Just here to give the skinny on what all happened and how I'm doing!
First, I'm happy to say I'm doing really well overall. Going through a bit of a temporary hiccup due to my sensitivity to medications which have built up in my system on top of seasonal allergies, which is not fun but I'll be fine soon.
The surgery took place on the 3rd of this month.
Like I had suspected from the pain I was feeling and the noises I was hearing, both the labrum (cartilage gasket sealing the joint) and the articular cartilage (cartilage lining the joint) were damaged pretty badly. Luckily, the labrum itself turned out to be larger/thicker than the original MRI's predicted, and thus I did not need a transplant from a cadaver. So they simply shaved the fraying away and made it smooth again. They fixed the impingement by taking off the entire Cam lesion (ball/femur side) and the small Pincer (socket/acetabulum side) lesion as well. They did all that through only 2 small incisions!
Its amazing what doctors can do - I can already tell the difference from what if feels like now compared to what it felt like before! I am so thankful that I made the decision for surgery.
Recovery has gone much better this time. This is probably because we knew what to expect and therefore what to do and what not to do. Like the little things that most teenage patients shouldn't have to deal with such as preventing bed sores that occur really easily due to my circulation disorder. Or having to take 80mg of Nexium a day to prevent a re-occurrence of the stomach ulcer that happened with the last surgery since I'm required to take both Asprin and Ibuprophen (slightly dangerous, but necessary). But other than those things, it was just a basic recovery: Living in my families living room on the sleeper sofa watching Netflix while gelling on the CPM and DVT machines and napping in between medication/meal reminders!
This week I went to my 2 week post-op appointment. I am now to the "crutches optional" and "no more mandatory medication" status. Meaning if it doesn't hurt too much I am free to walk as much as I'd like, but if it hurts use the crutches and take an Ibuprophen. The first day I must have walked a little too much and ended up very much in pain. Since then I've been taking it easy aside from my physical therapy exercises and have my crutches if I need to go somewhere.
So thats where I'm at for now! I'll post updates every now and then as I progress and see how it is having two normal hips! Thanks so much for all of y'alls prayers! I can feel 'em!!! Have a happy Thanksgiving!
xoxoxo,
Christina
