I Finally Get to be a Hipster

I am really not that cool so being able to lay claim to being a hipster is a big deal!  OK, bad joke but my hipster buddies will get it (I hope).  I met with my orthopedic surgeon for the first time on Monday.  Great guy, younger than me, typical arrogant surgeon.  Don’t get me wrong, I have friends and family that are doctors and surgeons and being arrogant is part of what makes them so brilliant.  This is an admirable quality  – at the right time, and trust me, this is the right time!  He is cute enough too.  Always good to know your surgeon, who gets to see you in the most vulnerable of all states, is cute.

That reminds me of a story.  I have a very, very close friend.  She got sick, went to hospital in state of emergency (I drove her).  She was convulsing by the time I got her there and barely conscious, from internal bleeding.  Not being family, I had to really talk my way past the guards front desk, to be allowed into the ER with her.  The first words out of her mouth when she was cognizant enough were “oh man, the male nurse is really cute”.  I am not exaggerating.  I took this as a sign that she would be OK.

But I digress.  Monday, I go to the OS.  He bulldozes through my diagnosis and potential treatments.  By this time I have had several clinical exams by other docs, x-rays and an MRA (one of those horrible ones where they inject a dye directly into your hip joint prior to taking their pics).  So the OS has all of this available to him prior to seeing me for the first time.  He asks me to tell him my story. I tell him that he has my pictures, what more does he need?  He tells me that he prefers to make a judgement call based on the clinical story, not on the pics.  OK, I like this guy already.  He wants to know where I am hurting.  Everyone else around me is sick of my story.  I am absolutely excited to be able to tell it (again) without the yawning and eyes glazing over….

But really, once he determines that I have tried the conservative route, and doing nothing is not an option for me, he tells me that he would recommend a date for surgery ASAP.  A week would be best.  But he acknowledges that I may not be able to organize it that quickly so he opts for 10 days. WTF?  Most surgeons have at least a month of surgeries booked up.  Red flag, I hear you all ask?  But no, I suspect that this is because my beloved PT is very close to said OS, and said OS is looking to move to a different practice.  I come to find out that beloved OT’s other patient who she sent to same OS is scheduled for the same day.  He is clearing the books so he can start anew.  He is paying off all debts to friends LOL.  At any rate, I am thrilled to bits.  I get to move forward… Plus the dude (yes, I have reduced my arrogant OS to a dude) is pretty big in the world of hips, so I trust him.

So, life has been hectic ever since.  I had to get blood work, EKG etc all done.  I have medical equipment to rent but the company still hasn’t called me.  Hello, there are only three days next week to get it delivered to my house!  Being a chronic migraineur, I am on a narcotics contract with my neurologist so I had to visit him to organize my pain medicines.  He was super-cool about it all and has promised to take care of all of my post-surgical needs.  As a show of faith, he wrote me a rather large prescription for my pain meds and let me fill it right away.  It is important for me to have him on-board because my surgery is in another city and is out-of-network.

Kids are organized to go to my mother-in-law for the first week but after that, they will be back with us.  Husband has an out of town trip about 16 days after my surgery.  I hope to be able to organize someone to come and help me.  Now on to work.  I have about two weeks of work to get done in less than 4 days.  The dog needs to go to the vet this morning so I have to give up precious work time to take him.  Sigh.  At least the vet is a friend and is making time to slot us in.

So fellow hipsters, tell me about your experiences post op hip arthroscopy for labral repair and possible osteoplasty of femoral head.  Were you in a brace?  For how long?  Two weeks on crutchers or longer?  How long in the CPM?  I know 6-8 hrs a day but for how many days?  What about the Philippon cylinder?  How long with that?  How was your pain level?  I have never had surgery before so this is scary and exciting all at the same time.