June

I’m not gonna lie. Its been a damn hard month. Talk about kicking a girl when she’s down. But, life marches on and we figure out ways to get through things, or somehow we just figure out how to get by, and in time, we realize we’ve reached the other side.

This post is going to be quite boring. I want to record what’s happened in terms of progress the past few weeks so hopefully I can look back and it will be helpful later.

Its been about a month since my last post. Just over 4 weeks since I had the plates and screws removed from my collarbone and it re-broke rolling over in bed. I feel like my collarbone is healing. The sharp jabs of pain are less jarring and it takes more to make it happen. I can move my arm around passively without pain, and even do things at my waist without lifting weights - without pain. Yay! There is some concern that the bone won’t heal given the circumstances. Insurance covered an electronic bone growth stimulator which will help it to heal if was not otherwise going to. As my lovely p.t. says - its gravy, and I need gravy right now. Next doctor's appt is July 7, when I have an xray and am hopefully given the green light to take off the sling.


Around the same time I had my collarbone break, I was having a lot of pain in my left glute and down my leg to the calf - like combo piriformis and sciatic pain. It ached and made it hard to sit or to sleep. My hip was also feeling extremely loose. It feels like it dangles in the socket when I am not firmly clenching it in there. And, it felt like my femur was about to poke through my glute muscle if I put too much weight on that leg - like doing a lunge or walking up a hill. The week after the collarbone break Jon and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I needed air, solitude, the sound of nature. I couldn’t even attempt some of the steeper streets - it just felt too risky on the hip - not to mention the collarbone. About a week later at p.t. they zapped the crap out of my little piriformis/glute area with one of those electrode things - and it was like night and day. I think one of my muscles was spazming/frozen and was irritating my sciatic nerve. The electrodes were just the right thing to get that firing or not firing again - and the pain in my piriformis and down the leg lessened dramatically immediately. That was an awesome success. My femur no longer feels like it will pop through my glute - but the general looseness remains.


Over the last few weeks - since the piriformis pain lessened, I’ve been able to start pushing my glutes, quads, hammies, adductors more. My hope was that in this 8 weeks I’m waiting for my collarbone to heal, I could work my muscles around my hip to see if that would help enough to keep the hip firmly in the socket. All while being very careful not to push it too hard so that whatever healing may need to take place does. I’ve been able to do quite a bit at p.t. and on my own and it does seem to be making a difference. One day last week I actually was feeling almost normal - like my hip wasn’t dropping out of the socket that day. I was very hopefull that day - feeling a ray of light that I may actually be in the clear with my left hip. At this point, the idea of having only one more hip surgery sounds like winning the lottery. But, that was short lived - and it was back to feeling loose the next day. Grrr. Yesterday after pushing it probably a little too hard I had the sensation of it subluxing almost - in the same bent over stretch that did it almost 2 months ago. I do wonder if the subluxing feeling is a tendon popping or sliding over the femur, rather than it coming out of the socket. Who knows. Ugh.

Meanwhile, with my collarbone hurting less, I’m able to do more physically. I’ve had a few good hikes up behind the house on San Bruno mountain.



Its been really cool to explore the trails up there. They are STEEP! They are also pretty much empty, except for me and the hundreds of little white tailed bunny rabbits, birds, bees and the lone snake I saw yesterday creeping slowy across the trail in front of me. San Bruno divides Brisbane from the coast, and the fog comes roaring over the ridge like a wave - the other day it looked like the black smoke from Lost - but white. Crazy.

It is so peaceful up there. There have been times where I see the open space, the ocean in the distance, feel the wind, and I'm so happy. Give me some good tunes on the ipod and i'm in freakin heaven. I miss my bike. The first time I went out - probably 2 weeks ago, I got about 30 minutes before I had to turn back because my hip started feeling tweaky and weird. The next time I went a little further, and further the next time still. I did a 3 hour hike last weekend and again yesterday - and while I felt ok after that last weekend, yesterday I was in major pain afterwards. It hurt to do pretty much anything other than sit. Yeah, I pushed it too hard. So, I sat, and iced. That helped. Sleeping was hard - major pain the ass - literally. Regardless, it was nice to get out in the sunshine. I needed it, even if I was achy afterwards.

