Been There, Done That
Well I just sent an email that I figured wouldn't send but I was hopeful but it didn't and I'm a little bit bummed. My posts don't seem to bounce, so I figured I'd turn to the blog for some reflection.
I have some old readers and some new ones. You old-timers might want to skim to the end, but there's enough of the newbies to do a quick recap of my experience with all things hip. And I'm not talking "hip" as in cool or rockin. I'm talking hip as in the body part. I know, I know. It's exciting stuff. But seriously, it's worth the read.
I broke my good hip in January of 2005; my freshman year of college. No, seriously. It was my good hip. My right hip was the one always giving me trouble as a high school cross country runner. It even kept me from running my senior season. But one day in college I woke up with excruciating LEFT hip pain. I was on the university sailing team, so my coach sent me to the trainer and I was diagnosed with bursitis and put on crutches. A couple of days later it was pouring down rain and the elevator was broken, so I attempted to take the steps to get to class. Needless to say, I slipped and fell and ...well...the rest is history. It took them a long time to discover that I had broken my hip. After all, I was only 18. What 18 year old fractures her femur, anyway? But we finally got them to x-ray me and SURPRISE. It turns out my bursitis was most likely NOT bursitis, but a stress fracture from over-training. The fall just completed the fracture and changed my life forever.
It sounds dramatic, but it's mostly true.
I went from training for countless hours a day to being non-weight bearing and walker-bound for 3 months. I developed depression and an eating disorder to cope with my predicament. Both issues that still give me trouble to this day.
And that's not all.
So I had surgery that day in January down in Norfolk, VA. As I said, they had me non-weight bearing. I went a long time between the original fracture and the actual surgical repair so they were worried the ball of my femur would die. So I guess that's what was in their minds. They failed to take into consideration the fact that the sliding screw they used to put me back together relies on pressure to bring the two broken sides of the bone together. So instead of the pieces being drawn back together and healed to one another, the bone healed to the screw, leaving a gap between the pieces. So that May I had the procedure repeated. This time with a team of surgeons who knew what the hell they were doing.
Looking back, there is one thing I would have done differently. And that was I would have GONE HOME in January. Everyone told me to do it, but I was stubborn and had a god complex. I thought I could do anything. So I did. And it nearly killed me.
Anyway, after surgery #2 in May, I threw myself back into training asap. I wanted to be back on the water more than anything. And in my desperation I re-fractured my hip. Right through the new bone. I pushed through the fall of my sophomore year as much as possible, but took my finals early and came home in December to have surgery #3: a bone graft.
Life got the best of me after that, but that's a story for another day.
Fast forward to 2013 and my left hip (that's the one that I broke) started bothering me again. My orthopedist didn't really have much to say about the situation, but he prescribed physical therapy. I happened to have an AMAZING physical therapist who recognized the signs of a labral tear. I got an MRI and sure enough, I had torn the labrum of my left hip joint. I had had too much trouble to just let whoever operate on my hip, so I dove in and did some research and found Dr. Ochiai. He's out of Arlington, VA, so it's a little bit of a hike. But HE IS WORTH EVERY MINUTE I SPEND LOST AND ON THE ROAD. I scheduled an appointment with him and it's like he just knew. He knew exactly how I felt, where my pain was, what the intensity was, and HOW TO FIX IT. Score.
So I had hip surgery #4: labral repair. And then I re-tore it so he repaired it again. And then I re-tore it so he did a labral reconstruction. And then he removed all the hardware from my previous surgeries. Well. Almost all the hardware. One of the screw heads broke off, so now I just have this random screw floating around mid-femur. Hey, nothing's perfect.
And through it all I had Rick. Rick and Seamus. Rick was my physical therapist and Seamus was a PT assistant. They were AMAZING. I mean I worked with them on and off for 3-4 years. I spent so much time at the clinic, they were like family. They knew me and my body so well, we worked perfectly as a team. Even once I was discharged, if I felt something out of wack, Rick would squeeze me in and straighten me out. The clinic was bought out by a franchise, though. And within a year I'd say 85% of the staff had left. Including Rick.
But that was ok. I hadn't really needed him. Until this week.
Remember how I told you I broke my good hip? The left one? Well over the last several months, my right hip has been bothering me more and more. The inside, the outside, and my lower back. I kept putting it off, but I finally scheduled an appointment with Dr. Ochiai and I saw him yesterday. Because the outside of my hip was bothering me so much, I was hoping I had bursitis and we could knock it out. Hoping, but not convinced.
Dr. Ochiai took some x-rays and did a thorough exam and came up with this. I have FAI, which is a bone deformity that causes the bones to rub against each other in the hip joint. Which means I probably have a labral tear, as well. Joy. All of my other symptoms are a result of this.
Dr. Ochiai wants an MRI, which I have scheduled for next Wednesday. Then I see him again on October 1st and we'll come up with a plan. No matter how you slice it, I'm guessing I'll need a physical therapist.
I will say that after Dr. Ochiai and Rick had done everything they could for me, I was still having issues and I saw a pelvic floor physical therapist. She was ah-m-a-zing. She did what the other guys couldn't and it was a total game changer. But I'm not sure that she's what I need in this instance. I might check with her and see, but I'm still putting my research cap on and doing some recon.
Which leads me to the email that just bounced. You know who I want to talk to the most right now? Rick. He would just GET IT. I know he would. So I drafted a message to his old email and hit send, knowing it wouldn't go, but still hoping. And it didn't. And now I'm even more sad.
I think people look at me and think I'm fine. I'm walking, right? I'm not in tears. I'm not popping pain meds. I'm fine. But it's a burden that weighs on me. It makes me exhausted when I get home. It crushes my patience and grates on my nerves. And it really does hurt. But guys, I've had 7 hip surgeries, ok? I'm good at managing this. I'm an expert. But that doesn't mean it's not an issue that disturbs my day-to-day life. It doesn't mean I'm not in pain. It doesn't mean my quality of life isn't impacted. It doesn't mean I don't lay on the couch icing my hip at night. It just doesn't.
I don't know why I wrote this. I guess it's because the people I interact with most don't really know the whole story. They haven't been part of the saga. They just see this piece and give me pointers on what makes a physical therapist a good physical therapist. I know that, ok? I've worked with the best. They just don't know.
So now you know. I don't know what Dr. Ochiai will say and I don't know what I'll do with what he ends up telling me. There's plenty on the Bowen plate, so we'll take things as they come. But if you're in Carroll County and now of a super stellar physical therapist specializing in hip injuries, please please please send me their info.
I guess the moral of the story is just that. You never know a person's story. I mean, would you have known that I broke my hip as an 18-year-old college athlete? Unless you see the scars on my leg, you'd sure as hell have no way of knowing that I've had 7 hip surgeries. Or what I struggle with today. You wouldn't understand why I sit in super awkwardly weird positions at my desk or do back bends as I answer your questions at the copy machine.
You never know a person or why they do what they do until you ask. Or until they just word vomit on you and make you read a ridiculously long blog post. One or the other.
So I didn't write this to make you feel bad for me. I wrote it for 3 reasons:
To try to find a new physical therapist. Seriously. I need your help.
To show you that you really don't know what goes on within a person unless you ask.
Let's be honest, I also did it to vent so people know where I'm coming from.
Cuz most people just don't get it. And I've learned to be ok with that. But it won't stop me from sharing my story.