As promised....
I am back, though not with the motivation to write a long blog this time. I am sitting here feeling as if I need about a pot of coffee to get me going. Let's see, where to start. I will start with the most recent event and then go from there.
January 4th came like any other day does but this wasn't any other day, this was the day that I would yet again go under the knife and have my body carved upon. This time it had nothing to do with my breast cancer though and everything to do with my genetics. You see, I inherited osteoarthritis and my right hip had had enough and so had I. I had pain with every step and sometimes when I was just sitting still. Finally my surgeon said if it was time "I" needed to tell him not the other way around. Needless to say, it WAS time.
So, back to January 4th. We arrive at the hospital early and jump through all the hoops to get admitted and ready for surgery. Luckily a friend was going to be my anesthesiologist and knew that I was not liking the idea of going "under" for this surgery due to my wonderful experience the last time. You remember don't you (or did I not write about this, I will have to go back and check) I went into respiratory arrest, stopped breathing basically, and had to be revived. So back to the story at hand....my friend decided to give me an epidural and let me stay awake for as long as I could handle all the sounds and movements ;^) He told me he would put me under the second I called Uncle! So, we go into surgery and luckily I handled the entire thing rather well with the exception of a bit of nausea from the movements when they were POUNDING the rod into my femur. A bit of nausea meds and I was fine. My surgeon said he had never done a complete hip on someone awake! Leave it to me right? It helps to have a friend at the head of the bed holding your hand and talking to you through the entire surgery.
So, I get into recovery and as I am starting to get some feelings back I am having excrutiating pain down my leg. Of course pain is to be expected when they cut into your hip, dislocate it, bore out your socket and femur, screw in another socket, pound in a rod and then test the new hip in every position/direction possible to make sure it isn't going to dislocate. This pain was going down my leg though and through my knee. I was a bit hesitant to use too much pain meds since that is why I stopped breathing the last time, narcotic overdose. After a while I decided I would have to trust them that I couldn't give myself too much and I started pushing that pain med button like crazy. Long story short, my pain never really got under control and I came out of surgery with a 2 inch leg length discrepancy. Can I do nothing the easy way?
Since then we have gone through numerous appointments with my doc and a Physical Therapist and have come to find that it isn't actually a leg length discrepancy but the right side of my pelvis being torked out of alignment. So, next up, PT!!! Now, normally PT isn't the most pleasant thing to go through since you are usually working out something that desperately needs it but mine ended up being even more so. My therapist had to manually attempt to rotate the right side of my pelvis back into alignment with the rest of my pelvis, fun!!! What was happening was that all my ligaments and muscles were all spasming and tight as tight could be. My PT had to try to work all these out first to loosen them up and then try to "grab" hold of my pelvic bone (ouch) and rotate it back (double ouch). She needed to schedule an hour one on one with me each time because the aids that usually help you with your exercises couldn't do what needed to be done. Luckily I was able to request a therapist who had worked on me before and I knew would tell me like it was without the sugar coating you might get normally. My concern was, of course, that my surgeon made a mistake and that this was going to be permanent. She reassured me that it seemed to all be in my pelvis, YEAH!!!!
So, 12 weeks later we are down to only a 7/8" difference and I am finally off the crutches completely and trying to re teach all my muscles what it is to walk on their own :-)
Now, I am dealing with what to do about work....I have been off on disability since the surgery and on restrictions since right before that. I just found out that since I can't go back to my full position by 4 months my actual position on my unit isn't guaranteed. I love my job (most of the time) and certainly want to go back and now I am stressed out over this :-( I did speak to one of my managers this past week and she said that since my shift isn't a highly requested one they will hold it for me for as long as they can. If they have to fill it they will let me know and we can go from there. Just one more thing to worry about, right? Wrong, just one more thing to pray about :-)
Until the next time, ciao!!!!
