Hip-hop anonymous - a PAO journal

My sixth anniversary of my LPAO recently came ... and went, without much ado. While I'll always always be thankful for the surgery that changed my life, it's also one of those events that has taken a back seat in my daily affairs. Which is certainly something you can't ever imagine as soon as the acronym PAO becomes a part of your vocabulary, so I consider even this an accomplishment. Truth is, my hips are exactly the same as they were a year ago, so there's really not much to report. I'm still as active as ever, with some pain if I spend more than a couple of hours strenuously exercising. I still get some random pangs every once in a while, still have nerves that itch and burn, still have a nearly numb patch on my thigh. And I still wouldn't trade one second of my post-op self with my limpy, scared pre-op self. I went in for some hip x-rays a few months back at the local orthopedic center and just had the local hip doc look at them. Dr. Kindsfater is no...

I had my latest hip checkup in May 2009. When I asked Dr. Mayo when he wanted to see me again, he said in two years. Which. Is. ... About now. The thing is, I don't really want to go. My hips feel great and I'm not too excited to make another vacation out of a hip appointment. Come May, I'll be 3 years post-op LPAO and 2½ years RPAO. Which leads me to my question for all the other post-op hip patients out there. How often do you see a doctor for follow-up care?

My absence has been noted. Which is enough to guilt me into taking the extra minutes out of my day to report on my status. On May 12, I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Mayo. Two new sets of X-rays (and who knows how much radiation) later, I got two thumbs up for pelvic bone healing. As far as the other issues I'm having, I didn't get any concrete answers. Dr. Mayo was very clear, however in saying -- as he has in the past -- that I will never have completely pain free hips. I've learned to accept that fact, mostly because experience has proven he's right. This is what we talked about: Right hip burning in the "Captain Morgan" position. No progress has been made here, and Dr. Mayo said the culprit likely was the iliopsoas (ill-e-o-so-az) and the rectus femoris (one of the quad muscles). He put me on Celebrex for a month, with no change. Next step would be an injection into the muscle, but I'm not ready for that yet. Tailbone. T...

The good news from my six-month LPAO follow-up: the osteotomies are completely healed and the hip joint looks very good. Yay! The bad news: Dr. Thomas has no idea why my tailbone is messed up and no idea why I have pain on the underside of my pelvis. The X-rays don't show any problem with the bone, so I guess that's good. There is some extra bone growing on the outside of the joint, but we didn't get around to addressing that. The encouraging news: Dr. Thomas isn't my only hope. The X-rays are on their way to Dr. Mayo's office, and I'm crossing my fingers and toes that he has some magic up his sleeve to make my pain go away. I try not to focus on these issues. I'm happy with the progress I've made and the wonderful new hip I've been given. But dang it, sometimes it just gets me down. Especially today, when there are no answers. When I'm physically tired because the pain wakes me up throughout the night and when I can't even sit on the couch a...

Today I made my appointment with my Denver doc for my 6-month follow-up appointment. On Oct. 16, Dr. Thomas will take some new films and report back to Dr. Mayo. I was a bit cautious about scheduling the second PAO so close to my 6-month follow-up, considering I've been having a few issues. But I talked to Dr. Mayo last week over the phone and he's confident that the left hip is just fine and will hold up okay while I go through the recovery with the right hip. I'm sure I'll feel just as confident once those X-rays are shipped to Tacoma and Dr. Mayo can make extra sure everything has healed as it should.

Dr. Mayo and I were finally able to catch one another today over the phone. I double checked with him about my restrictions from here on out. There are none, except those outlined in my PT protocol and no "impact loading." He said I'll probably be walking unaided in about a month though it will be two to three months before I can walk normally throughout the whole day. (At the end of the day when my body is tired, I may limp for the first couple of months.) I asked him about the lingering pain I've been having on the back side of my pelvis. He told me that it's probably just part of the healing process but to pay attention to it. I can go back to Dr. Thomas for another set of x-rays in a couple weeks if it's still bothering me. And the biggest news comes last tonight. I decided today, with Dr. Mayo's approval, to go ahead with the right PAO this fall. He thinks I'll be ready, and even though I have a few reservations, I want to get it done as soo...

Today was my 8-week follow-up appointment. Dr. Thomas checked my range of motion and took x-rays and then Fed-Exed them to Dr. Mayo's office. Dr. Thomas took a glance at those high-tech black and white pictures and didn't see anything of alarm, which is great. He also said my range of motion bending straight forward at the hip is 95 degrees (don't know if that's good or not). I won't get to talk to Dr. Mayo until at least Thursday when he's back in the office. I'm a bit bummed, because he did fax the physical therapy protocol over, and as far as I can tell, I won't be full weight bearing for a while. It says something about going from two crutches to one crutch to a cane. Blech. So tonight I'm a bit bummed. I'm SO over the crutch thing. I can't get as much done at home as I need; it's tough trying to carry stuff and move stuff (like take the garbage down two flights of stairs). The good news is that I did SO much this weekend. A g...

I made my eight-week follow-up appointment today after talking things over with Dr. Mayo. Instead of flying back out to Tacoma, I am going to see an associate of his in Denver. Prior to the past couple of weeks, I was adamant that Dr. Mayo would be handling all of my follow-up care. I didn't want to compromise anything . My thoughts started to change a few weeks into recovery. While I still don't want to compromise the health of my hips, I've had no problems thus far and would rather not travel alone on crutches and spend the money on the plane ticket. Dr. Mayo said that because the eight-week appointment is fairly routine (x-rays and passive range of motion check) he's okay with his associate doing the check-up and reporting back to him. I will need to go to Tacoma for my six-month appointment, though. I'm SO looking forward to getting the thumbs up to start weight bearing.