Following Up

Back to San Fran for a whirlwind day trip to see Sampson for my 5 month post-op follow-up appointment. That's a long way to go for a 30-minute appointment but I felt that in flying out to see my surgeon I was dutifully giving this last surgery my utmost effort and encouragement...even if Dr. Sampson's painstaking work ends up getting paved over this summer. We looked together at my recent x-rays and the pictures from my scope and discussed my expectations and timeline. He didn't really have anything especially novel to say that I didn't already know...my right hip is effed up pretty good and will require some significant cartilage re-growth to fill in the potholes of cartilage loss. I'm still fairly certain that re-growing cartilage via microfracture has a slim to none chance of actually working but I respect that Sampson believes otherwise. (I'm certainly not alone in this belief either as evidenced by the multitude of people with metal hips who previously endured microfracture surgery).

Dr. Sampson also asked if we could talk "bluntly" about my biological clock and getting pregnant with my crapped-out hips. I told him that while I did want to get pregnant I have been more concerned with making it a full week without painkillers and still feel like adding 25 lbs to my already-slight frame would be asking for trouble. He advocating getting knocked up now and then if my hip still isn't fixed post-baby I can consider more invasive options. Easy for him to say since he will never be sentenced to 9 months of hip pain without pharmaceuticals but I appreciate his sentiment. All in all, the best part of my 15 hour trip to the West Coast was walking through the leafy neighborhoods of San Francisco for a few hours and meeting up with an old friend from law school for some excellent Thai food (in Japantown).

As for my vacation to Costa Rica the hip actually cooperated decently well I'm sheepishly willing to admit. It has nothing to do with "happy hormones" as my mom calls them because I've been in horrendous pain on plenty of other vacations. I just think my hip is scared shitless to misbehave because it knows there is now a firm expiration date (August 4th at the moment).