Today I took it easy and spun on the trainer for an hour. My hip felt fine. Then I went down to the pool. The Brisbane pool is awesome. Definately on the list of the top ten things about Brisbane - its big, clean, outdoors, tucked under some trees, and usually pretty mellow. It was my first time there since the subluxing incident about 10 days out from surgery. I’ve been scared, and I’ve had hip flexor pain so I didn’t think kicking would feel good. Of course, for the past month, I’ve been one-armed, so not much to do in the pool. But, today I went down and did some kicking - holding onto the wall, and then some one-armed with the paddle board - and some pool running - just to test it out and see how it feels. The kicking felt REALLY good. Sometimes I feel like my left hip still hurts like it did pre-surgery - the groin pain, and the deep glute pain still plague me. But in the pool the contrast between my hips was clear. My right hip (the hip still waiting for surgery) hurt to kick - the groin just had a sharp pain from the first kick. The left felt good and strong - though after a while my hip flexor started to hurt a little so i stopped. It felt pretty good to ‘run’ in the water too - just a little pain in the glute and hip flexor- which I seem to get a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I have a torn glute or something. The little sharp pain is in such a specific spot.



Anyway, it was nice to be in the pool and the sun. It was also nice to bond with the other gimps in the pool. One woman in my lane had back surgery recently and was just getting back to exercise. she was stoked. there were two other men - one in his 80s and his son who was attempting to avoid surgery. both were out getting exercise, moving the body around, and soaking in the sun. It was awesome. As I left, there was a line out the door of families with little kids - open swim was starting and its a beautiful day. I want to do that more often. Of course, it helped that it was like 75 degrees and sunny - yay!

I could get all deep and introspective here - this month has brought about a lot of thinking, and not all of it good, but I’ll save that for another day.

I do feel like my collarbone is healing - and I’m looking forward to being able to swim, do some upper body work, some more core, and even ride my bike (YAY!!!) while I figure out what to do next with the hips. Once that happens I’ll at least have moved one step closer to the end of this.

update

Xrays showed that my clavicle did in fact re-break. I don't feel so silly any more, but am pretty bummed. The bone looks kind of like swiss cheese - there is more air than bone. It rebroke along one of the many empty screw holes. I wish i had known it would be so fragile. I don't think i would have had the surgery. the one positive thing i can see out of this is that when and if it does heal - it won't have a plate in it, so hopefully it won't hurt and i will be able to backpack. it just prolongs this year of recovery i seem to be entrenched in. i'm beyond over this. physical therapy for my hip is going to be interesting now that i can't lie on my side. guess we'll have to get creative.

one other positive thing - when i am finally able to hike, to bike, to run, swim, ski, jump, dance, fall, somersault, and do my heavy squats and deadlifts, i am going to cherish every moment. I'm going to savor the wind in my face, the strength of my body. I will appreciate every second. I think I did before, but it will be multiplied by 1000 when all of this is behind me.

Calamity Jane

I'm posting this partly against my better judgment. But here goes. It may be irrelevant 3 hours from now. i hope.

So, on Friday I had surgery to remove 2 plates and 16 screws from my clavicle - they had been there for a year, since a crash last May. They bothered me - bra straps hurt, carrying a purse hurt, backpacking was out the the question. I probably could have dealt wtih the first two, but I love backpacking and am not ready to give it up. Anyway, i was told this surgery was a "nothing" and it seemed to be true when i woke up on Friday from anesthesia. I was out the door, not nauseaus, not horribly in pain, and feeling decent 20 minutes after waking. I dozed off the drowsyness all afternoon friday and saturday woke up feeling pretty good. We went to the farmers market, to REI, and had a mellow evening. i was very excited at how minor the surgery seemed and so happy to have it behing me. fast forward to 4 am sunday.

