What's a year without another major surgery?
Yeah, that's my left hip. Better images to come once I can get to them.
After the roller-skating episode, I was on a scooter for several weeks. Then when I got off of it and started walking, I started to have this problem with intense pain in my left hip and having it give out on me. I'd just be walking and all of the sudden, I couldn't support my own weight. I did the requisite several months of ignoring it, and telling myself I'm fine and it's just week.
Then I saw my PCP, who sent me to one orthopod, who sent me to an injection. The injection was FANTASTIC. She was alarmed when i literally hopped up off the table and starting hopping around in circles, suddenly able to move.
Which was diagnostic for the fact that it was truly a joint problem, not a muscle weakness problem. Had the MRI, the barrage of Xrays. They diagnosed femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) (CAM type, if you are a person who cares about these things). Which sounded like not a real thing to me at the time. People insist it's a real thing, and medical literature insists it's a real thing. It's basically that my acetabulam (the socket) is cupping too much over the head of the femur, restricting movement. That's sounds like rational physics. What I am having difficulty squaring with is why I could abduct my left leg last year, and couldn't now.
The surgeon also said I had very significant arthritis for my age. Cool. And that the cartilage was barely there. This makes sense to me. My cartilage...which is of course, the root problem of the pectus.
They gave me two choices, one minimally invasive, an approach to try (keyword was try) to correct the FAI, and hope the cartilage grew back. "Try" didn't sound very good to me, and "hoping" my cartilage would behave in a way I wanted it to also sounded like a bad idea. They said I'm very young for a total hip replacement. I said I'm very young to not be able to do exercise for the next twenty years, even if I do have to have a second replacement in my sixties. And buying that twenty years of mobility in my hips is important for every other aspect of my health.
So a total hip replacement it was. Monday. I came home Tuesday. I have a physical therapist coming out to the house three times a week. I have a walker. I have ordered a purple and green feathered boa for it.
So I have a metal plate on my left humerus, left fibula, lowest left ribs, a new left metal joint, and two metal bars in my chest.
And no, the surgeon didn't want to go through the paperwork of giving me my hip bone back. He actually said to me, "You don't want that." I blinked. "Yes. I do." Surgeons. Honestly. It would be good for all of them to interact more with people who are conscious. I didn't get my bone.
I think he was good though. He's the head of the infection control committee, and I was fussy about infection prevention, and I believed him that he was particular. In all other ways, the surgeon was a good guy. The incision is healing well, looks clean and good. I had 500cc of blood loss, which seemed like a lot to me, but I don't know what's typical for an ortho surgery like this. I still feel the effects of that; my heart rate has been running high all week, and I can feel that my pressure it lower than normal. Just a faint light-headedness. I keep drinking a lot of water, but honestly, I think it's just giving me an edematous left leg, not really pumping my pressure up.
Post-op, my recovery was pretty difficult. They didn't want to give me a scopalamine patch (my first choice) or Zofran (second choice) because of my QT interval immediately post-op was a little long. Therefore, I got hypotensive, tachycardic, diaphoretic, and was vomiting for several hours. I told my night shift nurse to please call the resident and get me a scope patch and I offered to have her put the resident on the phone with me, so I can suggest some places where he could put that QT interval.
I got phenegran and a fluid bolus.
Mostly, I stopped vomiting because I stopped taking IV morphine. (Which I only had because I was throwing up the PO oxy.)
The nursing care in the hospital was really great, from pre-op to discharge. I had good people. I had a lot of PAs this time, and I thought I got good care from them. I asked one of them who is soon to be sitting for his boards why PA and not NP, and he said he thought the NP was less flexible. Which is puzzling to me. Then he admitted he didn't know about it before he started PA school. Curious. I think we as nurses do not do a good public relations job for ourselves. NPs are far more flexible, career-wise, than a PA. More independent of scope, and better-rounded. He would have made a good NP.
I'm doin okay at home. I walked a half mile, around the track once with Bex yesterday (with a walker). I'm doin all right. There's a lot goin on in my world, so I'll post some more in the next few weeks.
Got more metal in my body now, so had to share photos.
Apparently, I still have readers. I haven't looked at the blog in weeks, and I have some visitors. Welcome. Or welcome back.
