Happy Hip Arthroscopy Day!

Despite the horrendously cold and long winter, surgery day approached before I knew it.  I was not a surgery virgin, so I wasn't nervous about going under/general anesthesia or the whole surgery process.  People kept asking me if I was nervous, and my reply was always, "I'm not nervous for the surgery itself; I'm nervous about the long recovery!"  It was an outpatient procedure and I was happy not to have to spend the night in the hospital this time.  My surgery was scheduled for 7:30am (first of the day), and we were instructed to arrival at the hospital at 6am.  My mom was going to be with me for the day and I was going to temporarily live with my parents post-surgery while I recovered.

We were taken back to what would be my room for the day.  I was instructed to take off everything and put on a gown and robe.  The anesthesiologist was the first person to arrive and we chatted for a few minutes.  I let her know that it was not uncommon for my resting heart rate to get into the low 40s.  We also discussed how I had gotten nauseous after my previous surgery and this time around I was given a small patch to put behind my ear, which ended up being a great idea.  I had no nausea at any point. 

Dr. Keene came in shortly afterward and signed his name on the hip he would be operating on.  A nurse came in and started my IV and then it was basically just a waiting game.  Finally we were ready to go, and I said goodbye to my mom and they wheeled me away.  I remember being wheeled away and getting moved from the bed to the operating table, but after that it was lights out and magically I was waking up hours later in recovery.

Upon waking, the pain wasn't bad.  I think I rated it as a 4.  They wheeled me back to my room and my mom was there.  I was given my phone and able to update facebook and reply to some text messages and let my boyfriend and others that I was indeed still alive.  At some point the anesthesiologist came back to check on me and informed me that my heart rate did get down to 42 during surgery.  I'm glad I warned her!  I had great nurses during this time who were very sweet and attentive.  I was given a slushie (melted popsicle and sprite mixed together) and animal crackers.

Dr. Keene came in a while later to give us the updates on surgery.  He shaved down part of my femur, shaved down part of the hip socket, cut away a small part of my labrum and stitched up the rest of the labrum with one anchor.  My labrum had been torn from about 12 o'clock - 2, which is one of the most common places for it to tear.  He told me that my cartilage was bubbled and irritated from where the femur had been hitting it, but that there were no signs of arthritis and that was he optimistic about my recovery.  I did not have any microfracture done and he did not need to release my psoas.  All in all, pretty much what I expected. 

Since this surgery is outpatient, they want you to try and get up and get moving fairly early so you can go home.  I had to go to the bathroom, so they encouraged me to use the crutches to get myself to the bathroom about 20 feet away.  I tend to be an easily fainting person and have been known to get light headed from next to nothing.  Well, I made it to the bathroom, but I got extremely dizzy when I got there and had to sit on the toilet with about 3 nurses putting cold compresses on my head and neck while I rested.  Instead of having me crutch back, they sat me in a wheelchair and wheeled me the short distance back to my room.  They took my blood pressure and it was 90/55.  Oops.  Way too early to be getting up.  I drank more soda and ate more animals crackers while I rested and they pumped me full of bags of fluid.  When I got up the next time an hour or two later, I was able to successfully get to the bathroom and back.

Being able to support myself on crutches without fainting meant it was time to go home!  I would say we were probably home by 4pm, as my parents don't live too far from the hospital. I don't quite remember what I did that evening, but it probably involved sitting in the recliner with a laptop.  I was able to go to the bathroom by myself, but it was a bit of a struggle.  My hip was quite bandaged up, as well as having the pad to my ice machine underneath all the bandages, and it made me quite bulky.  The ice machine was pretty neat.  It looked like a cooler with a tube attached to a big pad.  You filled the cooler part up with ice and water and plugged it in and cold water would circulate into the pad that was wrapped around my hip.  It felt amazing. 

That night I was able to sleep in a bed.  The easiest way to get into the bed was taking my non-operated leg and hooking it underneath my operated leg and using my "good" leg to lift my lower half onto the bed.  I laid on my back and stuffed pillows underneath my knees and on my sides and slept fairly well like that.  (Probably thanks to the drugs more than anything.)