I woke up at about 4am with major pain in my clavicle. walking to the bathroom and back was horrible. very reminicent of the initial break. jon went and got me some vicodin and i made it through the night. that morning the pain continued. i couldn't lift my arm, was having sharp jabbing pains in my clavicle, and had to wear a sling to keep the pain in check.

I called my surgeon's on call service and ended up talking to the fellow, who is sooo nice. he offered to meet me, on a sunday of memorial day (very appreciated) at the surgical center. He said he couldn't get an xray, but at least he would be able to take a look and see if there was anything obvious.

We met, he took off the dressing, and his conclusion was that nothing was broken, that i had a hematoma over the area that was really hurting, and maybe it was that the numbing medication wore off during the night.

So, off i went home, feeling kind of silly. Unfortunately, I still feel like its broken. i can't understand how it would go from feeling so good to feeling so bad in an instant. i can barely sleep, walking hurts, it hurts to get up and down off the couch, typing this is pretty painful.

anyway, i have my first official post op appt in a couple of hours and i am hoping they will take some xrays to confirm one way or the other. I am expecting the worse, but hoping that i'm wrong.

I'll post an update later.

Figuring it all out

Its been a while since I last posted. I think for a while I was too freaked to put my fears down on paper, and then as things started to look up, I didn't want to jinx anything.

I've been to my surgeon 2 times since my last post - to check in on progress and to check on the looseness and instability in my hip. I had hoped he would tell me that while it was scary and startling for me, it was normal and part of recovery. Unfortunately he didn't say that. He did take an xray to make sure that he didn't remove to much bone - and that looked fine. But, apparently the looseness I feel is not normal. He thinks it may be that my joint capsule has not yet healed. He says that he thinks it will heal eventually and the looseness and instability will go away. He says that there is only one case in the literature about people having dislocations after srugery to correct FAI. But, I want to know how many people have loosness and the feeling of subluxation after the srugery and that goes away? Seems like there are no answers there. I'm trying to have faith that all will be ok, since the alternative is not good. Could be I'll need another surgery to tighten the joint capsule. I don't even want to think about that. ugh. so much for my tidy little surgery timeline.

I had been planning to have my left hip fixed, wait 6 weeks and have the right hip fixed, and then get out the plates in my clavicle. knock it all out quick and easy and compress the amount of time this takes over my life. But, I am reminded that I'm not actually in control here. This friday will be exactly 6 weeks from surgery on my left hip. For now, surgery on the right hip has been delayed until the left hip is resolved. Hopefully that is soon. The instability/looseness in my hip does seem to be getting better - a little. Although, i'm unable to do fairly basic things that I gather I should be able to do - based on the p.t. protocol. I'm really trying to have a positive outlook. I even got a book on changing from a pessimistic to an optimistic viewpoint :) I think of myself as a realist actually, but if I can trick myself into being more optimistic i am all for it!

While I wait for my left hip to resolve, I've decided to go ahead and have the plates removed from my clavicle. I'm not 100% happy about that decision either though and I have nervousness about whether that will work out as I hope. I have 16 screws and 2 plates in what is not a very large bone. I've been told "just don't fall". I hope that it heals up nice and strong and doesn't re-break. its been a year, so all should be fine. I do wish that my original surgeon was able to do the removal - but she moved to chicago - bummer! so, Dr. S will be going in sight unseen. That will happen next Friday - giving me the long weekend to recover. I'm sort of tempted to just leave it in - at least I know what I'm dealing with there. But, the screws poke up against my skin and can be pretty painful... and carrying a backpack is something I'll hopefully get to do again somewhere in the sierras :)

Life has not been all grim. This last weekend was my nephew's 2nd b-day and it was fun to celebrate with them a little on Friday night, and to catch up with my brother and get wonderful advice on what to do with my future. On saturday and sunday I got to help out the third pillar women's team at the Scotts Valley GP and the Sacramento GP. It was fun to be a part of the team - since I've been absent all season. Its a great combination of solid, strong racers, but without the b.s. and seriousness of a pro team. mellow, fun, strong. Can't wait to get back and race with these women.


