The (same ol') waiting game

I'm close to the three weeks out from my first stem-cell injection but I've yet to notice any measurable improvement or change. This is not to say that I have been doing terribly all this time but rather I just haven't had any marked change in pain levels commensurate with an increased activity level. Things are still day by day, week by week. Last weekend I decided to really 'push it' and see what my hip was capable of in terms of weight-bearing activity and got my answer relatively quickly. On our girls' camping weekend in the Mt Massive/Elbert Peak wilderness we did a big day hike up that climbed into a high glacial cirque with three isolated alpine lakes and loads of wildflowers. The hike was probably around 8 miles and had a good bit of elevation gain (maybe 2000 ft?). My hip/groin really started to ache just before we got to the lake for lunch and I decided it would be a wise decision to turn back considering I still had at least 4 miles of down-hill hiking to go. The way down was pretty rough even with my hiking poles (dork) and by the last two miles my groin was really aching with every step. It bummed me out to feel that nagging pain but I have to qualify that by saying I didn't know I could even hike 8 miles, even painful ones. I was really sore the rest of the evening and the next day but by Monday things were pretty improved which is a good sign. The problem just seems to be - consistently - that there is little to no consistency in terms of what my hip can handle, when it feels like behaving and when it decides to hurt for no apparent reason. Yesterday, I walked approximately a mile from the parking lot in Lyons to the Rockyrgass festival and my groin was really aggravating me. That is the kind of thing that I just feel like has to change at some point, especially if I want to have kids in the next few years.

I finally got a call from Dr. P's office to say that they had reviewed my films and that Dr. P "believes I could possibly benefit from a revision arthroscopy". When pressed to give me details his assistant told me that she had none to give and that one of his fellows would likely call within the next few days to explain the basis of his recommendation. Not surprisingly, I've received no call except for a fax with a registration form to sign up for surgery. Not surprisingly, I have no intention of signing up for surgery if I don't have a very good idea of (a) what he intends to fix and how; and (b) what my chances for additional improvement are given the state of my cartilage damage.

So, that leaves me in my current situation which has pretty much been my current situation since March. I will wait it out through September and see how the injections go, get two more opinions from Dr. Rector in Boulder and Dr. DeSmet in Belgium who perform hip resurfacing to see if they believe I am a candidate and whether an additional joint preserving surgery (i.e, hip scope) is unlikely to lead to any real improvement. I figure if I have two opinions from the top hip scope surgeons and two from a local hip resurfacing surgeon and the world's expert that I should be able to make a relatively informed decision about my next course of action. Good grief I don't want to go through another surgery - it really gives me nightmares. But I don't want to be this limited by my hip more than six months after surgery and I don't want to continue living in a way that makes planning more than a week in advance difficult. I realize that there are alot of people who have this limitation with far more serious diseases than a prematurely arthritic hip but this is me and what I am dealing with and I have to do whatever I can to at least try to change the situation for the better.

I'm including this picture of Elliot because it always makes me smile. Every day, without fail, when I pull into the drive-way he comes bounding out of the doggie door and climbs up on the fence to greet me. That's the thing about dogs that everyone who owns one understands -- no matter how shitty your day was you can't turn your back on a wagging labrador retriever who is just as estatic to see you today as he was yesterday and the day before that.