to go. I say good-bye to my mother and they whisk me off to the OR. I don't remember a whole heck of a lot because well I was sedated but this is the small bit I remember. They wheeled me down a corridor that they said would be cold and windy. It was rather but we weren't in it long enough for me to really be cold. They then wheeled me into operating room 10. I remember seeing the number over the door as they pushed me in. There was a thin metal table waiting for me with 2 blue ankle holders - I guess they are meant to keep your legs straight at times during the surgery. I am helped over to the table and asked to move up a little and then they put my legs in the holders. I remember that the radio was playing. It sounded like public radio. I hope Schrader chose something a little more contemporary while operating but I haven't asked yet. The OR was rather large. I would say 30 x 30. All of this happens rather quickly and then before I know it the anesthesiologist is looking down over me and he says, "here we go" and well ...

4:00pm
I wake up in recovery bay 12. Immediately I start to become aware of my hip and the nurse asked me what my pain level was. I answered a 6 and very quickly was given something to help with the pain. I must say after that I don't remember feeling a lot of pain in recovery. I believe that roughly around 3:30ish my family saw Dr. Schrader approaching them to let them know that the 7 hour surgery that should have been a 5 hour surgery had gone well. He looked tired and was hungry is what I have been told. The extra 2 hours were due to 3 things:
1. Apparently I have bones of steel, which meant he had to use "bigger saw blades". He said that on most women he saws through a little and then the bone just breaks I guess I gave him a lot more work.
2. Dr Schrader also had to chisel off a ridge on my femoral head otherwise it would have restricted movement in my joint which would certainly not be the desired result.
3. He also found rice paddies (that's what he called them) in the joint fluid, which he removed. These were part of the reason I was in pain prior to the surgery.

So my family is told that I am in recovery and should be moving to my room in 1-2 hours. Of course what they didn't know is that every time I fell asleep the machine I was hooked to beeps. Then they yell at me to breath. So I guess I was "tacky" for a while, well 3.5 hours meaning that it was along wait for my family. I kept asking how much longer and so one of the nurses actually let me call my mother from recovery. Of course on their end the pager goes off and my mother goes to find out what is going on and they hand her a phone. She says hello, I say hello and she asks who she is speaking to - it was a lovely gesture from the recovery nurse - and so good to hear a familiar voice.

7:30pm
Finally I am signed off on by a doctor or supervisor and they wheel me to my room. I arrive in room 238 a few minutes later. My family joins me 10 or so minutes later. I remember being very talkative and telling them that all was okay. I believe it was because I felt better than I thought I would. Nurses hook me up to the morphine pain pump. I have tubes coming from all over. I had an IV and pain pump hooked into my left arm, catheter, and drain coming out of my hip connected to some catching device that had to be emptied occasionally.

I remember being hungry and my mom fed me chicken noodle soup while Nina headed to the store for ice and heat packs. My lower back and leg muscles were in spasms. She came back with bananas (a great idea) and Luna bars. I had some fruit juice and a huge amount of water I was sooooo dry. In recovery they would only give me ice chips. It helps but really doesn't cut it. I wanted to drink a swimming pool not a teaspoon.

Around this time we were told that my leg has to stay between 30 and 70 degrees at all times. Start to think about that and I'll explain further when we talk about PT. So this means that I have to have 3 pillows under my leg at all times when in bed. You can never have to many pillows to help you get into a comfortable position and we played this game ad nauseam.

One of the side effects of morphine is itching. Now I am not talking about scratch it and it goes away. I'm talking about scratch it and it moves. At first we didn't know this and so I had Nina and mom rubbing lotion everywhere they could to no avail. In fact they said that I was even scratching in my sleep. It felt like ants were running all over my body. At some point the nurse was in the room for something and they asked about my itching and she said that it was a side effect. Off she went and came back with Benadryl. She shot it directly into the IV and I was out in about 5 minutes. I found it hard to stay awake but at least no more ants.

Mark and Nina left late and my mother stayed in my room reading until 2am and then went home for some much needed sleep. I had a hard night. Once I started waking I was in pain. This is due to the pain pump. You can push the button every 10 minutes and you'll get pain meds intravenously. Fall asleep and of course you are not keeping up with your pain level. So once I started to wake up I was too far behind and in a lot of pain. I couldn't push the button enough to catch up. I buzzed for the nurse some time around 4am and she agreed to give me what is called a bolus - an extra dose to help catch up. So I was a little frazzled and very happy to see my mother the next morning.

Handing over the reins

2007-11-14T13:02:00.000-05:00

This will be the last of my regular blogs. Lauren is ready to post her experience of the past week. To Carrie and all others preparing for PAO, here are my top 3 insights on various topics. I can only hope they are of value to you

Top 3 smart things Lauren did before surgery
1. Stopped smoking. Her lungs never filled with liquid nor was she at risk of pneumonia because her lungs were healthy. Damn stupid habit under any circumstances!!!!
2. Joined the gym and built upper body strength and strong quads. I firmly believe this has made her adeptness on the walker and her in and out of bed lifts so impressive
3. Took our GP's advice and started a course of Lexapro. Under normal circumstances I would have been concerned about an anti-depressant, but he was right. Lexapro keeps the pre-surgery terror in check and maintains a positive state of mind during the slow recovery process.

Top 3 wise things to do while still in hospital
1. Keep the pain level in check - for Lauren this was a level 4. This surgery does NOT have to be mind-blowingly painful. That's what the drugs are for. The staff at Northside were fantastic about supporting her and never hesitant to call her Dr as necessary.
2. Do the exercises. PT can be a nightmare BUT it truly gets better every day and your caregivers really need to learn what they have to do to help you once home. I know that by getting involved in hospital, looking after her at home is a no-brainer. But that's because we practised and now Mom and daughter have a routine going that puts the visiting Physical Therapist to shame :-)
3. Use the breathing device they give you. We could literally see Lauren's temperature drop every time she used it. In the first few days this was tricky to do as she kept falling asleep after every 2 breaths. But I kept waking her up, making her do the series of 10 every few hours (sadly not every hour as directed) and soon she was doing it by herself

Top 3 things I learned as a Mother
1. This was not as terrifying as I imagined. Sure there were times I thought I would throw up from anxiety, but the progression from helpless to determined was rapid - 5 days in fact
2. Just be there. Spend as much time in the hospital as your schedule allows. You learn stuff, and as your confidence grows, so does that of the patient. You will also have greater peace of mind experiencing first-hand how the one you love is doing, versus sitting at home imagining all sorts of nonsense
3. Listen. Lauren knows what she needs and what her body can/cannot do. Our rule is that she must tell me what to do, when to do it and how. If she's shy about asking I will just drive her nutty by constantly asking her what she wants. She doesn't ask; I leave her in peace. She asks; I do. I carried this child for 9 months - a few weeks of tending to her now is a joy

Top 3 considerations for family and friends
1. DON'T come near the patient if you even slightly suspect you have a cold/flu (Thank you Alev)
2. Your good wishes are all little rays of sunshine
3. Check first before visiting. Caregivers and patient get very tired and need to sleep at odd hours. The effort of going to the bathroom and daily ablutions is a phsyical workout!

Top 3 messages for all contemplating/planning PAO
1. You CAN do this.
2. Manage your state of mind - the drugs will manage your pain.
3. Find the silver lining. You will have a normal hip - especially if you have a great physician. You can watch movies all day or read all the books you normally never have time for, and you don't have to feel guilty. People bring you food on a tray, bath you and give you pedicures, do your laundry and bring you presents. Hey what's so bad about all that?