Sunday night, Jon and I went to the Meals on Wheels Gala in Fort Mason which was pretty amazing. I was a little bummed because with the couch-weight i've put on I couldn't fit into the dress I planned to wear and still inhale, but i figured somethinge else out and we had a great time. It is set up so a bunch of amazing restaurants come out and cook up a small plate - and you can try all of them. The desserts were off the hook as well. It was a long, fun, thoroughly exhausting weekend. :)

I'm hoping (and please don't tell my doc) to actually ride my bike outside for a tiny bit this weekend. I'm thinking flat along canada road would be a good place to try it out. I'll stop if it feels unstable or painful, but i'm dying for a little wind on my face and endorphins in my blood. I was hoping to go for a walk today - but after p.t. yesterday i'm not sure its a good idea - kind of tender and weird feeling. probably an easy day on the trainer instead.

Today is a beautiful day in the city. Its been foggy and rainy lately, so a day of sun is a welcome change. Jon and I are talking about maybe getting a kitten this weekend. Hopefully, if we do, he and levi will get along well.

thats it for now,
v

a little scared

Today is kind of a low one. I was planning to hang out with my brother and nephews and go spend a day at the discovery museum in sausalito but i had to cancel. my hip is doing scary things again. That feeling of instability, like my hip will give out on me is back. this morning i rode the stationary bike for a little bit, and then was doing a little stretching. i did a little straight leg stretch - bent over, like touching my toes, and my hip had that strange slippery feeling and then felt like it popped out of the socket - all in the matter of a second or two. startling and painful. and scary since that hadn't happened in almost 2 weeks :( then going up stairs in my house my hip had a sharp pain and instability again. all of a sudden my hip is feeling really loose again - like its dangling in the socket. i debated for a few minutes, but decided that a day of walking around and trying to interact with 2 year olds was a bad idea. seems like a day of even walking around my house is a bad idea. so, i'm on the couch. sad. its sunday so i can't even reach my doctor. i haven't called him yet with my scared questions but i think this deserves a phone call. my worst fears all come to the surface in times like these. what if my surgery made things worse, not better. what if i never even get to bike again, or walk and hike. its a beautiful day outside, but its a dark day here.

13 days Post op

The last two weeks have been interesting. First off, i think that the initial recovery from surgery was a lot easier than I expected. After the first day or two the pain in my hip was minimal (probably a 2 on a scale of 1-10) and once I was off pain meds (2 days after surgery) my head cleared and the rest of my body started to feel better. It hurt to do certain movements, and I was non-weighbearing, but still - I was hopeful that recovery was going to be a breeze. I think its been hard adjusting from the initial few days of feeling like everything was going well, to the following several days of not much progress. The fact is I had surgery in my hip - bone was removed, cartilidge was removed, and muscles and tissue was moved around quite a bit - so things are going to hurt for a while.

I went back in for my 10 day post op visit with the surgeon this past monday and he was all smiles and happy with how it went and how well I appeared to be doing. He cleared me to shower (yay!!!!!!!!) , swim (with kicking!), stop using the cpm maching, and start weaning off crutches. I was thrilled and left the office with a huge smile on my face - thinking how fun it would be to be walking around without crutches and suprise jon that night. I think maybe I was too pleased, and momentarily forgot that I'd had surgery - thinking those rules of slow recovery don't apply to me. Bad move. Well, I did what the surgeon said and started "weaning" off the crutches - which is a really vague instruction. I did some walkiing without crutches (VERY gimpy/lurchy) and did some crutching with one crutch and some crutching with two crutches with more weight on the left leg. I went on a cleaning/organizing spree around the house - moving things around and clearing out some of the stuff from post-surgery.

