2010 in the Rear View

I'm not sure how I feel about 2010, to be honest.  In one respect, it's all a blur of doctor visits, bone scans, IV meds, surgeries, and days I'd just as soon forget.  On the other hand, like I said in one of my other posts, this year has made me more grateful for what I have and has made me anxious to start living to the fullest again.

I don't know what 2011 is going to hold in store for us, but I do know this: I have an amazing family who dropped everything to be with me and help me through this year.  I have amazing friends who support me and pray for me and will be taking me out for drinks when this is all over ;)  I have an amazing husband who has done more than his share around the house while I've been out of commission.  I have an amazing daughter who asks me daily if my leg still hurts and tells me she will help me if I need it.  Most importantly, I have an amazing God who has brought me this far and will carry me through whatever 2011 brings.  I think I'll close out 2010 by sharing the prayer I've been praying each night for the past few months.  It's apropos to my situation, but I think it rings true for anyone going through a hard time or feeling like there's no end to the pain and suffering.  (Before I get credit for my wonderful prose, I'll let you know that the prayer is from a book- I didn't come up with it)

Lord Jesus, who patiently and willingly suffered deep pain for the salvation of the world, thank You for understanding what I'm going through.  Give me strength to accept my weakness as I recover, and remind me always of the place you've prepared for me in heaven, where there will be no more weeping.  I know this pain is temporary because of Your perfect life, death, and resurrection.  Amen.

Amen!  Happy New Year!

Progress

Since I'm devoting my Facebook statuses to the Christmas story this week, I wanted to share some news here...

I am officially PICC line free!!!  No more IV meds!  No more having to stay up late to do the last dose or wake up early to get the morning dose done in time.  Ahhh.  I can't believe I made it 6 weeks.  It seemed like such a long time at the beginning, but it actually went by pretty quickly, mostly because I've been focused on Christmas.

The plan is now to wait 2 weeks and do a blood draw to make sure the infection is gone.  Then in 3 weeks I'll meet with the surgeon to learn the results and (hopefully) schedule the last surgery.  As long as the bloodwork is clean, I should be getting a new hip some time around mid January.

I can't stress again how much I like this new surgeon and how blessed I am that I was led to him.  I believe he will do his best and has my best interests at heart.

Well, since I don't have to do an IV, I'm going to bed!  Merry Christmas to me :-)

Online Shopping

So, since I couldn't very easily go Christmas shopping this year, I ordered pretty much everything online.  Here are a few tips I've learned about online shopping...

1) Best sites to order from:
Walmart- Yeah, yeah.  I know.  Screw the corporate giant.  But I'm too poor at the moment to protest.  They had the cheapest prices, free or next-to-nothing shipping, and everything got here within a few days looking like what I expected.
Amazon- The trick I learned here is to sort by price and then look for the Amazon deal.  A lot of times they can't list their price because of some legal reason, but if you click on the link, you'll see it's a lot cheaper than most of the others.  And it's easy to return directly to them.   Bonus- the item was here in 2 days.
Terry's Village- I like this store for Christmas decorations mostly.  They are very good at sending replacements if anything is broken or not to your liking.  A couple of the items I received just looked poorly made and they sent me replacements with no questions asked.  

2) Sites that need improvement:
Kohl's- While I like shopping in their stores because you can get a good deal (especially with the coupons), the online experience has not been so great.  I am STILL waiting on an order from Dec 4th to get here. 
ToysRUs- First of all, half of the stuff I wanted was out of stock online.  Most of the items got here quickly, so I'll give them credit for that.  However, one item was listed as "located in stock" for over a week before it actually shipped.  Still waiting on it to get here.

2) Don't order hard novelty candy through the mail.  It WILL be broken.  Every last piece of it.  Yes, they'll send you a replacement, but it will probably be broken too.  Just send the husband to the store to buy it instead. 

3) Read the dimensions.  Otherwise, you will end up with a 6 foot tall plush cardinal bird for your 90 year old grandmother.  On the upside, it does jingle when you shake it.

4) Read what the item is made of.  You'd think this would be a given, but I learned my lesson when the snowman frame I ordered turned out to be made of cloth, not wood.  Who makes frames of cloth?!

5) Order EARLY, especially if you want Christmas novelty items.  Apparently stores only order limited amounts of these things and when they're gone, they're gone.  I ordered the weekend of Dec 4th and still couldn't find a couple of the things I wanted.

Having said all of this, I again apologize for any random gifts my family may receive this year and for the disproportionate sizes in which they will come.   Happy shopping!

