I cope with stress by gathering information. That's how I keep from giving over completely to anxiety. If I just know enough stuff, then I can prepare for anything. So I read. Back in 1995 when I was pregnant with my first child, I checked books out of the medical school library. These days, it's far easier to learn a great deal about PAO.
I know where they'll make the incision. I know that the surgery typically takes about 3 hours. I know I'll get an epidural (how ironic that after giving birth 4 times, I'll finally get an epidural!) I know I'll be in the hospital for 3 days. But knowing all of this data doesn't really tell me what will happen TO ME. So I wait, and I read and I prepare.
Today I called Dr. Peter's nurse to get the results of my blood work. My hemoglobin is 15 and my hematocrit is 43. Everything else they tested is "in normal range". Those two numbers were the ones I was worried about so I can check worrying about them off my list now. I also asked about medication and what I should bring to the hospital. My concern now is whether anybody is actually going to pay attention to the list of stuff I'm already taking and make sure that it won't interact badly with the stuff they are going to give me. I'm already weaning myself off the Xanax because I won't take that while I'm taking narcotic pain medication. How ironic it would be to survive a major surgery only to succumb to the same lethal cocktail that carried off Heath Ledger.
My plan now is to read up on living with a walker or how to manage on crutches or whatever other search terms I can think of. I'm terribly aware that my mobility, and therefore my productivity, are going to be excruciatingly limited. I think that might actually be the hardest part of this whole thing. I expect the first few days to be pretty difficult as I learn to manage the pain and recover from the effects of the actual surgery. But once I'm out of the hospital, it will be all about trying not to make myself crazy by holding myself to the same standards as I did when I had the use of both my legs.
I was thinking today that even the simple act of watering the flowers in my garden is going to be a challenge. Jarrah will not take kindly to me not being able to pick her up. I'll miss going to yoga class. But I have to think it'll be worth it. Right now, I can do very little. I hope that on the other side of doing less, I can eventually find a place where I can do what I used to.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Finding out
It's a strange thing when a doctor tells you there's something wrong with you. Something really wrong. Not just that you need glasses or a cavity filled. But something truly WRONG with you that can't be fixed by anything simple. When I first heard the term "hip dysplasia" I felt like I'd been slapped. Here I was, not quite 44 years old, being told that I was broken.
My story actually begins on the streets of Manhattan. Although unaware of how my life had changed, I was aware that my hip hurt after two full days of chasing my speed-walking sister around the city. Christmas came and went, but the pain remained. Bothering me in yoga, going away for a while, making its presence known again while walking through the mall. I kept waiting for it to get better. But it didn't.
So now I'm aware that my right hip is actually malformed. It meets clinical criteria for being dysplasic (the left one doesn't, thank goodness). And I have to deal with that. I have to make my peace with the fact that something went wrong while I was forming in the primordial ooze of amniotic fluid that nurtured me. Something that now has caused my labral cartilage to tear and my hip to hurt. And without a fix, it will keep hurting. And it will only get worse.
The final decision that I needed surgery came on May 23rd. A day that had lived in my head for two weeks as I waited to see "the hip dysplasia guy". Meanwhile, I researched. I read up on hips and mechanical function and what can go wrong with them and what can be done to fix them. I learned the term periacetabular osteotomy and read blogs written by people who have had them. After meeting with Dr. Peters and getting his very calm, very measured opinion, I'm now writing one of my own.
I'm writing this because I found reading the experiences of other people to be very helpful as I did my research. I'm also writing it because, I found out, I'm "a one percenter". That is, I'm one of the 1% of people over 40 who actually get to have this done. So this blog will be for those select people who find out that they will get a PAO, even though many people their age won't.
My thoughts wander to where this blog will eventually lead. I wonder what I will write on June 6th or if I will be able to write then at all. So maybe I should wonder what I will write a bit later, say, June 10th. I wonder what my experience will be like. I hope that I can eventually say "yes, it was hard, but I did it and now I've been free from pain for a year". I really hope so.
My story actually begins on the streets of Manhattan. Although unaware of how my life had changed, I was aware that my hip hurt after two full days of chasing my speed-walking sister around the city. Christmas came and went, but the pain remained. Bothering me in yoga, going away for a while, making its presence known again while walking through the mall. I kept waiting for it to get better. But it didn't.
So now I'm aware that my right hip is actually malformed. It meets clinical criteria for being dysplasic (the left one doesn't, thank goodness). And I have to deal with that. I have to make my peace with the fact that something went wrong while I was forming in the primordial ooze of amniotic fluid that nurtured me. Something that now has caused my labral cartilage to tear and my hip to hurt. And without a fix, it will keep hurting. And it will only get worse.
The final decision that I needed surgery came on May 23rd. A day that had lived in my head for two weeks as I waited to see "the hip dysplasia guy". Meanwhile, I researched. I read up on hips and mechanical function and what can go wrong with them and what can be done to fix them. I learned the term periacetabular osteotomy and read blogs written by people who have had them. After meeting with Dr. Peters and getting his very calm, very measured opinion, I'm now writing one of my own.
I'm writing this because I found reading the experiences of other people to be very helpful as I did my research. I'm also writing it because, I found out, I'm "a one percenter". That is, I'm one of the 1% of people over 40 who actually get to have this done. So this blog will be for those select people who find out that they will get a PAO, even though many people their age won't.
My thoughts wander to where this blog will eventually lead. I wonder what I will write on June 6th or if I will be able to write then at all. So maybe I should wonder what I will write a bit later, say, June 10th. I wonder what my experience will be like. I hope that I can eventually say "yes, it was hard, but I did it and now I've been free from pain for a year". I really hope so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)