Quick Background

For those of you who don't know me, when I was 16 years old I was in a pretty bad car acciden't that left me with a broken right hip (fracture to the acetabular). I was driving home and pushing curfew.. so I was probably driving a little too fast. I was out in the country in Shelbyville and I wasn't all too familiar with the roads there. There was a one-lane, S-turn bridge with 3 foot high cement walls. I missed the warning sign and by the time I saw the bridge and cement wall in front of me, it was too late. I slammed on the brakes and because I had my foot pressed to the brake so hard, when I hit the wall it pushed my femur straight through the back of my pelvis. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt (I know, stupid 16 year old!) so I was actually thrown so hard against my PASSENGER side door that the door actually opened. I didn't fly out (Thank God!) because I ended up wedged between the passenger side seet, door/bridge on my side, and my right leg was through my glove box. I'm not sure how long I was knocked out, but I woke up in this position. Since it was about 12:00 at that time and in the middle of the country.. no one knew I was there. My cell was on my driver side floor, but I was smashed inside my car. Luckily, a peice of dash came off and I was able to reach up and grab it and wedge it against the back of my driver side seat and horn. About... two hours later this old man finally came and found me! It took them about 30 minutes to use the jaws of life to cut me out of my car, they had to cut the roof and side off. I first went to major hospital and then was quickly transfered to Methodist Hospital, where I stayed there for about 15 days. That was my most serious injury, obviously I had a busted face from it hitting the airbag, bruised from getting thrown so hard, and probably a few cracked ribs from impact and being smashed inside for so long. I was very, very lucky. They couldn't believe I was alive.. and if you saw pictures of my car you would be absolutely amazed. So in that sense, I feel very blessed that God spared my life that night... I definitely had an angel by my side for the full two hours of being scared out of my mind not thinking anyone was going to find me. The crazy thing is I really had to idea what was wrong with me.. there was blood everywhere, I was smashed inside and it was really difficult to breathe from all the pressure on me. And obviously, I was in excruciating pain. I actually thought I was going to die, so about 2 hours in to it I took the piece out that was pressing against my horn, said a prayer, and tried to go to sleep to make it go by quicker. About 3 seconds after I closed my eyes, the old man was knocking on my window. He was my angel. So anyway... now we move on...

When I was 18 I had the hardware removed due to pain, and now a few years later I'm back with problems! On Halloween 2008, some drunk idiot fell in to me and I fully dislocated my hip (ouch!). I've been following up with my surgeon from issues regarding the hip since the drunken idiot pirate fell into me. They believe I have a torn labrum and capsule. At a hip exam at the end of January, he rotated my hip inward and my hip completely dislocated. Just like that.. so easy! He sent my information to Dr. Mayo in Seattle, Dr. Stover in Chicago, and Dr. Riley in New York. All of these surgeons specialize in PAO (periacetabular osteotomy), as he believes this is what I will need to have done. He said I have one of the "worst and unsual" hips hes ever seen. And this guy is contracted by the Indianpolis Motor Speedway and puts those guys back together.. so that can't be good! So now I'm just stuck in limbo, with a very sore unstable hip waiting to hear from Dr. Stover in Chicago. I'll need to go to Chicago to have the surgery done.

I've always wanted to go to Chicago to go shopping.. get great pizza from Giordonno's, eat at the wonderful Hugo's Frog and see all the pretty sights! Going to Chicago to have surgery just isn't my cup of tea. Maybe (hint hint), when I go to have my surgery I can leave a few days early and do some shopping. After all, the next 3-5 months are going to be pretty rough and I won't be able to do any of that! I think that seems perfectly fair. I atleast need to get some pizza and delicious coffee from Giordonno's!!