Seesaw

I feel like I'm on a seesaw. I have good weeks and bad weeks for my poor hip. Last week was a bad week. So far this week isn't too bad....but it's only just begun!

I don't know what seems to make some days worse than others. I can't find any rhyme or reason to my hip pain, other than knowing that my cartilage damage seems to be the culprit. Last Thursday night, well, I think it was Thursday so we'll go with Thursday... Every single time I moved in bed, I had that shooting pain. I woke myself up each time I moved. I keep telling myself I need to call Dr. Sampson, but I've been lazy. And I feel like he can't do much for me at this point. His other option was surgery and obviously we can't do that right now!Otherwise, things are going well. I went to the city and walked around, and went on a garden tour with my mom that we do every year. It was nice. Although, I could tell I was a little more sore than usual.

My pregnancy is going well. 4 months (14 weeks) and no complications yet! I'm a little spoiled and I work with my OB/Gyn so I get to peek at the baby all the time. We had an appointment last night and watching the development is amazing! We have seen the baby grow from a little speck in to what looks like a person! I have to admit, I always strain to find the heartbeat first. I know that the risk of miscarriage is low now, but when you work in the medical field (especially with an OB/Gyn in your office) you tend to keep things that could happen at the forefront of your mind.

Other than all that, my life is pretty consistent. Work, work, work! But who can complain about a job right now!? Now it's time for breakfast and more work :)

Flying Time

Time flies. It's been a long time since I posted...so much has happened!
First, I can't believe that it has been 4 years since my first surgery! Gosh really where... has the time gone? I posted last in June of 2010 from what Blogger told me. I got married in October of 2010 and then in April of 2011 I went back and saw Sampson. I was still having problems with walking. I still get those sharp pains whe I'm walking that I can't duplicate and at times my I hurt when my leg is in extension while walking. He thought it would be best if I do another MRI.
While I was waiting for my MRI appointment to get here, my father unexpectedly passed away. To say it was devastating would be an understatement. Luckily I know that he was a saved child of God and he is in heaven. That gives me comfort that I can't even measure or express. Everyone has a time to go. It was my dad's time and more importantly God's plan. And I know that I can praise God in this and still so share His love and mercy through this situation. I have no idea how I would have made it through if it weren't for my faith!
My MRI appointment finally came and luckily this one didn't involve a dye injection. Whew! So a couple weeks later Nic and I went to see Sampson. He had some bad news. I don't have much cartilage left and my labrum is also pretty worn out. He had a couple options for me. The first was obviously surgery. He would go in and do some microfractures that would help induce cartilage growth. He also would go in and basically take a tendon and fashion it into a new labrum. Needless to say I wasn't very excited for that option... The second option was...to have a baby! Nic was very excited at this option. He is very ready to be a dad! I was a little more hesitant, worried about how my hip would handle it. Dr. Sampson seemed to think that it may help get some cartilage growth going with all the hormones floating around.
Fast forward through buying a house and puppies in September...yes! PUPPIES. Two mini dachshunds. We named them Bruce and Buster. February 21, 2012 rolled around and we found out I was pregnant! Had some rocky weeks but here we are at week 13 and I'm doing a whole lot better. Everything is progressing normally and we're very lucky and excited for that!
My hip is doing ok...I wish I could say it felt great. Last week was a bad week. More cartilage pains while walking. This week seems to be doing better. I'm hoping that it gets better and better. Only time will tell! All I can say is I hate plain tylenol! I'll b better about updating... I've just been waiting until the pregnancy got further along before I started talking about it so openly. :)

Good days. Bad days.

I've been having some good days and some bad ones. I try not to complain much. I never have through this whole thing. Doc and I are still busy. Super busy. Busier than we've ever been in a summer. Usually it drops off by now. By April the viruses start waning away and allergy season kicks in to gear! Although this year it's still very viral and with some strange weather we've been having, allergies have kicked into overdrive! We don't have as MUCH over time. So that's good.

Most days are good, even great I'd say. However, lately it's been a little on the weird side. I haven't really had any pain in the same spot as pre-surgery. It's been more like,a deep, burning buttock pain. I remember telling Connie about a similar pain shortly after surgery and she assured me that many weird pains can arise from surgery. I stopped noticing it for a little while, but over the past couple of weeks it has returned. I've also had some pain on the side too! STRANGE!

So, I see Sampson for my 1 year anniversary from his surgery next month and I've been keeping a symptom diary. So I'll see what he has to say about the pain. I can't pinpoint it to any action(s). I'm thoroughly puzzled. It's not all the time, so that's good. Last time when I visited with Sampson, he thought perhaps that I may need an injection or an oral dose of a strong steroid. I still have some range of motion problems. So for now, I'll be doing my stretches, working hard, and planning my wedding! Lots to look forward to and this darn hip just needs to get in check!

