Relief
I was nervous this morning. That nervousness accelerated as I walked down the the long hallway to the Steadman Hawkins Clinic at the Vail Valley Hospital. The hallway was plastered with framed jerseys of professional hockey players baseball players, posters of skiers, surfers, and every other professional athlete you can imagine. Here I was, some lowly mountain runner, and I wanted so badly to be fixed. And I was scared that they wouldn’t know what to do, hell it seems like no one has ever heard of a joint capsule tear.
I was talking with Lauren, Dr. Phillipon’s athletic trainer. She asked me my story and I told her. She told me that she had heard my script more times than she could count. That put me at ease a little, knowing that there the same experiences had passed through this clinic before. I then went to take two x-rays. Everywhere I was greeted with seemingly open arms. Or maybe those were mind games I was playing with myself, I was trying to feel good news.
Then entered Dr. Huang, Dr. Phillipon’s fellow. A rather friendly guy by general doc standards. He asked for my story, and I told him eagerly. He spent a good ten minutes just listening to the animated recap of my last ten months. He asked some questions for which I again eagerly answered. He pulled the x-rays up on the wall mounted monitor and gave me the straight news. You’ve got an abnormally deep hip socket, it’s called Coxa Profunda, he said. Coxa what? You can look it up, but here is what it means. And he took the time to explain the problem, and why I was so effected by it. He then explained why he thinks I have a tear in my labrum. Turns out that such a tear isn’t always viewable via a MRI (MRI’s are only 87-92% accurate in diagnosing hips). Dr. Huang then explained that if he were me he would go for surgery, and of course he gave plentiful reasoning behind that suggestion. Little did he know, I didn’t need much selling.
Meagan, the surgical coordinator, came in and I scheduled surgery. The first day available was June 19th. I was flabbergasted, but I signed up as quickly as possible, as if someone else could squeeze into that spot. She spent a good twenty minutes answering all of my questions about cost, physical therapy, you name it. I can’t explain how friendly and helpful the staff is at Steadman Hawkins. Needless to say, it’s looking like a long recovery. It will take me five to six months to get back to ‘normal’. And have no doubt - there will be many challenges between now and then.
I got in my car and got on I-70. I called my mom and I gave her the long version of what I’ve written here. Slowly we both began to realize what all of this means. It means that I have an ANSWER. That i’m not so lost anymore. And chances are that my hip can get fixed and that my hip will heal. My mom’s voice quivered, and that was all I needed. I was crying again and my mom was crying. Our tears were those of joy and relief; this thing is coming to an end.
Filed by ryanroth at March 12th, 2007 under Life, Young & Hip