Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Really? Seriously? Why me?

Where do I even begin? There's a saying - no news is good news - but in my case, no news means I have been living in a state of denial and have not wanted to put into words what my body has been telling me.

So, here's the story . . . Earlier this year, I started having serious problems with my back - back spasms, etc. Kathy, my active isolated stretching guru, kept telling me that my psoas was locked in place. In fact, I saw her 3 times in one week and she commented that she thought it was time for me to see Dr. Philippon because something was wrong. Ugh! Did she really say that out loud I thought. She must be mistaken. There's nothing wrong!! I must be doing something wrong so if I can just figure out what that is, I can fix it. That lead me down a path of doing too much, doing too little and trying to do just enough. Nothing worked. In fact, I got worse.

I was in Las Vegas in April and literally couldn't walk. Not a place to have difficulty walking let's just say. All of the psoas stretching in the world didn't relieve it. I was just about in tears. I spent more time in the pool. I made rash promises to whoever would listen that I would do anything if they could make this go away. No go. In fact, both Kathy and Sharon, my pt, told me that they thought I needed to see Dr. Philippon. Did I listen? Nope . . too busy at work, want to enjoy my summer, planted a garden and can't leave it, have to shampoo my dog. . . . but I finally admitted to myself and then out loud to several of my friends that something was wrong. I was sick about it. My one year surgery anniversary came and I really knew that something was wrong. I knew because I remembered my one year anniversary from my right hip and was 100% at one year. I couldn't even claim to be 85% at one year for my left. Ugh! I was sick, still in denial and didn't want to think about it. So, I pushed on.

I finally called Vail and talked to Mark who listened graciously to my tale of woe, asked a few key questions and declared - scar tissue. I was relieved and sick all at the same time. I was so sure that my left hip surgery would be as flawless as my right that I never even for one second considered that it might not be. Wow!! Floored me but I was so relieved that he could guess by my symptoms what it might be. About 5% -- please note 5 (five) percent of hip surgery patients have this happen. It's low; it's almost so low that you have to think - that would NEVER happen to me. Well, guess what -- it did. Crap!

So, I begin my journey back out to Vail in August to have an MRI and see Dr. Philippon. Mark tells me that the course of treatment will be an injection in the muscle (i am not spending a lot of time thinking about that because it makes me incredibly light headed when I do), a waiting period of about 12 weeks to see what effect that has, potentially another shot if the first one doesn't work and, as a last resort, another hip surgery. Wow. Hearing it, saying it and seeing those words in a blog are different. But there it is . . . potentially another hip surgery.

August 4, I will begin the next phase of the left hip. I wish it were next week because I am tired of fighting the fight. My back hurts, I can't walk without a lot of pain and I'm crabby. I had planned big things for this year and haven't been able to follow through. This just wasn't in my plans. :-)

All of that being said, I am ready to deal with this. Whatever has to happen will happen and I will be 100% again.Back to blogging . . . . phase 2 begins.

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