The next day I went down to the pool - I did a lap with gentle kicking and breaststroke - and the kicking hurt, so I stopped. I then used the pool bouey and it was fine, but a few times my hip felt like it slipped out of the socket - not a good feeling and it made me a little worried. I was also doing some walking in in the water - thinking this would be a good way to transition into using those muscles again - and it felt fine until hip just slipped and gave out. It was painful and scary and left me a bit shaken. After my hip slipped again with the bouey, i decided to get out of the pool and go home. Plus I had to race back for a work conference call before going to PT (balancing working from home with being a gimp - when everything takes 3 times as long, doctors appointments, and physicial therapy really sucks. I wish I could focus just on recovery. but i guess that is not the way its going to be). Anyway, I did go to physical therapy and asked about the hip slipping issue and she suggested that maybe it was a ligament slipping over bone which feels like the hip slipping out of the socket. I don't know. PT went ok (very mellow), but after leaving, i was using both crutches, and it happened again - left leg had the feeling that it was loose/slippery and then my leg went out. Had I not been on crutches, i woudl have fallen. Scary. So, I'm not giving up the crutches yet. Hopefully that will happen naturally in the next few days. And, I'm trying to look at the recovery in terms of weeks, not days - since progress day to day sometimes goes backwards and definitely doesn't go forward as fast as I'd like.

My worst fear is that surgery to correct too much bone coverage has left me with too little bone coverage - and a form of surgical dysplasia. I hope this is just me being crazy. My hope is that this is just part of recovery - and due to the fact that with the new greater range of motion in my joint I will have to activate and use muscles that have never had to work before - so maybe they just don't know yet how to work - and lead to the slipping feeling. I don't know. For now, I'm riding a stationary bike with no resistance around 40 minutes a day and doing a series of isometric exercises to remind my glutes, hammies, quads and core that its supposed to fire when I move.

Yesterday I also had an MRI with arthogram on the right hip. I have the same structural issue on that hip - though I've had less pain on the right than on the left. I had hoped to have the MRI before surgery on the left hip - since I was still riding my bike a lot and my right hip was aching/hurting. But now, since I've been inactive for 2 weeks, my right hip feels awesome. So, the diagnostic aspect of the MRI is lost - I don't know if the numbing injection in the hip made the pain go away since I wasn't feeling pain at the time. Hopefully the MRI will give an idea of what is going on and how much damage is there. Right now, with the scary stuff on the left hip, I'm starting to feel less certain abotu going ahead with the right hip. But, I want to move forward with the expectation that in a few weeks my left hip will be feeling good and I'll be more confident about the success of the surgery. Funnily, after the injection in my hip (5 inch needle into the joint capsule, with injection of contrast dye and numbing stuff), my right hip feels more painful at times than the left! i guess that is a good sign :)

Today I'm in LA with my parents - I got here last night. It is georgeous here - clear, blue, warm, beachy. I wish i could go walk on the beach. I will at least stick my toes in the sand :) Melodie and Mike get married on Sunday. Mel and I were teammates on Proman and Vanderkitten - here's a photo from our first race together in '08. Totally cracks me up. No brainer that we became very good friends.



I'm looking forward to catching up with my LA girlfriends tonight and tomorrow - I don't get down here enough! Steve and Lynn and the boys are in town too for a little while - so I get to see them and maybe get a little cute overload tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, doc review and work emails continue - but trying not to stress about that too much - and to enjoy a little mini break after all the bod's been through.

On my way

I'm writing this from my couch - partially reclined - left leg in a gameready machine - being pressurized and iced simultaneously, and in a cpm machine - which is moving it in a nice little up and down flex motion. I'm supposed to be icing with the game ready machine 24 hours a day for the first few days, and in the cpm maching 6-8 hours a day. Luckily, I'm still kinda drowsy and drugged up and not itching to do much more than this.

Surgery was on Friday morning. Jon was still in NYC - so my parents drove up Thursday afternoon and we got everything situated with their bedroom, and all of my christmas goodies - such as a raised toilet seat, a few different kinds of crutches, shower chair, walker, and reacher. My goodness! such good stuff. We then went down to sakae and ate some delicious sushi and i drank a bit too much sake. And then off to bed.

