My Hip Journey..............

It would take about a 500 page novel to go into the details of my hip journey and why I am facing a total hip replacement at age 37. I will make bullet points to outline:

• 2004 - pain began in my left hip. Dr. told me it was tronchateric bursitis (sp?)
• 2005 - pain gets worse so I get x-rays and an MRI which diagnoses me with development hip dysplasia (from birth....like 1 in 1000 live births have this). Mine was not detected until age 33. No arthritis noted.
• 2006 - Pain increases, I went to see an orthopedist in Boston who told me I have a labral tear and I need arthroscopic surgery to correct it and my pain will go away. Arthritis noted. I had an MRI with contrast injected in my hip socket. Most painful thing I ever experienced. Worse than my 4 c-sections! They stick a huge needle with no pain meds right into you hip.........imagine feeling the sensation of your funny bone for 10 minutes straight but having it hurt too? I felt like I was in a horror movie.
• 2007 - Arthroscopic surgery by Dr. Joe McCarthy at Newton-Wellesley hospital. Surgery makes my hip even more painful and I survive on Darvocet and long periods of rest. Limp begins and doesn't go away. Dr. McCarthy tells me I need a THR (total hip replacement).
• Fall 2008 - I have a good friend who is an orthopod in Boston who told me to go to Dr. Millis at Children's Hospital. He is supposedly one of the best in the world for very abnormal "young" hips (under 40...so I qualified...just barely) and performs osteomoties. This is a longer recovery, but a surgery that saves your bone. Unfortunately, because of the arthroscopic surgery failing (should never have been performed on a dysplastic hip like mine)...my hip degenerated to the point that an osteotomy was probably going to fail on me. Dr. Millis told me I needed an THR and quickly.
• November 2008 - Consult with Dr. Dennis Burke at Mass General (the best hip replacement surgeon around ...at least here in Mass from what I hear). He concurs immediately that while he hates performing THR on young people like myself, I truly needed one and I should book for a Spring surgery so I can finish out my teaching year (I am a Montessori preschool teacher) and lose some weight. I never lost the weight and actually gained about 10-15 pounds this winter :( Boo on me!
• May 2009 - Pre-op physical with my primary. All goes well and my bloodwork was fine. My blood pressure was 120/80 and my cholesterol was even under 200 for the first time in like NEVER. Weird. I weigh more and I didn't change my eating habits, so I have no clue as to why the total cholesterol went from 230 at my last physical to 190. I got off track here.....
• May 26, 2009 - I will have my pre-op appt. at Mass General with Dr. Burke. I finally feel like it's really going to happen and I'm mentally ready for this....I've had it with the limping, the pain and the meds.
• June 5, 2009 - My surgery day...............I will keep you posted hopefully as soon as I am able to write legibally and not in a morphine induced haze...lol

Just for the record though.........while I am nervous I'll never wake up from my surgery (that is honestly my main concern...not the pain, not he inability to walk), I am very happy I am having this done. I might not feel this way the day after surgery, but right now I know I am doing the right thing. I may need revision surgery someday, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. For now......I just try to take each day as it comes and love my 4 kids and my husband. I think they all want me back to being me! So if you are reading this and you have any hip issues you want to talk about, feel free to comment. I know so much more now about the anatomy of the hip and the diseases in the young hip. I just wish I knew then what I know now. Dr. Millis would have been able to fix my hip........but you can't cry over spilled milk.

So, please comment if you want, I'd love to hear from you!