Back From Chicago.. with news

My mom and I went to Chicago yesterday for my appointment. Dr. Stover was SUPER nice and very personable, we like him a lot. He seems like a great surgeon and very knowledgeable. This is what he had to say

1.) First of all, after some tests he determined that I am hyperlax (hypermobility, hyperlaxity) - which means that my soft tissue doesn't have as much hold as it should. I can bend my thumbs back to my wrist, my elbows hyperextend.. when I was little I use to even be able to bend both legs and tuck them BEHIND my neck. I can still do it with the left leg but not the right since my accident when I was 16 and broke my hip. I guess being hyperlax makes sense. So that means that my joints don't have much stability to begin with.

2.) There is a slight abnomal twisting of my femur. When I stand with my feet together and my toes pointing out, my knees turn in together, whereas a normal persons would not turn in at all.

3.) I was born with slightly "funky" hips as he called it. They are off about 5-8 degrees. My hip sockets point slightly down and seem to overlap. While this probably wouldnt have affected me, this accident in October was the "straw that broke the camel's back", in Dr. Stover's words.

4.) My labrum is torn. So this will need to be fixed during surgery for the PAO. They will actually have to do two seperate incisions. The PAO will be an incision on the front, or top of my hip. After they do that, they will have to make another incision on the side of my thigh/hip, and fix the labrum. You can not access the labrum through the front of the hip, unfortunately. But, they are going to go throughy my old scar when I broke my hip (that will be the 3rd time through that scar that I've had surgery there). So its no biggie - I will probably look like someone took knives to my hip at the end of all this, lol. Good thing Bryce doesn't mind! I don't really care either - I think each scar tells a story of something significant that happened in our lives. If you dont like it - then don't look, it doesn't bother me!

So what are they going to do with all of this? First, Dr. Stover is actually going to drive down to Indianapolis and he and Dr. Weber (they are actually best friends, what are the odds?), are going to put me under anesthesia and under live x-rays, they are going to manipulate my legs in and out of socket to see exactly when its starting to slip and at what angle ect. I also have to get a dye-injected MRI scan of the hip socket/pelvic area. And it sounds like he is going to do the PAO- so that will be scheduled after all of this. I will have to go to Chicago to have that done, as I said before.

So atleast I got my info! Not the greatest news.. but atleast I know. Now its figuring out how we are going to make life work through all of this (work? bills? who is going to take care of Bella?) Right now we have devised the following plan:

Bryce and Bella will move in with his parents. For the first few weeks after my surgery, I will move in with my mom. I will need someone to take care of me and help me do everything, shower, go to the bathroom, everything. So she will do this for me. Bryce's grandma will watch Bella Mon-Weds, and my mom will watch her Thurs and Friday. Weekends will be wherever I am, probably at Bryce's parents. After the first few weeks, it would be nice if I could stay at Mike and Sherri's with Bryce and Bella so I don't have to spend so much time without them. I can't even imagine and don't want to - but thats a very busy household and I'd be a big burden, so I'm not sure. We'll see. But thats our plan as of now, maybe something will change! Oh yea, and I need someone to take care of my cat, Sammy, through all of this. Any takers? Bryce's parents have 2 dogs, and he can't stay at my Mom's. He can't stay at my Dads because my stepmom is allergic. I can't just leave him at our house because he will be too lonely, and I don't want to do that to him.

Anywho.. thats the update!

For those of you who have no clue what PAO surgery is..

For those of you who have no idea what a periacetabular osteotomy is like I did at first.. here is the basics of it..

Periacetabular" means around the acetabulum. "Osteotomy" means to cut bone. In PAO, the patient's own joint is surgically altered to create a broader load-bearing surface. During the surgery, the acetabulum is sawed apart from the rest of the pelvis, repositioned to cover the head of the femur, and secured with metal hardware. If necessary, the head of the femur is repositioned by surgery on the femoral neck. Surgery normally takes 4-5 hours. Recovery usually involves 3-4 months of toe-touch weight bearing on crutches, followed by a gradual resumption of normal walking and extensive physical therapy. The orthopedic hardware may be removed in a subsequent operation.