And as I sign out, a great omen. Hundreds of southerly migrating birds have just landed in the trees surrounding Lauren's bedroom and are serenading her. No I not making this up. They do this one day every year and they arrived today. Now ain't that cool!
Onward!!!

Just a quick note, more to come soon

2007-11-14T12:28:00.000-05:00

I am feeling pretty good and will start posting again soon. My mother has been a star at keeping up with it and I so thank her for doing so. I just wanted to quickly say for those of you who read this site who would like to talk/ask questions/ have someone who'll listen about all your PAO feelings, feel free to e-mail me at lauren@unitoneatlanta.com. After all I have a lot of time on my hands to converse with you. I also want to thank all of you for comments- keep them coming. And last but not least I want to thank family and friends for all of your support, flowers, food and things to keep me busy. xoxox

Cockroaches and drawers

2007-11-13T18:43:00.000-05:00

So very much to smile about! It is now exactly 1 week to the hour that Lauren was wheeled into her room post surgery, and the difference is like night and day.
Last night, Day 7 (or Day 6 if you don't count the surgery day) she came home. When they threatened to discharge her on Day 4 we nearly had a heart attack because she was so not ready (we suspect her procedure was again confused with a THR). But yesterday she was ready. As a PAO patient you too WILL know when you are ready, so don't let your insurance company push you out too fast. If you ensure they know you are a PAO, you should have no problem.
The turning point in her recovery happened in a mysterious way. On Friday night she could not get relief from cramping, no mater which way we moved and rearranged her. So using the trapeze above her bed (a great thing to ask for, by the way) she stretched her back into an arch - and then let out a blood curdling scream. Two nurses and I looked at her in horror as she explained that something had snapped in her inner thigh like an elastic popping. But suddenly she was in marginal pain and the night passed very peacefully. And the next day in PT she was able to walk 68 steps on her walker in the morning PT session, and over 100 in the afternoon. An amazing improvement compared to the 2 steps she had managed the day before! Dr Schrader was totally non-plussed when we told him, as he said she had either popped a suture or some scar tissue had pulled apart and this was likely to happen again and was absolutely not a problem. The fact that this snapping sensation had relieved so much of her discomfort was proof positive that the body knows best
So from Day 5 she has managed to do more and more, with less and less discomfort. The next PT highlight happened on Day 7 - the day of her discharge. The Physical Therapist came to visit, this time with a drawer under her arm. Yep, a drawer like the one you keep your T-shirts or underwear in. She laid it on the floor in the corridor outside Lauren's room and told her she needed to step into it. We were seriously concerned about the Therapists mental health at this stage, until she explained that the drawer served as the floor of a shower cubicle and represented the height Lauren would need to get over if she wanted that shower she was lusting for. So with some delicately choreographed maneuvering, some serious arm lifts and a backward lunge on her good leg, there stood Lauren proudly in a drawer!! You know you've reached a whole new plane of Motherhood when you are proud of your 29 year old daughter because she can stand in a drawer!
On then to cockroaches! We live in Atlanta. Cockroaches love Atlanta humidity. You get used to dealing with them despite all the efforts of your pest control service. Lauren is home and resplendent in bed. I bring her what she is most longing for - a big Greek salad. I escape to the kitchen for a glass of wine with my good friend Shelley, when my phone rings. Lauren is calling me from the bedroom in a state of great distress. Mark, Shelley and I sprint down the corridor to find Lauren hysterical because a cockroach has landed in her salad and then scampered into her bed and across her chest. It's at this stage we all learn how quickly Lauren can get out of bed with the right motivation. In seconds we have her standing on the floor, Mark is attacking the culprit with a shoe and then we all fall around laughing. Lauren is indeed well and capable of physical feats we could not have imagined 2 days ago. Yes, there is a lot to smile about. What a difference a day can make!

And to all the many, many people who have sent food and flowers and videos and good wishes and words of encouragement - we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Without all this positive support we would not be in the great place we are today. xx

One Small Step For Woman ....

2007-11-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

3 days since I last posted. Apologies. The life of a caregiver is indeed a busy one. So here's what I have experienced and learned since the surgery
Every day, although endless, gets better. Every day there are more reasons to feel optimistic. Every day you learn this is a battle of mind over matter. As days and nights have merged, here's the best of my recall of events
Firstly there's the process of removing tubes. The first to go is the drainage tube from the wound. A painless affair and according to Lauren, a non-event. The upside is there is now one less tube to manage during PT. Next there is the weaning off morphine. If Day 1 is the day of surgery then this happens on Day 3. Weaning is perhaps too kind a description as it's really a case of here's your Percocet and don't hit your morphine button unless you really have to - and then a few hours later down comes the morphine drip. Adjusting to Percocet can be a challenge as although Lauren's on the highest dosage possible every 4 hours, the medication really only lasts for 3.5hrs and then there is a 30 minute time lag before it takes effect. But of course everyone reacts differently to pain medication and the staff are great about working hard to keep the pain level below a 5. By Day 5 Lauren is doing quite well on Percocet. Then we come to the removal of the catheter. Now this is the challenging one!! Zero pain factor but mobility becomes key. For Lauren this was the one she was dreading (me too!) But then we learned about the bedpan for fractures. A low slung affair that slipped beneath her bottom like a dustpan, and with encouragement from a running faucet all worked the way it is meant too. Phew! Another hurdle out the way. So now on Day 5 she is tube free, but they have kept the line in her arm for periodically administering her antibiotics.

Secondly there's the love/hate relationship with Physical Therapy. Twice a day they appear in the room and the most difficult part of being both a patient and a caregiver begins. Progress is slow and painful but here's what I have learned that might be useful to you:
1. Progress from sitting, to sitting with legs over the edge of the bed, to standing, to that first baby step in a walker, to sitting in a wheelchair takes time and courage and persistence. BUT it pays off. The improvement every time gets exponentially better. Plus the benefits far outweigh the howling pain. And Lauren would agree.
2. A shift in position relieves stress in other places, like the small of the back or cramping muscles everywhere. And increased mobility provides great psychological benefits. You and the patient learn that it IS possible. That you won't disintegrate. That being less helpless is empowering. That recovery will happen. It might initially take 4 people and 20 minutes to get from bed to wheelchair, but next time it takes 18 minutes and the next 14.
3. The strength that returns from being mobile makes using the bedpan, feeding yourself, having a sense of humor, a better appetite, all possible. Plus the looming risk of pneumonia diminishes. Plus Dr S is so proud of Lauren's improvement that it makes her try harder every time to please him. There's no better medicine that praise and encouragement and belief in self.

Thirdly there's the lesson of speaking up. When Lauren kept mentioning she often feels light headed the staff phoned her Doctor and were told to give her the 2 units of blood she had donated in the weeks prior to surgery. This blood transfusion really made her stronger and increased her energy level. When her pain spiked to an 8 after one PT session she was given a morphine injection. Whenever her muscles cramp, which is a lot of the time, the staff pack the aching places with ice packs and she gets relief. I maintain she is now like a seabass kept fresh on a bed of ice. She doesn't seem to be amused :-) And here's my biggest learning. Not one of the staff, and they are fantastic, have ever encountered a patient who has had a PAO procedure before. Northside Hospital is reputed to be one of the biggest hospitals on the East Coast and still PAO surgery is a mystery to all. What this means is that YOU must know as much as you can so you can to give direction. From the onset everyone assumed Lauren had had a THP - total hip replacement. A PAO requires different protocols to a THP and you need to know this. The most vital being that the hip in a PAO patient has to remain at a 30-70 degree angle. PT will teach you how to cope with this as well as managing the dead weight of the leg that has undergone surgery. It ain't easy but the more you learn in hospital the better you will cope once home.
In short Lauren and her family are in a positive state of mind. We appreciate both how tough this all is but also that it is doable. Keep the faith, and know that you too can do this!!!