Merry Christmas

When I first heard I'd be hipless at Christmastime, I was disappointed to say the least.  What about shopping at the mall?  What about walking around looking at lights?  What about decorating our yard?  How would I do these things without a hip?  I actually tried to have the surgery pushed up for these very reasons.  The surgeon didn't seem to think Christmas deprivation warranted an early surgery, so here we are.

Once again, turns out God knew what He was doing.  The Christmas Season has been a welcome distraction for me and has made the past 4 1/2 weeks go by pretty quickly.  (I can't believe I only have 1.5 weeks left on the IV!)  And I get to look at a pretty tree and decorations as I sit here all day as opposed to the normal drab that is our house.

It's also forced me to focus on the important things this Christmas.  Since I couldn't participate in the usual stress filled, pre-Christmas shopping at the mall, I ordered everything online and I'm done.  Now I just get to enjoy looking at the gifts until they are opened on Christmas.  I'm enjoying creating Christmas games and fun things for Laurel to do when she's home.  I'm enjoying watching the excitement of Christmas through her eyes.  And, I'm enjoying the fact that someone else will have to clean up all the decorations after Christmas ;)  

Merry Christmas!

P.S. Test results came back NEGATIVE for a secondary infection- holla!!!

Really, God?

So, I've been feeling a bit down the last few days.  I've been nauseated beyond belief and it's made it impossible to do anything.  For the first time EVER, I didn't get to go pick out a Christmas tree.  I didn't hang the lights.  I probably won't do many ornaments.  And, while I try to stay as positive as possible, some days I just want to punch someone in the face.  Today was one of those days.

I learned today that I may have a secondary infection in my intestines, caused by the antibiotics used to treat the initial infection.  Awesome.  Two infections for the price of one.  How lucky can one girl get?  I don't have the results back yet, but I've read the symptoms and, based on my luck this year, I'm assuming it's what I have.

I know this is only temporary.  I know I'll get through it and life will go on as normal at some point.  I know at some point I'll probably forget how awful this all was.  But not today.  Not when I didn't get to get a tree with my little girl because I was curled up in a ball in bed, too nauseated to move.

At times like this I think about that old saying (and I'm paraphrasing here)... I know God won't give me more than I can handle.  Sometimes I wish he just didn't have so much faith in me.

Thanksgiving

Knowing what a crappy year 2010 has been for us, you think it would be difficult for me to be grateful for much this Thanksgiving.  Ironically, I'm more grateful this year than I've been in quite a while.  While I'm not excited to be sitting here, hipless, at 5am injecting another IV, I am actually thankful for this whole experience. 

Prior to the first surgery, I think I had been in a haze of sorts.  Watching TV, being on the computer, not really wanting to take the energy to get up and go anywhere (even outside).  If this whole mess has taught me anything, it's to appreciate every moment and every facet of your being.  Appreciate being able to walk outside with your kids.  Appreciate being able to pick them up in the middle of the night, even when you'd rather be sleeping.  Appreciate being able to grab a photo of a beautiful moment.  Appreciate being able to clean the house.  Appreciate being able to walk.  Period. 

I had a couple of weeks in this whole mess where I was pain free and able to walk when one doctor (turns out erroneously) gave me a cortisone shot.  I now know what I have to look forward to when this is over.  I made the most of those 2 weeks and took Laurel to do lots of fun things, spent time outside with her, even got up with her at night while she was sick and didn't really mind (too much ;)).   I can't wait to be able to do those things again.

I think the thing I am most thankful for this year is that God chose to teach me this lesson using my own body, and not that of my daughter or someone else close to me.  I know there are many ways He could have chosen to get me up off my butt, and I'm glad he chose to sit me on it for awhile to appreciate just what I was missing.

Happy Thanksgiving.

What the BLEEP happened???

Five months ago I sat in the surgeon's office as he asked me, "Are you excited about your surgery tomorrow?".  And I was.  Truly.  I was excited to be able to tie a shoe again, or put on a sock, or sit cross legged on the floor with Laurel, or walk a mile... so much to look forward to.  I thought I'd have a month (tops) of recovery time and be back on my feet, working a new job, and living my new-and-improved life with my new bionic hip.

Since I was born with congenital hip dysplasia, a surgery was inevitable at some point.  I spent months trying to find the right surgeon, someone who could do the surgery I needed and had an infection rate of less than .5%.  We'll just call him "Dr. H" (short for the doctor from Houston).    He was recommended by 2 other surgeons and was supposed to be one of the best for this particular type of less invasive surgery.

The surgery took longer than expected and Dr. H informed my family that he had to create a posterior wall because, apparently, I didn't have one.  My anatomy was not normal because of the hip dyslpasia.  Other than that, the surgery was a success, or so we were told.