Two Years

Today is the two year anniversary of my first (unsuccessful) hip surgery. It's bittersweet. I thought everything was going to be great after this surgery. The first several weeks of the recovery were going pretty well. I had improved some. Just not enough.

Today makes me feel thankful for finding Dr. Sampson. I've come a long way between my two surgeries. Most recently, that I didn't blog about... I had to take several weeks off!

Since I had been back at work, I had been working 9, 10, even 11 hour days at work. That was 5 months of working 50 hour weeks. My bank account was loving it! However, my hip wasn't really. I was sore and exhausted, so I went to go see my favorite doctor with my Sweetie! When I saw him we did some x-rays. There's a tiny bit of recurrence of my FAI, but since he shaved down my bones quite thoroughly, he didn't see it as a problem. He DID see a problem with me working so much! He said he could feel that my joint was inflammed. He told me I looked exhausted and I almost started crying.

He and Connie could tell I needed some time off so he gave me three weeks! That allowed Wifey and I to go to TwiCon in LA. We had a great time! Then her family and Sweetie came down and...he asked me to marry him! Yay! I said yes, of course! We've been wedding planning ever since! The big day is October 16, 2010. Yes, this year!

I'm excited. I'm feeling much better after my time off. It really helped. I feel 90% better from this time two years ago. It's amazing to look back and see how far I've come, and I've only got farther to go!!

Whirlwind

Things have felt like a whirlwind lately. I can't believe that it's already January 2010! I've officially passed my 6 month marker. I can safely say that I can definitely feel a difference. I was getting slightly worried for a little bit.

I've been back to work since the end of September. I was surprised that it was getting busy! If I haven't said before, I'm a Medical Assistant for a Pediatrician. Our busy season usually doesn't start until around late October or even early November. Things were already gearing up for me when I came in late September! Our tiny practice that Doc and I started back in January of '05 has grown immensely. At times it's nice, but at times we miss the slow times and reminisce of watching Grey's on slow days and how we used to be ecstatic when we would get close to 10 patients in a day. We are easily seeing double that and at times almost triple! Which is when I started to worry.

Doc...and myself, have a hard time saying no. I feel bad for my sick kids and their distraught parents! Especially the ones who have been with us from the beginning. So, I would "fit" them in that day, and Doc didn't do anything to help stop it. The second week of working nearly 50 hours my poor hip was feeling it! It wasn't used to being worked so much! I told Doc very plainly, that if he didn't want me going back to Dr. Sampson and telling him to take me off work again we were gonna have to do a better job of putting our foot down when we get full. We came up with a "reasonable" number to see during each half of the day and told people no double-booking unless it was run by me.

It didn't seem to help much. I began to pop a lot and I just wasn't FEELING my progress as I had back in August. I kept telling myself I'd call Dr. Sampson and ask him about it. However, when you work in a doctor's office, it's actually really hard to find time to call another doctor! I work the same hours they do. I take lunch when they do. I knew that if I had requested him to call me back after 6:30 or 7:00pm he very well would. He's just a sweetheart like that to me. But time kept flying. Before I knew it Halloween passed in a flash and we were coming up on Thanksgiving weekend. I had to admit I felt a lot better after being off for 5 days! My post-op was just two and a half weeksish from then so I decided to wait.

I loaded up my entourage. Mom, Lil Sis, Sweetie, and myself all piled into my car and we left on our way into The City. Dr. Sampson's office was quite amused with my little entourage. Connie was teasing Sweetie and we gabbed some. She's amazing. Dr. Sampson came in and with his comforting tone and way he soothed my fears that perhaps working nearly 50 hours a week for the past 8 weeks wasn't hurting me! He came in saying, "One year, one year, one year." He explained that sometimes people seem to make great progress in the beginning and then kind of plateau and make more progress later. I instantly felt better and was so thankful that God gave me this surgeon. He has also had pretty much the same procedure and told me that it took him two years to feel healed and normal. That makes me feel so much better. He told me that I'm free until my 1 year anniversary with him and can of course come back between now and then if something arises.

I am pleased with the way that 2009 ended. So thankful for the people and situations that God has put into my life. I'm praying that it will be an even better year for me and my loved ones!

So much to do, so little time!

It's been semi-eventful since I blogged last. The first week of August, I went to church camp. It's always an amazingly uplifting experience. And while I do dislike some things about church camp, i.e. their nasty bathrooms, not-so-great food, mice, and bees; it is still a great time of fellowship with friends I don't get to see as often. God blessed, as He usually does.

The following week I didn't really do much actually. I was still recovering! While I was very pleased to see that they had paved a good amount of the dirt road at camp, there are still hills. My hip doesn't like hills. It's hard enough to walk longer distances, but add in a hill here and there and it was very tiring! Sweetie carried me up the hill to my cabin the last night. I just couldn't take it anymore!