The Deed is Done

2007-11-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

My name is Denise. I am Lauren's Mother. Lauren started this Blog many months ago to provide information and support for everyone out there living with dysplasia. My promise to her is to keep the information flow alive while she dealing with surgery and her post surgery recovery. So here is the next chapter in the saga seen through the eyes of a mother. I hope it is helpful for all other loved ones who will stand on the sidelines of this journey to happy hips
November 6th - the dreaded day of the surgery. A 6.30am check-in at Northside Hospital with jaggered nerves and the resolve to be strong. Lauren was so very brave that she set an example for all of us - Mark, Nina and me. The pre-surgery process was rapid, smooth and caring. The staff, although largely unfamiliar with PAO, were calming and patient. In about 30 minutes Lauren was in a fashionable short-sleeved blue floral gown, elegantly open in the back. The ensemble was completed by thigh-high white stockings and nifty navy blue socks. An IV was inserted, quite painlessly, according to her facial expression, and the magic pre-op sedative administered. All that remained was for her to don the blue hat that really rounded off the outfit and then she was whisked off for her date with Dr. Schrader. Somewhere in this process we had a visit from the anaesthetist and Dr Schrader - both very reassuring and fundamentally non-plussed by it all. Post surgery Lauren has reported that she was in the operating room in minutes and unconscious in less. And so the wait begins.
To all those who sit and wait, brace yourselves for a day without end. Reading, talking, eating all seem a tad redundant and the clock genuinely does slow down to the rate of one day per every hour. Although the Doc estimated the procedure would take 5 hours; 6, then 7 hours came and went. One-liner reports trickle through from theater during this time - "all is going well" or "it won't be much longer" or "the doctor is closing up the wound" - - - blah, blah - - - and then Dr S appears. He's tired and hungry, but smiling. We melt. He explains that Lauren has "bones of steel" which added 2 hours to the surgery. I always through my child had nerves and a will of steel, but hadn't factored in that this pertained to her bones as well. Everything through this process is a trade off. Strong bones, more difficult surgery but good prognosis for recovery. The morphine dulls the pain but has made Lauren itch like a dog with fleas (a common side-effect we've discovered). The catheter means she doesn't have to be disturbed to go to the bathroom but it adds to the numerous tubes that snake out from every part of her body. But more on all that later.
So 9 and a half hours after arriving at the hospital we know she has come through it well and that she is in recovery. Be prepared - that flashing light/buzzing device they give you to page you as needed, becomes your best and worst friend. You don't move an inch without it and when it goes off your heart stops. When it doesn't, you find you are staring at it but not breathing. 2 hours after speaking to Dr S it finally buzzes. We report to the front desk - imagine 3 adults rigid with expectation - to be told I have a phone call. And it's Lauren. This is seriously an out-of-body experience. How can she be phoning me? Where is she? Am I having a god-awful nightmare and none of this is really happening? No! She is calling from recovery and is cheerfully telling me she's fine and they are keeping her in recovery for too damn long. The nurses are wonderful and have let her make the call. After speaking to her we relax a touch and eventually - 3.5 hours post surgery - we are called to her room. It seems she was a bit "tachy" (irregular heart-beat being my translation) and they were stabilizing her.
She doesn't look too bad. She speaks and drinks a gallon of water and sleeps and speaks. All looks pretty reassuring and she even eats a yogurt and a banana. In truth she probably does that to keep me happy, as what she really wants is just liquid. Masses of it and this has continued up til today. So at 11pm - 17 hours after the day started - we leave the hospital a hundred years older - and go home to bed.
This really is a tale seem through 2 very different lenses. From our perspective this was the longest day anyone could live through. From hers it passed in a flash.
November 7th
Back at the hospital at 8.30am. It seems that this morphine push button device has its' challenges. It knocks you out so the pain seems to hover at about a 3 or 4 out of 10. This question about pain level being one she is asked on a regular basis. But while she was drugged during the night she went long periods without administering the morphine. Pain peaks and then the challenge is to get it back under control. It seems this happened 3 times during the 11pm - 8am time period. My advice if I ever have to do this again. Stay overnight. Maybe it's just me as the nurses feel the night went well. But they have increased her morphine dosage and today her pain stayed within the 3-5 range. Except of course when the physical therapist comes by!!
In the morning visit PT got her to sit up slightly supporting herself with her hands behind her back. In the afternoon, which was 24 hours post surgery, they got her to sit on the side of the bed. And then because she is one hellavu woman she agreed to try to stand on one leg. It took 4 of us to get her upright BUT SHE DID IT. The many months she has spend at the gym preparing for all this paid off. She has the strength in her arms and left leg to manage this gargantuan feat (sorry - think there's a pun there). The fact is that it proved to all of us it is possible to move and stand again. That this is the first step on the road to recovery. That the body is remarkable in its' capacity to bounce back. Her pain spiked to a 7 but I think she felt a sense of great achievement.
Sometime in the afternoon her temperature started to spike, getting up to 102. Now we begin putting emphasis into her breathing to keep her lungs clear and to therefore control temp, spikes. By 9pm she's back to 99 degrees and is sleeping more peacefully than in the past 24 hours. So here are some of the key lessons I've learned about patient care over the past 2 days
1. Morphine can make you itch relentlessly. Ask for Benedryl, which is administered through your IV, and the scratching is curbed and it knocks you out. This Bendryl/Morphine cocktail has one mean kick. Who could ask for anything more??
2. 10 deep, big breathes every hour is critical for healthy lung function and to curb temperature hikes
3. PT is the dreaded part of each day but the best evidence that positive progress is possible. (When Lauren is up and about she will no doubt edit this and tell you all this is crap. PT stinks and she wishes they would never find her room again!!)
4. Water, water and more water. I think her uncontrollable thirst must have something to do with the drugs she getting, as she is drinking gallons. A good thing!
5. Be nice to the nurses. I mean really, really nice. You need them big time and the more gracious and considerate you are, they more they help you through this. Nothing is more important than knowing that the people who administer the drugs, check the vitals, give advice, change the drips and bags and drains and sheets, are ever pissed off. Everyone we've dealt with so far at Northside Hospital are angels of mercy as far as I'm concerned.
6. Know where your nearest 24 hour pharmacy is. This sounds odd but some things the hospital can't help you with. For example we've done 2 runs to the local pharmacy so far and both have been late at night. One was for heating patches to help with lower back ache. The second for Visine as Lauren's eyes were red and crusty and really sore. Methinks this is another post long surgery thing, but after a few applications of Visine she had much relief.
Enough lessons for now
After another 17 hours at Northside - our home away from home - another day ends. A good one by all accounts as every day is another one closer to her coming home.

1 day to go!

2007-11-05T11:40:00.000-05:00

Well I am pretty calm, at least that's what I think. I will be leaving tomorrow from my house at 6am . 6:30am check-in at Northside Hospital and 8:30am surgery. It should take around 5 hours and I will be in hospital for 5 days. I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
It's strange the things that run through my head today, like this is your last day of walking on 2 legs for months and this is the last day you'll drive for ages etc. It seems to all center around how tomorrow when I wake from surgery my life will be so very different and limiting.
Today as I walk around my leg is sore from abusing it on purpose this past weekend. I wanted to walk into the hospital in pain but really in the scale of things I believe that tomorrow will be a whole new level of pain that I could never really be prepared for. The good news is I'll have a morphine drip.
My back is worrying me. I have lower back issues from time to time and apparently the massage I had yesterday has made it more pronounced. I woke this morning with shooting sciatic pains down my leg. I guess I am really worried that 2 months of sleeping on my back and sitting a lot is going to make for a very angry back. Hopefully the meds will help with sleep.
And not to be graphic but I had read in basketcat's or dysplastic's blog that they will shave you at the hospital. I asked my Dr Schrader if there was any reason why I shouldn't do it myself rather than having a nurse do it on the day and he said it was fine for me to do it. So there you have it. I am now really ready for surgery.
Well there's not much more to do now other than sign up for Netflix and get a laptop tray for bed. I'll pack my bag tonight. Wash my hair and try to get a few hours of sleep and of course spend some good quality time with Molly. I guess it will be around a week before you'll hear from me again but keep checking this spot because Nina and my mom, Denise will be posting my daily progress reports while in hospital. Wish me luck! See you on the other side.

