Tuesday, February 2, 2016

FAI/labral tear surgery

I had hip surgery.

I have been meaning to write this post for some time now but have kept putting it off. But here I am to tell you about what's been going on.

April of 2012 I ran  my first marathon. It was a doozy but I managed a not too shabby finish. I knew around mile 17 that something in my hip just wasn't right but pressed on. Fast forward to the following weekend when I ran at beautiful Cades Cove (11 miles of fun hills). Something was still bad. So off to the dr I went. He sent me to a physical therapist who suspected a labral tear in my left hip. 4 weeks of PT then a visit to the ortho, an MRI/arthrogram to confirm with several more weeks of therapy.

I ran and ran and ran some more the next 3 years in and out of PT hoping to put off surgery for forever (or at least through a 3rd marathon), but definitely until I was 50. But alas, I started going  backwards in PT. No fair. But that is life my friends.

I had lots of PT. I did lots of running. I even went to get a cortizone injection in my hip. It worked for a couple weeks or so then right back to big issues and lots of pain. I have a high tolerance for pain, which is good and bad.  When my PT sent me back to my ortho the ortho asked if I wanted another shot but upon learning that I was no longer sleeping at night and the first shot only gave me a couple weeks of pain free life it was decided that surgery was now the answer. We had simply been dealing with this injury too long.

October 22nd was surgery day.
I hate needles, doctor offices, surgery... all of it. I am not a good patient but my hubby and my doctor along with his amazing surgical staff took such great care of me.
The surgery lasted maybe an hour, which was an hour less than the dr had told my hubby.

The procedure-
 Basically they put me to sleep, the dr put my leg in traction and with his spiffy tools got down deep into my hip joint. Confirmed the labral tear and the impingement (CAM type). I had too much bone on my femoral head. He shaved off a significant amount of bone and cleaned up the labral tear and POP went my hip back into the socket. Fun stuff.
I have two very tiny scars that are pretty much invisible now that I am 3 months out.

Post op pain-
I was not in a great deal of pain when I came home. I took my meds as prescribed so that I wasn't faced with tons of pain if I missed one. I took a week off work as I was told to do and took it very easy. I was on crutches for 2 weeks and since I wasn't very graceful on just my own two feet before surgery I tried to stay off those pesky beasts as much as I could. Thankfully things weren't too bad when the dr got into my hip joint so my time on crutches was limited to the 2 weeks!

Physical Therapy - 
I started PT after my 2 week follow up and I've been there since. That's all I have to say about that for now. It's going well. I'll post some weekly updates maybe. :)

Life in general is pretty good. I need to be better about posting these things rather than whining to friends and family all.the.time about how I feel about all of this.

That's all for now.