😫 🤷 😡 😠ðŸ«
It has been 202 days since I broke my hip in a freak bike accident. 6 months, 2 weeks, 5 days. My last update on this series of unfortunate events was at 80 days on March 13th. That is because not much has changed.
I gave up on the original orthopedic surgeon’s office, Texas Joint Institute, the one I had three or four appointments with over the course of the first few months of the year, always with a PA, always met with a big shrug. Except for the second visit, at the end of the one-month no-weight-bearing period–that PA said I was good to go and I could plan on going to Italy in March.
I went to a different doctor–a rehabilitation doctor at UT Southwestern. He also shrugged, although only after forcing my leg into an incredibly painful position that set me back days, and offered a steroid shot to the hip. While there I had full-leg x-rays done to measure the leg-length difference I have had since puberty, and which my PT figured out adjusting for improved my walking ability. But once the images came back he informed me that the difference was below the threshold for treatment. I’m not a doctor, but it was pretty clear from the x-rays that it was not only the bone length but that my flat-ish, over-pronating right foot added to the problem–something I’d had treated with special orthotics by a different ortho years ago.
In the meantime, the original orthopedic office refused to refill my pain meds–I ended up on over-the-counter Aleve and prescription Tramadol–so I had to go to a pain management doctor. That is an entire story itself that I do not have time for here, but he prescribed many things, none of which have worked besides the Tramadol, and also offered to administer the steroid shot.
So I tried another orthopedic office, the one at Baylor I’d gone to for my foot problems, hoping the third time would be the proverbial charm. My first visit was with another PA, but this one was the first person in this journey besides my PT who seemed to actually care about my plight. He ordered an MRI. After the MRI results came in, I got scheduled with the office’s doctor/surgeon in a different location. It did show an additional fracture on the fibula, right on the ball of the hip socket, which honestly could explain some of this. None of the x-rays showed that, in fact in the ER they told me my fibula wasn’t fractured, which was good because that would have been much worse. Still, it is still broken enough to show up on the MRI, five months later? With some hope I waited weeks for that appointment to arrive. But I was once again met with a shrug and an offer of a steroid shot. And the first admission that it might be twelve months before I feel at all normal again.
So that’s why I haven’t written an update. It’s honestly depressing. I used up all my insurance-covered PT visits for the year, so now I’m going once a week and paying $105 a visit out of pocket. I’m in acceptance that this happened, and even that the recovery has taken at least twice as long as I was led to believe it would, and even that it seems to have stalled over the last couple of months. I’m still not in acceptance that the medical community has collectively given up on me. I posted to the socials:
Of the things I posted about in March, a couple weeks ago I was able to lift my leg up while laying on my back for the first time. It was incredibly difficult and painful. Since that breakthrough, I’ve had a couple of bad weeks where I have to make sure to stay on top of my pain meds at all times. I still have to call it a day around 5pm and sit with my leg elevated, and I apply copious amounts of Biofreeze to my hip and leg above the knee. Putting on my right sock and shoe is still a real challenge. I’ve figured out ways to do things without bending as much at the waist, like getting in and out of my car, but the sock and shoe thing is still rough even with my pretzel manuevers.
In the meantime, just to add insult to my proverbial injury, I was able to get back to my second eye doctor, who was treating my severe after-effects of my cataract surgery last summer. He had to refer me to a third doctor (sigh) who basically told me that my only option left was another surgery on the same eye to replace the artificial lens, but that there was a 20% chance of severe complications including blindness. So I just get to live with this severe haloing around lights for the rest of my life. Driving at night is basically out forever, except for emergencies.