Almost Go Time

It’s been a pretty eventful year, and with my surgery just around the corner, it really is almost go time.  My last post came after my birthday ride almost a year and a half ago, and I had some plans already laid out for my race schedule post baby, which evaporated pretty much as soon as I put pen to paper.  One small bump into a counter set everything into motion.

I knew the day I hit the counter that something was seriously off, having strained hammys, tendonitis, bursitis, and the like before, this was not something that was going away any time soon.  I saw the sports med docs as soon as I could, even went to urgent care for xrays, which they declared looked fine.  Sports med docs recommended cortisone shots after seeing all of the inflammation from the MRIs.  So I proceeded with the shots but nothing got better so I sent my xrays and MRI results off to out of state orthopedic hip surgeons for a consult.  The result:  hip dysplasia.  Whaaaat?!  Isn’t that like common in dogs?  What the heck?  Are you sure?  Yep, they were.  And suddenly it all made sense, all my hip niggles from as far back as I could remember, but the diagnosis was always the same – weak core, weak hip flexors.  During my two bouts of Ironman training a few years ago, the hips were always snarky during my long runs, but I chalked it up to the 20 hours a week that I was training, and seriously, after 20 miles whose body isn’t sore and achy?  At the end of my pregnancy with Alex when I was super huge, like those last couple of weeks at the end, I had some pretty serious pelvic pain that would stop me in my tracks but I just figured everyone struggled those last couple of weeks at the end of pregnancy.  Little did I know, my cartilage was wearing out at an excessive rate since both of my sockets were extremely shallow.  My right hip is more dysplastic than the left but they both do not fit correctly in the acetabulum, so I have bilateral hip dysplasia.

So what does that mean?  How is that fixed?  Well, since cartilage does not grow back on its own, when you get down to bone on bone there’s only one option left, a total hip replacement.  When this process first began almost a year and a half ago, my coach told me it was like getting stuck in quicksand, that my movements would have to be small and deliberate, and nothing large and hasty.  So I set off to see what I could learn about hip dysplasia.  I saw a doc in California last June to discuss a PAO, an extensive special type of hip surgery for hip dysplasia but with not much cartilage left, it really was not the best course of action.  So I came back to SA to seek out the best hip orthopedic surgeons I could.  I researched this topic substantially, not only looking at surgeons, but materials used.  I asked lots of questions at every consult, I would know everything I could know about what was to come.  All of the surgeons even complemented me on “shopping for surgeons” and doing my homework on all the parts that could be used and which were the best and would last the longest.  I was methodical and meticulous, while my hip dysplasia was out of my control, how I approached my looming hip surgery would not be.

I struggle with this next paragraph the most, because I did struggle with this for a long time.  I was ready to get back out there.  My soul has always been tied to the swim, bike, run.  It’s my outlet - it’s where I work things out, discover parts of myself I didn’t know existed, challenge myself to take it to the next level.  Not being able to chase my athletic dreams and really “smash” myself out there took a toll on my soul a little bit.  Then there was the guilt – it’s just a hip, things could be a lot worse.  So when I was feeling defeated, the guilt always reared its ugly head.  But there was the silver lining, that indeed, it could be a lot worse.  So instead of the pity party, I chose glass half full.  And that’s when I really took control of finding the right surgeon for me, and decided to make the leap.  Because let’s face it, it’s hip surgery, not brain surgery.  And it’s a new hip, not a terminal disease.  But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to getting back out there because I absolutely cannot wait.  Might take me a little bit to get there, but I have some goals to crush and dreams to chase.  One #badassbionicbeast coming up.  Let’s do this.