Here we are again.
Yeah, that's my left hip. Better images to come once I can get to them.
After the roller-skating episode, I was on a scooter for several weeks. Then when I got off of it and started walking, I started to have this problem with intense pain in my left hip and having it give out on me. I'd just be walking and all of the sudden, I couldn't support my own weight. I did the requisite several months of ignoring it, and telling myself I'm fine and it's just week.
Then I saw my PCP, who sent me to one orthopod, who sent me to an injection. The injection was FANTASTIC. She was alarmed when i literally hopped up off the table and starting hopping around in circles, suddenly able to move.
Which was diagnostic for the fact that it was truly a joint problem, not a muscle weakness problem. Had the MRI, the barrage of Xrays. They diagnosed femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) (CAM type, if you are a person who cares about these things). Which sounded like not a real thing to me at the time. People insist it's a real thing, and medical literature insists it's a real thing. It's basically that my acetabulam (the socket) is cupping too much over the head of the femur, restricting movement. That's sounds like rational physics. What I am having difficulty squaring with is why I could abduct my left leg last year, and couldn't now.
The surgeon also said I had very significant arthritis for my age. Cool. And that the cartilage was barely there. This makes sense to me. My cartilage...which is of course, the root problem of the pectus.
They gave me two choices, one minimally invasive, an approach to try (keyword was try) to correct the FAI, and hope the cartilage grew back. "Try" didn't sound very good to me, and "hoping" my cartilage would behave in a way I wanted it to also sounded like a bad idea. They said I'm very young for a total hip replacement. I said I'm very young to not be able to do exercise for the next twenty years, even if I do have to have a second replacement in my sixties. And buying that twenty years of mobility in my hips is important for every other aspect of my health.
So a total hip replacement it was. Monday. I came home Tuesday. I have a physical therapist coming out to the house three times a week. I have a walker. I have ordered a purple and green feathered boa for it.
So I have a metal plate on my left humerus, left fibula, lowest left ribs, a new left metal joint, and two metal bars in my chest.
And no, the surgeon didn't want to go through the paperwork of giving me my hip bone back. He actually said to me, "You don't want that." I blinked. "Yes. I do." Surgeons. Honestly. It would be good for all of them to interact more with people who are conscious. I didn't get my bone.
I think he was good though. He's the head of the infection control committee, and I was fussy about infection prevention, and I believed him that he was particular. In all other ways, the surgeon was a good guy. The incision is healing well, looks clean and good. I had 500cc of blood loss, which seemed like a lot to me, but I don't know what's typical for an ortho surgery like this. I still feel the effects of that; my heart rate has been running high all week, and I can feel that my pressure it lower than normal. Just a faint light-headedness. I keep drinking a lot of water, but honestly, I think it's just giving me an edematous left leg, not really pumping my pressure up.
Post-op, my recovery was pretty difficult. They didn't want to give me a scopalamine patch (my first choice) or Zofran (second choice) because of my QT interval immediately post-op was a little long. Therefore, I got hypotensive, tachycardic, diaphoretic, and was vomiting for several hours. I told my night shift nurse to please call the resident and get me a scope patch and I offered to have her put the resident on the phone with me, so I can suggest some places where he could put that QT interval.
I got phenegran and a fluid bolus.
Mostly, I stopped vomiting because I stopped taking IV morphine. (Which I only had because I was throwing up the PO oxy.)
The nursing care in the hospital was really great, from pre-op to discharge. I had good people. I had a lot of PAs this time, and I thought I got good care from them. I asked one of them who is soon to be sitting for his boards why PA and not NP, and he said he thought the NP was less flexible. Which is puzzling to me. Then he admitted he didn't know about it before he started PA school. Curious. I think we as nurses do not do a good public relations job for ourselves. NPs are far more flexible, career-wise, than a PA. More independent of scope, and better-rounded. He would have made a good NP.
I'm doin okay at home. I walked a half mile, around the track once with Bex yesterday (with a walker). I'm doin all right. There's a lot goin on in my world, so I'll post some more in the next few weeks.
Got more metal in my body now, so had to share photos.
Apparently, I still have readers. I haven't looked at the blog in weeks, and I have some visitors. Welcome. Or welcome back.
Here we are again.