The first night after surgery, I thought things were going pretty well, except I noticed immediately how long the surgical leg felt compared to before.  PT went well that first day, but that night I was in excruciating pain and felt I had torn something loose.  The sub-par nurses assured me I hadn't and gave me some medicine to calm me down.  The next morning Dr. H informed me he was leaving the country for 2 weeks, which was news to me.  I'll just sum up that entire hospital stay by saying it was a scary mess.  The staff was composed of people who couldn't make decisions and wouldn't find out answers.  I was very anxious to get out of there and go home.  I went to my post-op visit only 5 days after surgery and saw the PA (doctor was still out of town) who told me things looked good and to just come back in a year. 

Two weeks after surgery, I was still having a lot of trouble walking and severe, stabbing pain when I stepped on that leg.  I called the doctor's office and was told to do some PT, that it was probably just stiff.  After 2 weeks of that, I knew something was just not right.  I went back to Dr. H who agreed that this was not normal 1 month post op.  He thought that the "cup" had possibly shifted.  Because he was leaving the country AGAIN for 2 weeks that Friday, he wanted to go back in immediately for a second surgery the next day.

Dr. H told us that he didn't see anything wrong when he went back in, but he added 2 screws "just in case" and shortened the leg length.  He didn't see any reason why I should be in so much pain.

After the 2nd surgery, the leg length felt better, but there were still some things that were just not right.  I felt a popping in the hip when I walked, which Dr. H attributed to fluid in the hip.  And, speaking of fluid, the drain never worked after that surgery.  Not one drop of fluid was collected from my hip, so there it sat, festering in my leg. 

Two weeks post-op I went to get my staples out.  Dr. H was still on his trip, so I was seen by another doctor who greeted me with a mouth full of food.  I asked him to draw blood because I had been running a fever of 101 for over a week.  He assured me that this was normal and that the incision looked good.  I insisted they draw the blood anyway because the fever and chills did not seem normal to me.  Sure enough, the results came back indicative of a possible infection.  A week later, I was back in the office with a leg that was hard and swollen.  Dr. H thought it was a hematoma and drained the fluid.  Why it wasn't tested for an infection then and there, I don't know.  He did more blood tests, told me to put heat on my leg, and come back Friday.  The next day, the wound opened and started to drain.  The blood tests showed declining infection levels, so they just wanted to "wait and see" what happened.  I left for a week trip to see my in-laws the next day.  While I was there, the wound continued to open, to the point where I had 2 holes, yes HOLES, in my wound.  I sent pictures to the PA (because the doctor was gone- shocker) and he assured me it did not look infected.  I went back to the doctor when I returned to town and they FINALLY put me on some antibiotics, nearly 3 weeks after the wound opened.  They decided that the bloodwork had continued to indicate declining infection rates and that the wound did not look infected (2 holes, not infected... what?!?!) so it would not be necessary to clean it out.

Three months of wound care and PT later and I was still not healing.  I requested they run more tests to see what was wrong.  The first radioactive bone scan showed possible tissue infection.  The second showed no infection.  After running both tests, they told me they weren't reliable and that surgery was probably the only option.   So... I found a surgeon here in Austin who is highly recommended and requested that Dr. H get me in to see him (because he otherwise couldn't get me in). 

Last Friday I underwent a hip explant.  The old implant was removed, including all the parts, and a spacer was put in to keep the hip open for a new implant in a few months.  The surgery took over 4 hours and was very painful the next day since they had to cut muscle and tissue.  Almost a week later and I feel much better- probably better than I did after the first less invasive surgery!  I'm now on IV antibiotics 3 x/day and home health comes to my house daily for wound care, blood draws, and PT.  I'm under the care of a surgeon, 2 general physicians and an infectious disease specialist (all at the surgeon's request).   I feel like I'm finally in the right hands and finally feel confident trusting a doctor again.

Now the plan is to continue the IV meds for 6 weeks and then be off the meds for 2-4 weeks before drawing fluid to test.  Once the fluid is drawn, it can be another 2-4 weeks to wait for the cultures (this surgeon is VERY cautious).  Once I'm clear of infection, I'll undergo a final surgery to get the hip implant put back in.  Then some PT and I'll hopefully be back on my feet!

As I sit here in the middle of the night giving myself my 3rd dose of IV antibiotics for the day I think... it could be worse.  I could be going through something much more dire, like cancer.  Or, worse, I could  NOT be doing this at all because I didn't survive the surgery.  At this point, I'm happy to be alive and thankful I found the right team of people to help me heal.