Left Periacetabular Osteotomy

Now that I am about six weeks out from my left periacetabular osteotomy I think it's time to write about my experience and share some pictures :)

On December 15th, 2014 my dad, boyfriend and I flew out to Salt Lake City Utah to have the surgery done. Unfortunately there are no doctors in New Mexico or any of the surrounding states that could perform this particular surgery so for my RPAO and my LPAO we had to go out to Salt Lake for them. We got to Salt Lake and met with my PAO family who reside in Salt Lake and have been through the process like I had with the same surgeon. It was so nice to meet up and talk to people who really understand what I'm going through and can sympathize without me having to explain much.

The next morning I went to the hospital at 6:30 am and got checked in and started the pre-op process. I was in my awesome gown, hair net and socks when the nurse came in and started giving me the talk, my surgeon then came in and asked if I was ready, I said "as ready as I'll ever be." I then asked him if we were also doing the screw removal on the right side and he looked confused but said no problem. I was ready to go when his PA came in and told me, "unfortunately we won't be able to do the right screw removal because it wasn't cleared with your insurance so you'll have to do it another time. We are also not doing the epidural like you had last year which means you won't need the catheter." Well you can understand what I was feeling at this point, 30 minutes before surgery getting told everything you planned for isn't going to happen the way you hoped. My dad and I were pretty pissed off, but Noah did a great job at calming us both down and making us realize there wasn't anything we could do at that point. The anesthesiologist then took me back and started the spinal block which was pretty painful and next thing I know I was waking up in the recovery ward. I didn't feel too much pain and was pretty wide awake considering I had just had anesthesia. I was then wheeled up to my room where my dad and Noah were waiting, funny enough we were in the exact same room we were in last year which was pretty cool.

I was in great spirits and was enjoying being taking care of. The first day I got up and went to the bathroom and made sure to make a big deal about how much I could pee, I wanted to set a record :P it was really important to me to make the nurses laugh and enjoy their time so they'd be happy when they came in my room :) They had me on dilaudid as well as oxycodone and I started to feel pretty nauseous and wasn't sure which medication was making me feel that way. The nurses took me off the oxycodone and kept me on the dilaudid because it was controlling my pain really well and they also had me on nausea medication so it was controlling my nausea fairly well. The food was really great and the company was even better, I had amazing nurses and PT staff who took such great care of me.

After feeling ready to be discharged and not really wanting to be charged an arm and a leg for the hospital room my dad, Noah and I decided to head back to the hotel and then head home the next day. Well that night in the hotel was pretty horrific, the hospital had sent me home with 120 pills of dilaudid and that was the only medication I had to control my pain so I was forced to take it. Well it turns out that's what was causing my nausea. I projectile vomited everywhere that night at the hotel and felt really sick the day we were going home so that sucked to say the least. Finally we arrived home and my mom made the decision to get rid of the dilaudid and put me on hydrocodone which I had from last years surgery as well as tramadol. That worked great and controlled my pain really well.

So there's the first week, I'll write the next part in a few days as I don't want to bore you with six weeks of hip crap in one blog :)

TO BE CONTINUED :)

Thanks for reading :)

<3 B