My sweet Molly

2007-11-02T13:36:00.000-04:00

This is my 8 month old puppy. She helps to keep me sane or saner.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

2007-11-02T12:49:00.002-04:00

My mother arranged for a group of our favorite female friends to surprise me at a local restaurant on Wednesday (Halloween). It was a surprise surgery party and everyone brought a gift. It was a wonderful evening full of great food, wine and friends. We have already started planning the PJ movie parties for post surgery.

I was given several pairs of fluffy socks, plenty of books - both serious and trashy, Sudoku, movies, remote light switch, beautiful slippers with bells on them so that my mother can find me - I think I'll tie them to the dogs, band-aids, heat packs, Aleve, a stuffed puppy to take to the hospital with me because I will miss my 8 month old pup, Molly, stool softner and of course the best and most inspiring "the rabbit". Thank you to everyone of you.

Ponder

2007-10-25T14:48:00.000-04:00

I found this image in one of my project images searches I kept it because it struck me as probably what many of us are hoping for but rarely is the case. It then made me think of Taoism and how to really understand the good in life you have to understand or experienced the bad too - you know the whole ying yang idea. So maybe life is sweeter when "not everything has been beautiful and sometimes it really hurt." At least this is what keeps the idea of PAO from completely terrifying me today. Life will be sweet again and this is something in my life that will give me more perspective and a deeper understanding of my navel or something to that effect. You know what I mean!?

12 days to go!

2007-10-25T10:44:00.000-04:00

As promised here is a picture of my cool South African cane. I'll be styling this baby in roughly 2.5 months. Thanks Dad for bringing it to me all the way from SA.

Done with Giving Blood

2007-10-23T14:42:00.000-04:00

So I have given my two pints of blood this week and last week (1 pint each time). I have the bruises to prove it. This is just the beginning of many needles coming my way. I will be a human pin cushion for the next 2 months. Not many things left on the "to do list" before surgery, well at least not on the medical side. I still have more than enough work and social things to do before D-day. So that is my small update for now.

Perspective

2007-10-04T14:43:00.001-04:00

If you have been following the news over the last few days no doubt you have heard about the 3,400 miners caught underground in South Africa. That is the mine that my father supervises the water purification and a host of other things for. He has 22 people that work full time at the mine doing this and my father goes underground 3-4 times a week usually between 4:30am and 7am. Well on this day he had been above ground for about 2 hours when the miners got trapped. He was in the mine's main office when the call came through to say what had happened. Someone was watching over him and all those trapped below. Not a single person was killed. It will take 2 weeks to clean the mess up and fix the electrical and mine shaft.

More than 3,000 gold miners trapped for hours in a South African gold mine, since Wednesday were mostly safe and back above ground by night fall Thursday. Peta Thornycroft has more for VOA News.

Mine workers leave a second smaller cage in another shaft at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand Mine in Carletonville, 4 Oct 2007

The accident happened at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand mine, near Cartetonville, 75 kilometers west of Johannesburg. Harmony officials said the accident was caused when a broken pipe severed power cables to an elevator early on Wednesday.

Some workers have been underground for 36 hours, since starting night shifts on Tuesday evening.

The more than 3,000 miners were being brought out through a small shaft normally used for mining equipment, and only 75 could be hauled at a time: no more than 300 in an hour. By midday Thursday, nearly 2,000 had been freed from the mine.

Harmony officials said they were not sure why the pipe fell as it was checked for safety on a weekly basis. But, the National Union of Mineworkers said lack of maintenance had caused the pipe to collapse and fall down the mine

Harmony Gold's general manager Stan Bierschenk said the men trapped under ground for more than 24 hours had remained calm.

There are nearly half a million mine workers in South Africa. According to statistics released last month by the government's Mine Health and Safety Council, last year there were 199 fatal accidents. This is the first accident at the Elandsrand mine.

Most of the men who emerged from the dark underground were dazed when they came into the light at the surface. Some celebrated by singing as they walked away from the shaft, and others said they had survived by "the grace of God."

Harmony's chairman, Patrice Motsepe said the company would review safety on the mine as a matter of urgency.

The Long Wait AKA 36 days and counting

2007-10-01T14:04:00.000-04:00

5 weeks and 1 day to go. The waiting is so hard at this point I just want to be on the other side of surgery and actually thinking about healing rather than the surgery. I am more than ready to be fixating on something else for a change. Work has been pretty busy the last week or so but it's one of those things that is still in the recess of your brain. You never really get away from it. Get up to go and get something to drink or use the restroom and the stiffness or twinges put it right back in your head.

I have ordered my stuff for post surgery:
- toilet extensions
- bath tub bench
- hip kit
- leg lifter
- foam wedges
- hand held sprayer for the shower

I have set up my appointments:
- to give blood twice
- to meet with Dr. Schrader to fill out paperwork the week before surgery
- to meet with the anesthesiologist for my pre-surgery assessment
- for my phone interview with the pre-assessment nurse

I will be 100% assessed by October 30th. I will have been poked and prodded to make sure that they can poke and prod me for "real" without serious problems. I have 3 pairs of crutches to practice with and determine which ones work best while acquainting all the animals with my crutching around the house. Don't worry I will be rating them once I have had a good chance to use them post surgery. I continue to go to the gym to strengthen my arms and legs (well leg, my left leg is the only one that really counts but I love symmetry). I figure that the stronger the muscle is that they have to disconnect in my right quad the better off I'll be when I am finally allowed to put weight on my leg. I'll let you know how that goes. I quit smoking 3 months ago and have not faltered. I have lost weight.

Whats left to do:
- finish my documentary (not about me!)
- finish my super secret project with Sarah Court
- get my work projects in order for someone else to take them over
- buy large ass sweats and crocks
- pack my bag

This may be the last entry until much closer to the time. I don't have much more to say other than 36 days and counting. It's time for the surgery day to just come already!

Hip Dysplasia causes Tourette's

2007-09-21T16:52:00.000-04:00

The first time I told my mother that Hip Dysplasia causes Tourette's she didn't find it funny. Her response was, "what on god's earth are you reading online now?" No, I did not read this in some scientific magazine. So don't worry you may not experience the same thing but let me explain.

I now have a surgery date: 6 November 2007 at 8:30 or 9:30am - still waiting on the final time but at least I finally have a surgery date. Just before finally getting a date I decided to stop taking my Tramadol (pain killer) because Dr. Schrader said that I could not take it for the 6 weeks before surgery. Well at first it seemed like it didn't make that big of a difference. I guess it had to fully work it's way out of my system and that's when I had my first bout with Tourette's. I stood up and my hip caught, it was extra stiff and a decent amount more painful than before stopping the Tramadol. The last two days at random times various co-workers, family members and pets have heard me swear when turning around, standing up after sitting in a chair for a while, turning over in bed, bending over etc. You get the idea.