Alarm set for 4:45 am, so I could shower with the special soap as instructed, and get to the surgery center in Redwood city by 5:45. I was regretting the sushi and sake and the fact that i couldn't have anything to drink - as i was feeling a bit queasy - hoping that i'd hold it down until surgery. Once there, we checked in and i met with both the nurse - to get ready for surgery and get my IV in place and with the sales rep to get fitted and instructions for the various equipment I might be taking home. I was told that if I had a labral repair I'd wake up in a hip brace which would stay on, night and day, 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. That hip brace was huge and would have been not so fun. In addition, i'd be in the cpm machine. The CPM machine would be required for 8 weeks if I had a microfracture done. I was hoping for the best case scenario - just the game ready and cpm for 2 weeks. thats what I got :) Now, i say best case scenario, but I gather that the reason they didn't repair the labrun is because it was too far gone to save. So, while I like not being in the brace, I do wish I'd still have a labrum. can't win em all. But, I did not need microfracture - which means that I had enough cartilidge still intact to not need to create any more artifically. This is a very good thing in my book.

Before surgery I also met with the anesthesiologist, the medical student fellow working with my surgeon (who I had met at the pre-op) and the assistant. All were friendly and made me feel at ease. When I was wheeled into surgery - i saw Dr. Safran briefly and was in awe of the massive amounts of modern equipment. Then I said good night :)

My mom and dad talked to my surgeon after the surgery and he explained waht he had found and what he had done. My dad figured out how to use his computer to record the report so I got to hear it later which was really helpful.

When I woke up from surgery I was in a fair amount of pain, and was really foggy/groggy - i just wanted to doze off. I think the pain level was around a 4 or 5. They kept giving me more pain medication by IV but it wasn't helping the pain and was just making me sleepy and wonky. I also started to get really nauseaus, and had some medicine to help with that - along with some saltines and sprite. Once the nausea was under control and the grogginess faded away, we decided it was time for me to get dressed and leave. so, the nurse helped me into my shirt and pants, and i was rolled out the door. The drive home was not so fun. I felt like i'd been hit by a truck and every jolt in the road and every car that came too close felt painful. finally, we arrived at home, and my parents helped me down the 9 steps from the car to the house. Once i got all set up on the couch with my new gear, I was feeling much better. I slept through the night pretty well - waking to take pain meds at about 3, to make sure that any pain was kept in check. I stayed on full meds all day yesterday - which means i was napping a lot :) Last night was fine, except for a bout of nausea and feeling chilled by the ice machine. Today i've cut the dose in half, and so far so good. I'd like to be off the pain meds by tomorrow - I don't like the grogginess/spaciness and I feel like they mess with my body.

It feels weird crutching around - like my hip is loose in its socket. Jon thinks this is because i was in traction - where they pulled the hip out a bit. who knows - i guess that whole area has a lot to relearn. I had a lot of bone shaved off - and have more range of motion now than i ever have - so lots of muscles to strengthen. I'm looking forward to starting P.T. I'm also looking forward to getting this massive bandage off of my leg - whcih happens tomorrow at my first follow up.

I'd say that so far, this is an easier post-surgery situation than when i broke my collarbone. That is probably because with the clavicle there was a lot more damage and trauma with the collar bone surgery - with broken ribs, lots of drilling into bone, and lots of broken clavicle bits. Also, i think having one leg and two arms is easier than two legs and one arm. Except that I can't seem to get my coffee from one place to another - hands are full with the crutches. Thank goodness I've had a full support staff - Mom, Dad and Jon - alll generously helping out as I shout out commands. I'd better not get used to this :)

One last thing - I am feeling very good about my choice of having surgery with Dr. Safran. He and his team were all very professional and everything went flawlessly as far as I could tell. It is confidence inspiring when you are part of a well oiled machine. The Stanford outpatient surgical center was also very nice - felt sort of like a nice hotel. I'm happy to go back and have the second hip operated on there. Maybe i'll have my clavicle plates removed there as well.

signing off,
v