This past Saturday Sweetie and I got to go to a birthday party for Wifey's oldest daughter. There was a giant water slide, which I couldn't go on, but it seemed very fun! Sweetie took a dive at it a few times. It was funny. A great time was had by everyone. She walked away with some good loot. Then Sunday Sweetie and I went to a birthday party for his cousin's wife. So needless to say, Monday I spent most of my time recuperating!

Today, wasn't so great. I got a letter in the mail saying that since I was out of my PTO at work, they aren't going to be paying any more of my insurance premiums. Lovely. So for September I will be paying everything. Lets think about this for a minute. You aren't compensating me wages any more because I have no more Paid Time Off. I get that. I really do. But at the same time, Disability doesn't pay very much. Now you're telling me that I have to spend almost a full 2 week's check from EDD on insurance premiums. People do have bills. Now you add this too?! Lets have a heart people!

To top that off, my FSA told me that they don't have a new account for me even though my company has been taking the money out of my paycheck every pay period. That I was terminated. And that I wasn't able to access any of the money I put aside from Jan-April because of Sutter's restructuring. So combined with the insurance premiums that I'm supposed to pay for the month of September, I could be out $1,400.00. Yes. $1,400.00 As if a $20,000.00 surgery isn't enough. It was all a little much for me today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I've put some calls into the people at work. So we'll see when they call me back what we can work out. I know that God will take care of me in the end. Just need a little faith! He's taken care of me this far, and He'll show me through this trial as well.

Long Day!!

So today, unlike the past week or so, was very eventful! My car had been acting up. Since my pre-op appointment on June 25th, a light called the Vehicle Stability Assistance (VSA) had been popping on. Mom thought that she had accidentally done it when she made a very abrupt, not so legal, U-Turn to get to the doctor's office. For a couple of weeks it had been popping on at various times and then it decided to stay on all the time. THEN it decided one day when my dad took it to work, that it didn't want to come out of Park. Luckily Dad was the one who had it because I dunno if Mom or myself would have gotten it out of park! It had been finicky like that for a few days and finally we left it sitting in the driveway and I made an appointment for today, Mom's day off, to take it to the dealership that I like.

So, we got up early. Ok. I know 7:30 really isn't that early. But when you really don't have anything better to do and you're a night owl such as myself, you tend to stay up a little later and in turn sleep in a little later. Granted I really don't sleep in TOO late. Only until about 10 am or so. I can't sleep in past that or I just feel like I've wasted too much daytime. ANYWAY, I got up and did some online banking and got on the bicycle like a good girl, got ready and off we went to be at the dealership by 10am! We had to leave an hour early to allow for traffic. I don't take it to my local dealership because basically: they suck.

We decided that we would have the shuttle from the dealer take us to the local mall that was just down the street. They didn't really anticipate the car being done very soon. The woman said 4pm and mom pushed for 1:30pm. Since we had a few hours to burn, what better place for 3 ladies (LilSis came with us) than the mall!! And Sweetie had planned on meeting us there in case the car wouldn't be done today.

When the shuttle man came to get us, 3 other people also needed shuttling! He dropped off the first two. Mother and son. They lived up on a golf course in a local city. They're house was so HUGE that at first I thought it was a duplex because it had TWO 2-car garages on either side, with just one big door to the house in the middle! Must be nice, right?! We had taken the scenic route there, and ended up taking the scenic route to our next destination. There was a man on the shuttle who needed to go to work, and obviously, that's a priority.

So we're driving to the mall (FINALLY!) and the woman from the dealership calls! They figured out the problem. It was a broken brake light switch, fuse thing, or something like that. And it was causing both the VSA light to pop on AND for it to not want to shift out of park! Who would have thought?! She went on to say the price, and that it would be done in about 30 min. I let Sweetie know that we wouldn't be needing his assistance today and he was glad he could just do some school work that needed to be done. So instead of having the shuttle man leave us at the mall, which we weren't even at yet, and come back and pick us up and risk being taken on more scenic routes to God only knows where, I opted for him to just take us back to the dealership and we waited for, well, more than 30 minutes of course! It was closer to about...an hour. But we drank free coffee, that was actually pretty good! And Mom took advantage of their free tea.......for future use....hahahaha

Once we got the car, we headed off to the mall anyway! Mom had a store she really wanted to go to, so we did that. LilSis also needed to get some short-sleeved shirts. She didn't have any that really fit anymore. So we picked up some for her. We then had some yummy food at FreshChoice and went home. Mom cooked dinner, we watched the Tour de France, and I fell asleep. Mom then decided to wake me up because LilSis needed a couple more things. So I went back out to the store with them, and did a little more shopping.

I have to say, I actually feel pretty good! I'm not really very sore, but of course ibuprofen really helps if you use it as a preventative! So I'm pretty pleased with how the day turned out. Yeah, I had to walk slow, and I got tired out pretty easily. But I walked a big mall, and I'm not sore after. I'd say that's a pretty good accomplishment for the day! God is good :)