If you think you're strange, odds are you're not

2007-09-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

I was thinking as I watched TV this evening about a new blog that I found online, of course I will, if not already have listed it on my blog. I read today for the first time on a support group and a blog about activities / actions that I have taken during my dysplastic moments that I thought no one else was doing.
1. Ever slept on the hip that hurt in order to quieten it?
2. Ever hit your hip / knee in order to make the pain go away?
3. Ever used excessive heat/cold to get rid of the pain - my favorite is a wheat pack that I can heat in the microwave. 2:15 on level 10 and I have 15 minutes of amazing relief. Cold or hot one is sure to work for you.

My point is whenever you feel that you have lost "it" and find yourself doing something that you believe no one else could actually be doing, odds are you're wrong. You're not alone! Take comfort in that.

The Impatient Patient

2007-09-18T17:43:00.000-04:00

My apologies for how long it has been since my last post but my father has been in Atlanta for the last 2 weeks on vacation. We have been playing around Atlanta, eating and drinking and having a great deal of fun. So now that he has left of course I am back to the PAO mindset. The anticipation of his visit and then his 2 week visit allowed me to not really think about it to my usual obsessive level. So with his departure I have moved on to the next thing on my list, surgery. Well actually the list goes something like this:
1. Call for surgery date yet again
2. Request private room at hospital
3. Find out where and when to give blood - I know I have to give twice and no closer than 2 weeks before surgery
4. Get my handicap permit
5. Get my appointment with Schrader for the week before surgery to do paperwork
6. Check that I have pre-approval from my insurance company
7. Find out if I can take Arnica before surgery - I have taken it before my other 2 surgeries (not hip related) and it works wonderfully

So I called Pat and...

still no bloody surgery date and I am now beginning to lose my sense of humor. Okay, actually it's already gone. I should at this point have received the date (or around the date) that I had requested at my last appointment on July 11, but Dr. Schrader's assistant is apparently "over loaded". I need to know if I am 4 weeks away so I can plan my life. I had asked for the October 16th or after. She called me last month and said she had October 2nd booked. Sorry that won't do I have a business and a business partner who is out of the country until the 13th. That is why I asked for after the 15th. People, please work with me here I cannot mark anything off of my list without a surgery date.

I decided to stop taking my Tramadol (pain killer) on Saturday (15 September) after my father's depature. Dr. Schrader said to stop 6 weeks before surgery. It is really hard to work out where the 6-week mark is when you have no surgery date. Aaaahhhh! So to be safe I stopped them. Which now means I am sleeping worse than I already was - thanks. I am surprisingly in only 1 or 2 more points of pain (that's on the 0-10 pain scale, o = no pain, 10 = kill me now). I am generally achier and my left leg likes to scare me with the odd groin pain and ache for periods of time. I keep telling myself that my left leg is merely compensating for the right leg and the limping I sometimes catch myself doing. This has hopefully NOT lead to an angry left leg when I place all my weight is on it post surgery. I have my fingers crossed.

So question #8 for Pat: can I have surgery with fewer than 6 weeks of Tramadol being absent from my system? Don't tell me we'll have to reschedule or ... oh who am I kidding I have no power in this situation. She is Schrader's gatekeeper and even though she is apologetic this could mean surgery sometime next season. Will my walking stick still be fashionable?

Speaking of which just a short aside, my father brought me a beautiful handcrafted cane from South Africa when he came to visit. I will post a picture so you can all see how stylish I will be come month 4 of recovery.

So this is my frustrated update. I will let everyone know as soon as I know the date but don't hold your breath it could be fatal. Actually that's not likely to happen, I take that back. My mother, Attila, is on a warpath and trying to track Dr. Schrader down at his home, work, e-mail or perhaps his office parking space one morning. It is driving the whole family nuts. Pray that none of us have a coronary before October comes. Ciao for now!

So why on earth are you having a PAO?

2007-08-29T14:27:00.000-04:00

I was asked on the Yahoo support group site that I belong to why I finally decided to have PAO surgery this is my long answer but at least it's all in one posting. You may have read bits of this in other posts but this I think is a pretty comprehensive account of all the main pieces that went into my final decision.

When I first heard about PAO it scared me to no end. It sounded awful and painful with a really long recovery. Then I met with Dr. Schrader (here is Atlanta) and PAO started to make a lot more sense. Unlike many other women I got a diagnosis quickly and so have only been in pain for the last 6 months. But I am still sick of it. I am lucky though that it was diagnosed so quickly and thankful to myself that I went to a doctor so quickly when I first started feeling the pain. Of course because PAO is most successful when your cartilage is in good/decent shape. So Dr. Schrader said I had a year to make the decision and I began researching and meeting with other doctors.

When I talked to my family Dr. about PAO his response was "That is brilliant and so simple. Why didn't I think of that." He by the way is a Russian surgeon who moved to the USA 10 years ago. THR and resurfacing while they do help with the pain they are not fixing the problem but rather the symptoms. PAO and/or FO are the only options we have to fix the problem itself - the shallow acetebulum and the degree of coverage it gives or the femoral head with regards to an FO. Plus you can't beat using your own tissue, bone and cartilage to fix the joint to as close to normal as possible. So Dr. Schrader, while not by any means guaranteeing it, said I could get 20-30 years out of my right hip or who knows I may never need a THR. This was before I did the CT Scan and Arthrogram MRI. And they now confirm that the cartilage is in good shape and that my femur is straight.

Bone preservation is the best thing that we can do for ourselves at our age. Once we hit the THR clock start button we start the process of destroying bone and may have to have 2 or 3 more THRs in our lifetime. Each time you lose more bone. For that reason at one point I was excited about resurfacing because it keeps a lot more bone. But depending on how much acetebulum coverage you have determines whether resurfacing is actually an option and that is the very problem that people wit hip dysplasia have. For THR you need 70% contact with bone in terms of the prosthetic cup, with resurfacing you may need even more. At the very least if PAO doesn't work for as long as 20 years even, at least my acetebulum will be in much better shape for a successful THR or resurfacing.

Then on top of that the 2 THR specialists I met with both said for someone of your age we would tell you to wait 10 years or until you are no longer able to walk before having a THR. And if you plan on having kids do it before THR because it isn't an option afterwards. Metal on metal replacements still have the best track record of 10-15 years for moderately active people and the break down of the metal is not healthy for a fetus. So I had to ask myself if I wanted to live the next 10 years with the pain getting worse and worse and then on top of that try to carry a child on weakening hips. The answer for me is no!

The longer we can put off a THR the better too. Every year that goes by more and more information is coming to light with regards to the various THR materials. In 10 years they will know a lot more and in 20 years or 30 years even more. For instance the one THR doctor I saw said they he has done 2,000 ceramic THRs and that he no longer does them because they have proved unreliable. In Europe they stopped using them 5 years ago. Then he said "That means I could have 2,000 hips fail in the next few years. I hope that isn't the case." So much of this still seems to be a guessing game. I am no ready to take that medical risk.

So, I know this is a long answer and it had a lot of information in it but these are all the reasons why I finally decided to do a PAO. It took me 6 months, a lot of tears, starting to take an antidepressant to get my head to a place where I could think clearly and hour after hour after hour of research and soul searching. So this is my lengthy answer to your question but it took getting all of this information and filtering it through my brain to realize that this was the best option for me. Please feel free to ask all of us or myself more questions. My blog lists some resources and the other blogs have even more listed. Just remember you are not alone and there are many women in this support group that are wonderful resources. This is my two cents.

