Day 1 Post-Surgery

I arrived home safely yesterday by 5:30 PM and have spent today in bed. The surgery took roughly five hours, about two and a half hours for each hip. It was successful, according to my doctor. 

I was off to a rocky start when the nurse called me in at 7:00 before the operation. He tried putting the IV first in one hand and then the other, and my veins rejected it both times. Then, as Dr. Sampson stopped in to say hello to me, kindly smiling down at me with his blue surgical cap on, I was able to tell him I liked his hat and that I was starting a blog before I fainted. “About 1 in 200 people have that reaction to an IV,” my nurse told me jovially when I regained consciousness. He was a funny and comforting chatterbox, and I liked him, so I didn’t ask him the percentage of people’s veins he stabs with a needle and has to do over again. Finally, they took me to the operating room, had me breathe some gas, and gave me a third IV once I was drowsy. 

Next thing I knew was awakening with my parents by my bed and my mom trying to feed me an organic juice smoothie and fending off the nurse’s advances of Cheez-Its. “You know, we’re trying to do an anti-inflammatory diet, so do you have anything else?” she asked him. The least offensive offering he had for us were saltine crackers—an “unlimited supply.” 

I did not hear from Dr. Sampson directly post-operation, as he had to rush to his second operation of the day since mine took so long, but he came out to talk to my parents three times, once before he began, once after the first hip, and once after the second. As I awoke, however, Dr. Sampson did stop by to say hello to me after he was done with his second patient. I was glad for the chance to thank him.

The first thing I asked when I’d gained consciousness was, “So, was it good or bad?” “Good,” was my dad’s response, and I relaxed, relieved. Here is the account of the procedure, from what Dr. Sampson told my parents, and they me. 

The left hip went first, as that was the one I’d had my previous operation on and needed the most attention. Dr. Sampson noted wear and bone “bruising” on the hip-joint surface (top) of the femur and smoothed that a bit. Then he reshaped the side of the head of the femur where it would impinge owing to its angling out, rather than in, for smooth cam movement. The labrum (a ring of cartilage that surrounds the acetabulum of the hip) was in bad shape, likely deteriorating from the effects of the suture from the previous surgery. There was new tissue regrowth over the suture, but it was not healthy. Further, the ball and socket suction in the hip joint had no ability to suction. So then he “borrowed” some nearby tissue and sutured it to the remaining healthy part of my labrum with dissolvable thread. This should bind together over the next 9 months, so I need to be more careful with my left side in physical therapy. He also noted “bony stuff” in the socket and cleaned it out. After delaminating the acetabulum cartilage, which was peeling off, he used an awl to punch holes in the bone underneath so that blood could flow easily once he re-laminated the cartilage to promote healing and binding of the cartilage. Then he added permanent sutures to further the binding process. 

On the right hip, Dr. Sampson did the same smoothing of the bone where he noticed wear and “bruising.” He had to do more reshaping of the bone on the right than on the left. However, on this side, my labrum was in good shape. He also repeated the cleaning out of the socket, and the cartilage de-and-re-lamination and added the sutures. 

At the conclusion of the surgery, my right hip had 100% ball and socket suction capability, and my left had 95%. Dr. Sampson thinks I’m in the 94% of people who make it after this kind of surgery. He says I am not some rare case, and that he has seen more complicated hips than mine, even after my previous surgery. That feels wonderful to know, as I’ve gone for 7 years thinking there was something extremely weird that no one could figure out in my hips.

In the car on the way home from the hospital