Hips - a Chaotic Introduction - a *Start*, Anyway! Welcome.

This is the first post - I needed to finally get going with this as a journal - every day - the subtle 

and not-so-subtle differences. 

Quick catch-up (HA!) on where this all started. ( I intend to fill in a LOT of back story in this post later on. so much to write. Calendars to check, events and days and visits to remember, photos to study - I have kept somewhat of a photo journal throughout). I have written so much in the form of Facebook statuses, IM posts, personal emails - even some poems. All need to be compiled into a Story. 

But, in a fat nutshell for now: 

I was born with congenital hip dysplasia. I had no obvious symptoms until I was almost 50. I am round-shaped, and have always walked with my rear a tad pushed out - choreographers would try and try to get me to tuck my butt in - never could quite do it. I just thought that was how I was built. Well, it WAS. But it wasn't "normal". Who knew? I started having hip pain in about 2005. It was mis-diagnosed as soft tissue damage. Over the following years, it got slowly, steadily worse. 

I was doing a professional musical, a world premiere of "A Little Princess" at Sacramento Theatre Company last spring, when my hips just crumbled out from under me, after having been compensating and faking it for a long time, just trying to stay vertical. 

First hip surgery was August 20, 2013. Before this, I had NO faith in the Western Medical system. I had witnessed near-atrocities in the medical "care" of my mother, my friends Christian and Deborah and Charlotte and others - and on a smaller scale, for myself - crappy help from doctors. 

I was convinced there was no such thing as good medical care any more. 

I was in desperate pain, had lost almost all ability to walk, hence, my life ( I have a day job at a desk as a web admin., but I'm also a theatre practitioner - acting, singing, a little dancing, directing, designing, making props, costumes, creating programs/playbills, whatever job needs filling.  I was unable to do anything - my day job of sitting making web pages was even excruciating.  

I was stressed, afraid, freaked out. My best friend Deborah(see above) was also dying of brain cancer after fighting brain tumors for 20 years. 

Have I mentioned that 2013 was a hideous, horrible year? It's still 2013, but I'm deciding the worst of it is past. Shut up. 

Just so you know - I have been gently teased as being Silver Lining Girl. Always finding the bright side, wisely helping solve life's problems. By this time, all of that was pretty tarnished. Severe Chronic pain and fear will do that. 

An IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not looking for pity or sympathy here. I'm sharing my story, primarily so that others might learn - something - along with me. I am learning so much about the world from a seated point of view, about strength and pain, about the way the world deals with - or doesn't deal with - people with injuries, illness or disabilities. 

Maybe I can allay some fears in others. 

Even More important, before I go any further - if you have hip replacement imminent - you can stop being afraid!! I was terrified, as you'll read - but you'll also learn what I learned, that it is amazing, and will give back your life. And it will help you to stop being afraid, and start being excited!

First, after looking hard for a very desperate week or two, I found a Good Primary Care physician, with the medical group my insurance randomly assigned to me - Sutter Health. I have never had a luckier chance. 

I got Dr. Norene. He treats a lot of the staff and casts of the local professional musical theatre company! Bingo - a match for me! He *gets* my people. 

And after the X-rays revealed that I had almost no hip joints left, he referred me to the most incredible orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Scott Smith - and thank the heavens that he specializes in Anterior Hip Replacement. Also very important - Remember "Anterior Hip Replacement" (as opposed to the older Posterior approach. Which works... but - the anterior version is the way to go if you possibly can. You will learn a LOT more about that as you read - but push for it, and if you have to wait a little longer because of availability, my suggestion would be to wait.)
It was actually *during* the surgery that Dr, Smith realized that I had the birth defect of hip dysplasia. I never knew before that day. My socket (or Acetabulum) was not round, as normal hip sockets are - it was oblong, and pretty much flat. He had to re-sculpt it to fit the new socket cup, and added a few screws to anchor it solidly - not usually needed. 

 I consider this surgery a miracle of medicine and skill. It's true - you really do feel drastically better - the same day as the surgery. Really, really. You hurt, because well, you had surgery! - but the PAIN is *gone*. Your doctor will balance your pain medication so the surgery pain itself is in control... but
two days after the surgery I walked up and back down 16 steps with my physical therapist watching - it's that amazing. 

At the current moment, it has been two months (yesterday) since Surgery #1 - my left (the worst, by far) hip. Four weeks later I was OK'd by my surgeon to drive, and to go back to work on the following Monday. So - I've been back at work for almost a month. 