No ossifer sir I'm not drunk

2007-08-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

Nina, my girlfriend, was going to take me for my MRI because I needed someone to keep me calm and I wasn't sure that I could drive myself home afterwards due to the Xanax my mother had procured for me. So the doctor says to take one in the morning before going to work. My appointment was at 3:00pm with a check in time of 2:45pm. So I pop a tablet and off I go. Well all was fine, a little foggy at times, but after lunch I felt pretty normal. I drive home to meet Nina and as I am pulling into the driveway Nina calls. She can't get into her car. It has locked her out (some electrical thing or the battery on the remote is dead) and AAA is on their way. Oh no! She asks if anyone else is able to take me because it is 45 minutes to check in time. I call my mother and by a slim chance I actually get her on her blackberry. She had just landed from New York and was in the Atlanta Airport making her way to the taxi rank. She'll meet me at the hospital.

In fact she beats me to Piedmont and there she stands with her luggage outside of the ODC (Outpatient Diagnostic Center). "Have you taken your next 2 Xanax?" No, I drove here. Before we get into the ODC she has 2 tablets in my mouth and is telling me to drink the water I brought with me. I check in at the desk. All seems similar to the CT Scan day. We are then called back to fully check in and it is at this point that I realize that the Xanax have kicked in. It feels like I have had 2 glasses of wine. hhhhmmmm nice, if it was any other day than today. Denise has to call Ines, my business partner, because Schrader's details are at the office and they need his address and fax number to send the results to him. Excuse me! We all know that is a joke. If you've read my other posts you already know what I am talking about dear reader. Don't trust them or you may never receive your results!

So we are asked to sit and wait again and someone will be there soon to get me. Probably 2 minutes later Harry comes for me. Harry is this great guy who is calm and funny and makes me feel a little calmer. Denise and I wheel her luggage back into the next waiting area and it is now time for me to take off my pants, undies and bra. No metal for the MRI later and no undies for inserting the needle into my hip joint. While I wait to be taken to the next room my mother pops another Xanax into my mouth and tells me to drink water. Yip, an arthrogram MRI requires that contrast solution be injected into the joint to help show the soft tissue in the MRI scans. So this is what they do.

You lie down on a metal table called a X-ray fluoroscopy table. It is a real time x-ray machine that helps the doctor find the space between the femur and the acetebulum and inject the contrast dye in but first they have to get you numb. So Harry props my leg up on a pillow and places a sand bag on the outside of my leg to help keep it straight. Much less painful than the CT Scan method of tyeing my feet together. A paper sheet thingy is placed over my special places and then I was swabbed with a sterile solution. The doctor looked at the fluoroscopy and made a dot on my groin. That is where the needle will be going in. Next he says this may burn a little and begins to inject the anesthetic into my hip. Each time I felt a pinch and then a burning sensation that lasted 15 seconds or so. It's bearable but not pleasant. I think he did this 5 or 6 times each time going deeper each time. I chose not to watch. At about the point that my eyes are starting to fill up with tears he says now we are going to inject the dye. He already had the needle in my joint. I was so surprised that I didn't know he had done it. As he injects the contrast solution into the joint I could feel it stretching and that was a little painful but he saw this on my face and asked if I was in any pain. I said that it was tender and he injected more anesthetic into my leg. Okay all done. I have read that it should take 20 minutes but this took 10. I think the difference is in the level of expertise of the doctor doing it. Mine was phenomenal.

Harry helps me out and there is my mother waiting. You're finished already? Yip. Harry gets a wheelchair because too much walking will cause your body to start to absorb the contrast and then that was all done for no reason. It is time to go down to the MRI area. Harry takes us down a floor to the next waiting room. We had just arrived when Nina appears out of nowhere. She had made it to the hospital. What a surprise. So we all sit and wait. I am a little spacey by this time and so Nina finds a children's book called How to make your insides say cheese and I begin to read it. My mother decides I look far too awake and I can read far too well and the forth and final Xanax is popped into my mouth.

A few minutes later they come for me. I am not generally a claustrophobic person so this was not an issue for me. The technician gets me to lie down on the table and gets me to scoot into position. He places a pillow under my feet and puts some kind of plastic apparatus over my mid section and uses straps to hold it down. We find the best place to put my arms which seems to be with fingers interlocked over my stomach. He then puts ear plugs in and asks if I need a blanket. I was already feeling warm so I declined. He leaves the room and in a few minutes I begin to slide into the tube. It is rather tight and the top is only a few inches from your face but I was calm. There was a nice breeze around my feet and then the clicking starts. It is loud but not bad the ear plugs hep big time. And so there you lie. My problem became my lower back. I should have asked to put a pillow under it. Keeping still when you are sore is tricky but when you have no choice or they'll have to do that cycle of imagining over again, you best find a way to keep yourself from moving. I was told at some point that one set were blurry and so they were redone. Around the time that the sweet is flowing down my face and I am unable to wipe away the little itchy beads of water I am told, "One more to go." Lie still Lauren, lie still the end of the tunnel is insight. About 10 minutes later I begin to slide out and it is over. When the tech comes to help me up he is like "Gee you weren't kidding about not needing the blanket." There is sweat all over my fact and around the neck of the gown as well as around the bottom of my gown where the plastic thing touched my knees.

It's all over and I can get dressed and go home. My mother brings my clothes back and I change, wash my face and walk back to the waiting room. I had been in the MRI machine for over an hour. It was good to be out in the air. So I have heard that some people find the contrast solution makes them hot. I am assuming that is what happened to me but it's hard to say I tend to run rather hot any way. The MRI is behind me. I can not tell you how happy I was and it also taught me though that my mind can make things seem far worse than they are going to be. It gives me hope that I can make it through the surgery and recovery with dignity and it showed me that I am more resilient than I remembered. It has been a while since any medical procedure done but I am happy to say I made it through and my insides said cheese.

The Xanax helped me to stay calm. This is a big deal not only for your own mental state and the mental state of those around you but also when you are nervous you tense up. If your muscles are tense injections will hurt more and trying to keep still in the MRI tube will be that much harder. Believe me I tensed a little in the tube and wished I hadn't. For those of you who are claustrophobic or think you may panic a little here is something to help you. This is from an e-mail my mother sent me the morning of the MRI from New York.

"2 pieces of insight for you to focus your mind, if you have one (referring to the Xanax I took that morning), by the time you go into the MRI machine
1. Just keep saying the same word over and over again. F--K will do, but happier words like Molly (my beautiful six month old puppy) better. Hard for other thoughts to intrude when you make brain do one repetitive task. The principle behind meditation's OoooMmmm. That word works too.
2. Focus on a bright white light filling your body through an opening in the top of your head and direct it to the place of pain. This is even contained in the Cancer Association Booklet as guidance for patients undergoing Chemo.
Love you
This too shall pass"

OoooMmmm F-- K OoooMmmm F--K, F--K F--K Molly Molly Molly Molly aaahhhhhh calm again

You are now entering the twilight zone

2007-08-22T14:05:00.000-04:00

After finding out that I had been booked for my MRI at Scottish Rite Hospital, a children's hospital, I make the call to their radiology department.

What is your children's name?
No it is for me. I am Lauren G... and I am calling to see if you take adults because I thought you didn't.
Are you pregnant?
No.
We do fetal MRI's so I don't know why they made an appointment for you here. Spell your last name.
G, i, o ...
You're appointment was canceled by your doctor. You should call your doctor's office to see if they scheduled elsewhere.
Thank you I will.

So I call my doctor's office.
Children's Orthopaedic of Atlanta. How can I help you?
I would like to speak to the person responsible for insurance questions please.
One moment.
I get voice-mail. Please leave a brief message, your name, the patients name and phone number you can be reached. beep.
This is Lauren G.... I am one of Dr. Schrader's adult PAO patients. ...... Thank you.

Someone calls me back and tells me to call my insurance company to schedule the MRI at one of their medical centers. Okay, thank you.

