Monday was the day, the day that hopefully is the start of my getting back to running. It's been a loooong 10 months or so. I went through 2 rounds of p.t., one being a complete running analysis, I had my hip injected, I saw a sports med doctor, and I just stopped running. FINALLY, I had an arthrogram done, which did find that I had a torn labrum, (think meniscus in knee, but in hip, best way for some people to understand) and I also had a bone spur. We got to the hospital at about 10:40 am to register and for them to get me all set up. Didn't wait long in the waiting area til I was called back. I was only allowed clear liquids up until 8:30am so I made sure to get my coffee and had a little bit of water and apple juice. Nurses came around and asked my name about a million times, got me hooked up with an IV and took my blood pressure, which was actually through the roof! I suppose on the inside I was more nervous than I thought. I think the first reading was somewhere around 149/104, and then came down a little to like 138/94. Time kept going and going and going until a nurse finally said she'd ask to see what's taking so long. At 12:00 noon she came back to let us know that the doctor was still in surgery with his 10am patient and had another to go yet before me, (mine was supposed to be at 12:30pm) and that my surgery time was now looking to be more like 2pm. We waited and waited some more and finally they came to take me to the OR holding area around 1:45pm. After we got over there we heard them talking about a femur fracture on a little boy in the ER. No sooner did we hear that and they wheeled in a gurny with an Amish family and a little boy about 15 mo old. They came to tell us that he was going to go before me. I was frustrated, but how can you be mad that a little kid needs to wait to be out of pain! SO, more waiting is what we did. Around 3:30 they finally came to get me! By this time I was starrrving, thirsty, and my back hurt so bad from laying down for so long. I gave John a kiss goodbye and honestly that's the last thing I remember!
About 2 1/2 hours later I woke up in recovery. I hurt, I felt sick to my stomach, I was shaking all over uncontrollably, and was extremely thirsty. I was writhing around in bed and could not get comfortable. I had so many wires and tubes hooked up to me, I was half scared to move! ugggh, the pain and nausea was terrible. The nurse asked how I was doing and I asked for something to drink. She said if I'm nauseated they wanted to wait, but gave me one of those lovely sponge things to suck on to help with my dry mouth. I could NOT get comfortable. I tried laying on my side and that didn't work. Finally the 2 nurses that were there got me out of the bed and into a wheel chair. I thought maybe sitting up more would help my back. I could NOT stop shaking. The nausea continued to get worse until I finally asked for something to get sick in. EEEWWWW, really? I've never had this reaction to anesthesia! They asked about giving me a shot of phenergan, but I know how much those suckers hurt and they put me out and I had to get up a flight of steps when I got home! At that point I think the anesthesiologist came around and suggested giving me benadryl through my IV, so they did. Still didn't help. Next was haldol, still didn't help. He told me next time to make sure I let them know I get car sick/motion sickness and they can give me something to prevent this. NEXT we tried a transderm scopalamine patch, same thing people wear for motion sickness on a cruise (I WISH that's where I was!). FINALLY, I was able to feel a little better. There were a few hours in there where I just kept nodding back off to sleep. It was being discussed about me staying the night after all. I really didn't want to do that. At this point, I'm pretty sure I had John a little worried. They asked about giving me a pain pill, but with already being nauseated I declined that too. John needed to run out quick and get my RX from Walmart before they closed, so the nurses told him to do that while I tried to come around. Something kicked in at some point, because by the time he got back I felt MUCH better! The nurses mentioned getting my IV out and I told them, I noticed it was going to be IV'S, as I had noticed that at some point when I was out they put another IV in on my hand. REALLY?! They think that maybe the other one wasn't working well, so they had to start another. I got my IV's out, got dressed. They had to give me another pair of teds because at this point I had NOTHING on my feet, including the socks I came in with. They realized they must have been thrown away so I also got gift cards from their, "I'm sorry please take this so you don't get mad at us" box. At this point, it was about 9:30pm.
I was wheeled out to the car, the nurse saw my crazy crutches and adored them. The almighty duct tape...so versatile!
John made me a sandwich when we got home, at that point I had taken a percocet just before leaving the hospital. My foot was completely numb with that pins and needles feeling. TMI, but the numbness went all down my leg into foot, and then also radiated to the right, right into my um...lady parts lol. I have a HUGE bandage on and the doc said I might be leaking fluid over the next couple days and might even need to put more on to reinforce things if too much liquid seeps out! eeewwww
My time has been spent in bed or on the sofa, sitting up feels good, but I can only do that for so long. I am allowed to put about 25% weight on that leg walking with my crutches. In listening to John's recording of Dr. Zartman, I found out that my labral tear was pretty small, BUT, a decent size of my labrum was completely pulled away from the bone.
I got a cool keepsake showing exactly what they did. All the medical people I know will think this is cool like I do! SO, it's hard to see in the picture, but apparently below the pointy thing in the second picture is where I had a small tear, maybe not even completely torn, but very fragmented. The shinier, whiter part beside the instrument in the first picture is where my labrum was pulled away from the bone. They open that area and use that pointy instrument in second picture to, "pick, pick, pick" as Dr. Zartmen said on the actual bone underneath until it's filled with blood and purposefully injured and fractured. It's called microfracture chondroplasty. The body will hopefully recognize that and grow more cartilage over that area. The flap was put back into place and sutured. The doctor had mentioned the possibility that I might also have some issues with my bursa, but after seeing everything he did, he said that I definitely had enough going on to cause the pain I was having, and it's fairly unlikely that I will need to have anything else done. (wooohoooo!) I have either 2 or 3 incisions on the outside and will have my lovely bandage taken off tomorrow at p.t., which means NO showers for me until then!
Overall I'm not feeling too bad. Last night I had a decent amount of pain, and of course waking up in the morning feels much better. This is my view from the bed...
Yep, staring at our medals and a picture of a lotus. One of my favorite flowers, especially for the meaning! 
So I'm staring at my goal for this year. If I don't do any races until July that's fine, but I WILL do the PA sprint again this year. I had a LOT of things on my bucket list to do last year and this interfered with them, and now after surgery they will still need to wait. I know I'll have to be patient and take things slow. I will be starting all over again, probably even back to doing the couch to 5K program. My hope is that I can do it pain free. I start p.t. tomorrow and know it's probably going to be torture! So here's to crushing goals and taking things one step at a time....literally!
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