As of yesterday, it is also six more weeks until Surgery #2 - my right hip. It has resigned its commission as the less-bad of the two - as my left hip has become stronger and more healthy, and I can stand up FULLY STRAIGHT for the first time in my life, the right one has essentially given up... it's strange to be getting stronger and more able on the left as the right deteriorates and increases in pain and disability. VERY Jekyll and Hyde. I cannot WAIT to get the second hip done and finally be able to use BOTH legs equally - to stand all the way up straight, and walk un-aided, and act, and *dance*. 

After the first surgery, because I live alone, on the second floor of a walk up, and my siblings (Whom I love and understand) were unable to be here, my most amazing friends just stepped in and took care of me. They took turns caring for me, and I felt the most astounding outpouring of love from so many amazing people. I mean - I had a SPREADSHEET of who was coming over to take a shift, day and night! Because of them, I was able to avoid having to stay in a rehab hospital. They are useful, but it would essentially have been a place to stay where I could sleep and get meals because I live alone (As you are required to have company for a week, preferably two, after surgery). NOPE!!! My dear friend Mariam just stepped in and took control of the situation for me - in the very best way. I was so overwhelmed, I have no idea what I would have done without her. 

If anyone ever tries to say theatre people (95% of my friends are such) are anything but the most kind and generous, they have me to answer to. And as nice as I am, and I am very, very nice, you do NOT mess with my people. People organized to bring me and my companions meals every day, and just to be sure we had everything we needed. There was so much love and healing laughter in my home! I felt joy such as I hadn't in a very, very long time! 

At this point, I have begun to be a bit more mobile - I can get around - I use a walker still, due to my right leg and the inability to put weight on it. A tubular walker at home, indoors/upstairs ( That's what is required for most people after surgery), using a cane to get from the front door, down the steps and to the car. I have a more fancy, "cadillac" walker with 4 wheels, a seat and brakes, that lives in the

back hatch of my little Rav4. I take it out for work, or anywhere I go in public.

You use the tools you need to get done what you must. I am tired of my diminished life - I have a lovely life, and I want it back. And it's happening. 

I am still very, very happy. It is profound. 

Some days I am in more pain, or exhausted, or feeling various small after-effects which tend to come with surgery. But I am always aware that I am getting my life back! 

(Get used to that if you plan to continue to read me - you'll hear it a lot). 

My dear Deborah, my heart's sister, lost her battle with cancerous brain tumors two weeks and four days ago as I write. It is unfathomable that she is actually gone. It was a mercy in the end, after so much pain so many surgeries and radiations and chemo and two broken hips and 9 months of bedridden home hospice care, under the loving, watchful and fiercely loyal care of her husband Sam. But she lived and survived so many times, so fully, that it is still unreal. 

And yet - as astonishing as it is, in the face of so great a loss... I still have joy. 

I do. and It's OK. In fact it's more than that. Triumph is good. SO good. And she would have it no other way, either!

I have been collecting bits and pieces - writing this story in parts and parcels - Facebook posts, and IM threads and emails... 

I have still to collect them and put them in chronological order and get them here... but instead of waiting, I needed to get this started and proceed forward, leaving an open post after this one, to edit and add those things in.

A bass-ackwards way to do it, certainly, but after my surgery, when I had hoped to really begin this, there was a week of pain- killers, and then so much time spent with friends and loved ones coming to buoy my spirits and help in any way they could. 

So I intend to post a couple of place holders for the next couple of posts, and fill them in with more back story later. And then I'll pick up with daily, shorter journal entries. 

I hope that you, the reader, find some value here - some information to comfort a fear if you have an impending hip replacement; Some insight as a person who is fortunate to be fully-ambulatory; perhaps just some entertainment? 

Thank you for reading this far!! I can only try to promise that each post will not be quite so long... I just have some important catching-up to do. 

Cheers!

-Martha


PS - I posted this photo and comment the morning of the surgery. I was SO ready. It took a while to get there, but I sure was!! 

And the day it felt like would never arrive is here- 4:40 am! "call' is 5:30, Surgery is 7:30 and it should be about 2.5 - 3.5 hours... but we're getting there at 5-ish, and the next post you see will be a groggy me :). But this is how I feel right now!!! Excited, and not toooo scared! Bionics, here I come! I gotta date with a certain Scott Smith, and guess what, ma? He's a surgeon! ;D Thank you all from my deepest heart for the love and support that puts this grin genuinely on my face!