Scheduling. How can I help you?
I need to make an appointment for an Arthrogram MRI.
Hold on. Which center would you like to do it at?
I choose one.
Okay so we can do it on July 26th at 3pm.
Great.
So I have you down on the 26th for an MRI at 3pm.
That's an Arthrogram MRI, right?
No we can't do those. You'll need to speak to the referral department. I'll connect you.
Thank you.

This is referrals how can I help?
I need to schedule an Arthrogram MRI please.
Name? Insurance card number?
blah blah blah
Oh Ms. G no one has called you.
No.
You can go ahead and schedule your appointment with Piedmont Radiology yourself.
I can. Thank you.

This is Piedmont Hospital, how can I direct your call?
Radiology, please.
Radiology.
I need to schedule an Arthrogram MRI.
The first opening we have is 3 August at 3pm.
Great. I'll take it.
Name and phone number?
blah blah blah
So we have you down for an Arthrogram MRI on the 3rd at 3pm, check in at 2:45pm.
Thank you so much. Have a lovely day. Goodbye
Goodbye.

There you have it. 7 phone calls to make 1 appointment.

What I have neglected to tell you until now is that the only surgery Dr. Schrader does for adults is PAO and that is because he has found that this surgery has helped both his younger patients and also adults. He does not desire to deal with workers comp, or THR's and believes that in 20 or so years he will not be doing this surgery anymore because Hip Dysplasia will be found at birth and not missed or never checked for perhaps like back in the old days when I was born. I'm not actually sure if it was missed or never checked for. I can tell you that up until 4 months ago my hip never clicked. There was no pain when playing various sports, practicing karate, climbing rocks as a kid, walking and doing every day activities. It is Dr. Schrader's opinion that this is why there are not that many surgeons in the USA doing this surgery because in 20 years they will be out of a job. I have the deepest respect for you Dr. Schrader but I hope you are right. That this is one of those disorders that will eventually not touch adults. It gets so much trickier to deal with when it is found passed the age of 1.

Of course my mother thinks this whole thing is like being in the twilight zone because whenever we sit in the waiting room at Schrader's office there are babies in mother's arms, 5 years running around and lots of little boys with casts on their arms. And there she sits with her 29-year-old daughter filling out medical paperwork that asks how long the labor was and was I a breech birth. It seems with Hip Dysplasia that 80% are female; most are the first-born and were breech or HD runs in the family. This paperwork usually applies to the mothers of the 5 year olds. So I imagine this is going to be even stranger when I have to crutch into his office at the 2 week, 4 week, 8 week and 12 week marks. And then visit him at 6 months, 1 year and every 2 years after that. I will constantly be the oldest child in the room by decades.

CAT Scanning away

2007-08-21T17:53:00.000-04:00

July 23rd and it is time to head to Piedmont Hospital for my CAT Scan. I'm not too worried about this one because by now I had read enough to know what I was in for. I arrive and check in at the front desk of the Outpatient Diagnostic Center. After about 30 minutes they come and get me to check in properly which entails questions and insurance information. I then am told to go to a particular waiting room. From there I am walked to a smaller room and asked to remove my pants and put on a hospital gown - at least this one didn't have the hole in the back for all the world to see my ass.

I come out from the change room and am told by a nurse that contrast was ordered and so she will be putting a IV in. Great! I thought contrast was kept for the MRI. At least this is through my vein and not into the joint. Oh, no I gave away all the fun of the MRI. IV in and then I wait and wait and wait. Eventually a nurse comes to me and says that they are trying to track my doctor down to ask him what he means by "anteversion" and by chance do I know. Nope, haven't gotten my MD just yet.

What is "femoral anteversion?"
The femur is the long bone that goes from the hip to the knee. "Anteversion" literally means "leaning forward." Femoral Anterversion is therefore a condition in which the femoral neck leans forward with respect to the rest of the femur (see diagram). This causes the lower extremity on the affected side to rotate internally (i.e. the knee and foot twists towards the midline of the body). Because some degree of rotation of the femur is always present as kids grow, it is considered abnormal only if it is significantly different from the average value of a patient of the same age.

What is the surgical treatment?
The only surgical treatment currently used is called a "femoral derotation osteotomy." The pediatric orthopaedic surgeon intentionally cuts the femur, rotates it, and then fixes it in a more correct anatomical position. The surgery should only be used in the more severe cases and in the older child.
Don't worry I am 29!

Another 20 minutes later the technician comes to get me and off we go to the CAT Scan room. The good news is that the scan takes 10 minutes. The bad news for me was that
A. I did not need the IV, contrast was never ordered and
B. My legs need to be straight for the scan. My legs tend to rotate outward quite a bit when lying down.

I ask her if she can help to prop them up and so she grabs a big ol' ace bandage and basically ties my feet together to pull my legs straight. Thank god the scan only takes 10 minutes I was in pain. This of course got me really worried for a 45 minute MRI. I will cover the Arthrogram MRI next time. Don't worry it is not as bad as you may have heard or read else where.

Picking up from where I left off on August 9th

2007-08-17T17:33:00.000-04:00

May 9th rolls around and it is time to visit the next Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr. Kress. He was well recommended and so I was certainly interested in asking him about hip resurfacing. This is another option for young people. The problem for those with Hip Dysplasia is that our "roof" needs to cover at least 70% of the prosthetic joint socket. If not you could go under thinking you're having a resurfacing and wake up with a Total Hip Replacement because that was the best option to avoid dislocating the joint. Why it is good for younger people who do not have severe dysplasia or could just have really deteriorated cartilage is that this method preserves as much as of the femur as possible. This of course is good because the younger you are when you start the clock on Joint Replacement surgery the more likely you are to have to have more in your life time. Currently Hip Joint Replacements are lasting 10 - 15 years. We'll get back to this.

So my mom and I head out to meet Dr. Kress and after about 2 hours of waiting and being shuffled from waiting area to waiting area to exam room he arrives. I absolutely see why our friend Rick recommended him. Dr. Kress sat and talked for 30 - 45 minutes and gave us the "this is what I would do if it was my daughter" advice (and by the way he does have a daughter in her late teens). This is what he advised. Have PAO surgery or at the very least speak with a doctor who does both THR and PAO surgeries on a regular basis. Send or go in person and show him/her your x-rays. He said for his daughter he would go and see Dr. Buly in NYC. They went to school together.

He said the other option I have is to wait as long as I possibly can to have a THR. 10 years if possible. In 10 years they will have even more data and know better which joints work and which ones are best for more athletic or younger people. He also said decide if you want to have children. A metal on metal joint will pass metal ions across the umbilical cord and this is not healthy for a baby. Wow, let's see I can wait 10 years progressively experiencing more and more pain while I try to get pregnant and then spend the first years of that child's life unable to play for long, walk for too long and gradually getting less and less active with a 3 year old or a 5 year old. Never mind the fact that I am not ready to have children yet. This is not a valid option for me. We thanked him for his advice and left.

During my first appointment with Dr. Schrader he mentioned that I could get a second opinion from someone like Dr. Millis in Boston. Dr. Schrader studied under Millis and Millis does do more of these surgeries each year than Schrader. It seems like the Orthopedic climate in Georgia has not yet warmed up to the idea of PAO. Well why not. So I had a lovely conversation with Dr. Millis' assistant, Maryanne in Boston and she made me feel calmer. I think they have seen so many of these cases it is more run of the mill to them than obviously it is to me. So copies of my x-rays were sent to Dr. Millis and would be reviewed in his next review meeting. About a week later he called. I missed the call and called back and was lucky enough to catch him for a few minutes. Dr. Millis said he 100% concurred with Dr. Schrader that I had bilateral hip dysplasia (this is still to be determined fully but none the less the right is definitely worse than the left). He said that there no reason to travel to Boston for surgery that Dr. Schrader is a fine surgeon and I would be in "capable hands".

