Survived my 2nd Hip Arthroscopy

I have survived my second, and hopefully final, hip arthroscopy. I had my surgery on June 2nd and now, three days later, am well enough to type coherently. The surgery went smoothly, with all guidewires remaining intact. The surgeon removed 10% of the labrum on the left hip, and saved another 10% that was torn (I will check if this means he reattached it with anchors at my post-op appointment). The impinging bump on my femoral head was much larger than he had anticipated and it took quite a long time to shave off all the extra bone, but he managed to get all of the impinging bone and now I have a hip without a frayed labrum and no extra bone. Yahoo!

I was at the hospital at 6:30AM and got changed into a gown. They started an IV (which caused the nurses grief since I had high blood pressure - due to being nervous- and there was so much back flow from the IV port that it bled everywhere. Also, right before surgery, I had to fill out a 25 page questionnaire because my surgeon is doing a study on hip arthroscopy success. To make things more complicated, my school's clinic didn't send the blood work results to my surgeon, so I had to have blood tests and an AP pelvis and lateral hip and chest xray before I could go into surgery. Talk about having many things jammed right before surgery. It was hectic but it worked to keep my mind off of the fact that they were going to cut into my hip in a short while.

Right before I got taken to the OR one of the pre-op nurses showed me how to cut the disposable panties and obstetrics pad because, yes, I thought that it would be convenient to start my period the morning of my surgery. That had to be the worst time to start my period ever. They said that women my age often get their period the day of due to stress...apparently it happens all the time.

Well, after I was all padded up :P they took me to the OR. It was stressful crawling onto that OR table with the large diameter perineal post at my feet with traction boots sticking out of the bottom of the operating table. All I can say is thank goodness I was asleep when they slid me down the table, shoved the post between my legs, and strapped my feet into the boots! Again, one of the scrubbed people reminded everybody that I had on the disposable panties and they would be removed at a later time. Talk about everybody knowing it was your special time of the month! Ugh.

They put me to sleep very nicely this time. I got oxygen and a drug that made me feel drunk. Then they said that they were going to take care of me the entire time and then poof! I was in recovery.

The drugs really affect me. The anesthetic gives me the horrible shakes. I was dizzy for much of the first day. This surgery was much better than the first scope I had on my right hip. I have four small scope incision with (supposedly dissolvable) stitches. The scope sites were extremely well reinforced with bandages because they wouldn't stop squirting out blood/arthroscopy fluid at the hospital - yeah that was great getting up to go to the washroom and having fluid squirt out of my hip...not! Anywho, I got home fine and have basically slept the past three days. I can't take the full pain medication dosage that was prescribed because I it affects me too much. But I manage to keep it under control with oxycodone (short term and long term release), and Ibuprofen. I am also taking Celebrex and ASA. I hate being doped up all of the time! Today, I haven't taken any oxycodone during the day, I have managed with taking 2 extra strength acetaminophen tablets. I am throbbing considerably more, but I have a clear head; so it is worth it. I will resort to my oxycodone this evening.

Today my Mum helped me shower. It was almost a humiliating experience, having somebody literally holding me up in the shower, but it was totally worth it to have clean hair and body. Just have to get some help shaving the legs tomorrow....maybe even get my toe nails painted!! (I can't stand the look of plain toe nails.....waaaay to boring for me...lol!!)

I took off the dressings today as well. I will post pictures on a separate post since this post is getting a bit lengthy as it is. Warning that the pictures are graphic, so don't look if you don't want. I won't put them all up, but maybe just the cleaned up pictures. I can put up more if I decide or if somebody wants to see more.