The days are going quickly and the weekends are booked which means revision day is quickly approaching. I'm in good spirits...now...not sure how I'll be the night before the surgery.
Pre-op went as I expected, it's only my fourth time doing this. Arrived late due to traffic even though we gave ourselves plenty of time, driving through the Ghetto didn't help either. They moved the fasting patients to a different area so you're now allowed to eat/drink in the waiting room which was appreciated at 8:30am on an empty stomach. I got called in about 5-10 minutes after arriving and had my vitals taken..back to the waiting room for 5 mins...called in to meet with the nurse, asks a lot of questions, etc. etc. etc.....waiting room...liaison to go over my insurance and all that other crap....waiting room...anesthesiologist. Now this was interesting because she was 15 years post-op PAO from Dr. Millis...one child before and 2 after surgery and she has not been in pain since. AWESOME story and childbirth for her wasn't a problem. Her daughter wore the harness as a baby and her son also is showing signs of dysplasia, darn hip gene!!! But she was really nice and was good talking to her. She said that I was lucky to have the outcome from my epidurals that I did...they both numbed the proper leg and I had no other issues. Not sure if "lucky" is necessarily the word I wanted to hear, but cool! She also said they are putting in blocks which work 100% of the time and is not a guessing game. Since the epi worked both times, I feel like I should stick with that...but now it's making me nervous!
I tried to donate my pint of blood while at the hospital, but they couldn't fit me in so I have to do that locally and then they ship it off to Boston for me. Next, I went to Fegan, 2nd floor and had my appointment with Mr. Miracle. I had to get xrays, again, and he was supposed to hold my legs for them but they snapped the shots before he came down. Got right into a room and waited a few minutes and Erin and the Doc came in. Moved me around, he told me I was a "freak of nature" which is preeettyyy funny because my brother always called me that, but basically I'm too flexible for having two PAO's! And when I say flexible, I use the term lightly....the angles he moves me I guess are just better than most. Guess my tendons are just more forgiving or something. YAY! Before Millis left the room, I like him I had two rules for him that he MUST abide by: 1- do not hit the nerve and make my thigh numb, 2- don't make my leg any longer than it already is, 1/2" longer actually.
He took off and Erin stayed to go over the surgery and what not and answer any questions. I was curious about my socket/pelvis bones being weak. If you break something and glue it back together, the spot where it broke is usually weaker and will break much easier. So I thought that's what my bones would be like and she explained that my area is actually going to be much stronger because the new bone is just as strong and now I have MORE bone in that area that I never had. That was interesting. She was looking at my pre-op xrays and was not surprised I needed one revised. Because of the lack of coverage on my right socket, my bone couldn't be moved as much as it should have been without stretching the nerve too much and causing long pain and possible damage - longer recover. So I can appreciate that. I hate calling this a redo because nothing went wrong...bones just need to be tweaked another 10% or so.
After my appointment I went to the blood center and gave some blood and a urine sample to make sure I wasn't a walking pneumonia or anything and BOY was that the most chaotic place in the hospital. I mean, c'mon...needles and children. AFTER all of this, I was DONE!
In the meantime, my brother arrived and sat through my appointment with me - at one time there were 6 people in the exam room. SHEESH!
Today, I spoke with the Red Cross and scheduled my blood donation for Friday and another one for the following Friday. The anesthesiologist kind of freaked me out saying that with all the scar tissue I have, I will probably bleed more. I'm prepared to need both units this time. I only ended up needing one unit for each PAO in the past.
Other than that good stuff, not much else to say. My right hip is kinda eh...hasn't been great since mid-April. It pinches, throbs, aches and gives me stabbing pains every so often. I'm ready to put this behind me and have a normal life again (I feel like deja vu)!
Speaking of deja vu, while writing this, I realized yesterday was my 2 year LPAO anniversary. WOO! So yea, this is like deja vu for reelz.
Few more days and I'll be on the other side, learning to walk, recovering from the very beginning allllll. overrrrrr. againnnnnn. I'm going to try REALLY hard to be in a positive mood throughout recovery, but no promises. It's mainly the sleeping that gets me the most frustrated. But we have a new bed now so maybe, just maybe it'll be better.
Here's a link to another PAO page and 5k donation page, all money raised will go to Hip Dysplasia research!!
Check it
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DONATE!
Hip Hop 5k
If not for anything, do it for those babies and young girls (and boys) living with excruciating hip pain and going years without getting the proper diagnosis.
I will upload some old (2006) xray pics and some recent scar pics shortly
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