Dr. Schrader said that I had a year or so to make the decision. Sooner is better but that at my age the cartilage should be okay for that length of time or at the very least he did not say I need to do it now or never. However after talking with Dr Millis and finding this recommendation regarding Dr Schrader on line “He not only did his fellowship with Dr. Kim and me here in Boston, but he also has done a subsequent fellowship with Professor Ganz. He is excellent.” — Michael Millis. Okay, sign me up!

So I saw Dr. Schrader for my next appointment (11th of July) and told him that I have decided to have the surgery. Great. Now I need you to have a CAT Scan and an Arthrogram MRI to see if you can. I'll save the fun of these tests for another entry but this brings us quickly up to July. Oh yes, I've forgotten to tell you that Dr. Schrader works for Children's Orthopaedics of Atlanta. More fun to come.

Yipppee!!! I can have surgery

2007-08-17T17:08:00.000-04:00

No seriously this is a good thing. I recently hung up the phone with my doctor and he said that from the reports and scans that my cartilage looks good and my femur is straight, there is no "mild deformity of the femoral neck and head" which was in the MRI report. This is terrific news. I am allowed to have surgery. It sounds ridiculous to be excited about surgery but think about the alternatives - my cartilage could be too far gone leaving me with the only option of having a Total Hip Replacement. Or my femur could be twisted or skew and that would mean a second surgery. Dr Schrader agreed that my acetabulum is shallow, which we have known pretty much from the start and having a RPAO will fix that.

So hopefully next week I can get my surgery date set and an idea of where and when to give blood. This then means for now I will continue to exercise to the best of my ability to get stronger and perhaps lose some weight in the process which would be great. Continue fighting off the infrequent desire to smoke. I am now 2 months into not smoking and have not faltered once. I may do a cleansing before surgery, probably after my father's trip. The next time I will see Dr Schrader will be the week before surgery to fill out my paperwork for Northside Hospital.

My only concern now is to enjoy my father's trip to see me in September. It will be his first time in the USA since I moved here 15 years ago. He is coming for a 2 week vacation and I can't wait to see him. It has been 6 years since we last spent time together and that was not under the most joyous of occasions, I was there to support my mom through my grandmother's funeral and the closing of her estate. My father and I speak several times a month and have all these years but it is nothing like spending time together face to face with a cold alcoholic drink in your hand and good food in front of you.

Getting through the Arthrogram MRI and now this news makes me feel finally like I can cope with all of this and this too shall pass. Have a good weekend everyone.

Do NOT believe them

2007-08-16T18:16:00.000-04:00

I am still waiting for my MRI and CT Scan results from my doctor. It is not his fault yet it has still been a saga. As I found out over the last week even when the hospital says your doctor will get our report in 2-3 days do not believe them. Even if they sound sincere ask them again if they are sure. Ask them if you need to sign a release form giving them permission to send your results to your doctor. Find out where your records will go and where your films will go in case you have to pick them up and hand deliver them to your doctor's office (as I did this week) if you are ever going to be lucky enough to be put out of your misery with an answer to how the hell your cartilage is and if your femur is straight or not (as for my femur's sexual orientation that is my femur's choice and I will respect it). These are important questions. So needless to say I will get back to you with the results as soon as I get them.

On a happy note I would like to congratulate Dr Schrader and his wife on the birth of their new baby. This is another reason why things have been slowed down but on the positive side as my mother has pointed out to me, "At least he won't be leaving your surgery in the middle to be with his wife while she in labor. Meanwhile you wake up to be told that the doctor is taking a break and will be back in a while to finish, just hold tight." One can usually find a bright side if you look hard enough, squint and stand on one leg.

So I realize at this point that my story is now severely out of order but well let's think of it as a stream of consciousness. Also there is exciting news with a side project that I am working on but right now I would have to kill you if I told you. So for your health and my police record I'll just say that my new cohort, Sarah will be my co-author in this fine attempt to share knowledge with the Dysplastic world. Ciao.

Off to see the wizard...

2007-08-09T19:05:00.000-04:00

Shortly after having my x-rays passed on to the PAO doctor I get a call that I am a candidate and that I need to call Pat at Dr. Schrader's office to make an appointment. Great! At this point I have done enough research on PAO that I believe it really isn't the best option for me. Far more invasive with a longer recovery time and no guarantee of buying me more time than Total Hip Replacement. I call any way and chalk it up to further research. The first available appointment is April 18th. I'll take it.

Of course between the phone call and April 18th what do I do? That's right dear reader, I continue to obsess and drive the people around me mad. Something I have become quite good at these last few months.

Needing to keep calm (which at that point meant trying not to burst into tears) I asked my mother to go with me. She has 29 years of experience. So off to Schrader's we go. And it turns out to be exactly what I didn't want to hear. PAO makes the most sense for someone my age. Now 6 months later and having had many conversations, met with other doctors and having had time to let it all seep in, oh yeah and some drugs (doctor prescribed) I do truly believe that this is the best option for me and I am absolutely lucky to have it as an option. Well that is not quite yet set in stone. I have to hear back about my CT Scan and MRI. I hope to hear from Dr. Schrader's office tomorrow or by Monday latest. These tests will let us know what state my cartilage is in and if my femurs are anything but straight because if they aren't it means a femoral osteotomy as well. 2 surgery's per leg - I can't entertain the thought right now. So keep your fingers crossed. I'll of course let you know when I do.

Dr. Schrader very generously spent an hour talking to us. I felt that he was genuine, not trying to scare or sell me on anything and more than anything I felt that I could trust him with my surgery. We left, I won't lie, shell shocked. My mom and I went directly to our GP's office which was a mile or so away. Dr R's staff whisked us into a room and although I was not on his schedule he came and spent time with us and we talked him through the whole conversation. And the best thing he said was "I had never heard of this surgery before but it makes so much sense. It actually treats the cause not the symptoms." THR treats the symptoms of pain, PAO actually attempts to fix the joint itself using your bone and body's cartilage regeneration abilities. So I could get 20, 30 or more years of as close to a normal joint as possible.

At some point during our time with Dr. R I began to cry. I think the whole afternoon had just been so stressful. He said some very encouraging things and then asked if I would like something to help me get through this time. He gave me a trial pack of Lexapro. It was the best thing he could have done for me. I was worried about my own mental state and taking Lexapro just got me back to being me. It hasn't changed my ability to feel things. I can still cry but just not if the wind blows the wrong way when I actually need too. There is no reason to not to seek help when you need it and recovery and healing is so linked to state of mind that in a way I feel we owe it to ourselves to get to a positive place before surgery.

So now armed with the knowledge that PAO is a better choice I now had to come to terms with it. At the same time though I got an appointment with another Orthopaedic Surgeon who is very well known in Atlanta for the number of THRs he does in a year. A friend of the family had used him in 2006 for his THR. Mind you Rick was in his 60's and I am 29. But Rick highly recommended him so I made an appointment even though my insurance was not going to cover it. I needed to find out about Hip Resurfacing. My appointment was set for May 9th.

Please keep in mind that is hard to get appointments with a surgeon closer than a month out. If you are beginning to feel pain, hear clicks and clunks make an appointment don't wait. Even after seeing a surgeon it will still take a good period of time before you can get on his/her surgery schedule. So keep this in mind. This all takes time and if you wait too long you will end up being in pain for far longer than you'll want to.

My next posting will cover more about Hip Resurfacing and my next doctor's appointment.