PAO is generally performed to fix acetabular dysplasia or hip dysplasia, a congenital condition. Acetabular dysplasia normally goes undiagnosed until about your 20-30s. The average age for surgery is 22 years. Coincidence?

Some good links for more information are: (working on these... like I said, there is hardly any good and thorough info about this!)

Going to Chicago...

Thursday morning I have an appointment with Dr. Stover in Chicago at 11:30 a.m. My mom and I will drive up that morning, go to the appointment, and aferwards get the best pizza in the world at Giordano's and walk around for a bit :-)

I'm excited the ball is finally rolling... and I feel like Thursday after this appointment I should know everything that is going on and when/if I'll be needing the PAO surgery..

Oh yea and I *still* haven't heard anything back regarding the results of my CT scan, its been over a month since I've had it done! I even e-mailed Dr. Stover, who told me he reviewed the scan and was going to be calling Dr. Weber that weekend and he would be calling me (this was more than 2 weeks ago). AND I've called numerous times - it is annoying because the office treats you like an inconveniance... when all I want to know is my results! I told them that if they want me to go to Chicago I want to know what for!! I guess they don't care as much, but it is my body and I would like to stay informed... atleast I'll find out Thursday! I'm just so sick of dealing with these people who seem like they could care less about you! Dr. Weber is a great surgeon and has a great beside manner so I am not knocking him.. its his office staff.. ugh! I doubt any of my messages have even got him.

Oh well! Just happy I'm going to Chicago to meet with the big brain- because I feel like I should know something definite.. although I'm not going to get my hopes up! Hopefully my hip doesn't dislocate again during this exam :-/ And I feel awful having to miss work. I would have never imagined that this accident would cause so many problems.. they have to be just about fed up with me missing work for doctors appointments, test, ect. And they never really give you much notice.. I got the call yesterday that I have an appointment in Chicago tomorrow! Else, it would have been more than a month before I could be seen. So pray that I get to keep my job :-D

WoW, Finally heard something.. Kind of?!

Well a couple of days ago my surgeon's nurse called me and filled me in.. somewhat. She said they have the results of my test, and that there is evidence of "torsion". They overnighted the results to the surgeon in Chicago where he can take a better look at them. I guess you literally have to pull out the old trusty ruler and measure all the angles around the socket where the top of the femur goes in (it was a 3D scan around the whole pelvis). So basically I guess the "torsion" is pretty much the angle at which my femur is fitting into my socket ... and apparently mine aren't right (causing the pain and dislocations so easily). They sent them to Chicago, obviously, since thats where I'd have my surgery and because Dr. Stover can better interpret the scan and determine the torsion through my femurs exactly.

So while I know something.. I'm *still* waiting! Figures! I guess I should be use to doctor's time tables, considering I work with them everyday... still, its excruitating being left in the dark about something thats going on with YOUR body.

I'm getting really anxious about it all. Lately I've been feeling a little bit... chemically imbalanced, if you will. Overwhelmed about what the future holds. I've been a bit emotional, feeling like I could cry at any given moment. I'm sure Bryce is loving having a sensitive, easily disturbed wife around the house at the moment, ha! I'll get through it though - we all hit patches like this in our lives at some point!

More tests.. still waiting!

I had another test last week. It was a CT Scan to measure the torsion through my femurs at the pelvis... I *should* hear back from someone today regarding the results.

I just got back from Vegas and from all the walking I am pretty sore now. But thats nothing new!

I'm just hoping to hear something final soon.. I'm so impatient, this waiting is going to be the end of me. I'm ready to get this fixed, even though I know its going to be rough. It will all work itself out in the long run though :-) Stayin positive!

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!!