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Friday, March 6, 2009

Wayne's Surgery

Since my beautiful daughter set this up for us, I had better get on it and start posting. Our lives have been changed since Wayne had his bi-lateral hip replacement or hip resurfacing surgery on November 7, 2008. He has been in chronic pain for about 5 years and deteriorated very quickly since January 2008. He never complained and worked hard all the way up until the day before his surgery even though his hips were rigid and could barely walk. The 2 weeks prior to surgery were the hardest for him and for me to watch because he was taken off all his pain medications (he was only taking 3 Aleve a day), which wasn't much to begin with anyways, but still allowed some pain relief. The pain lines on his face deepened and he was drained at night. We were at the time fighting hard against our HMO to get a new type of surgery for him called "hip resurfacing" which would allow him to keep from losing the femoral head which is normal removed in regular Hip replacement surgery. They would just resurface or debrid the damaged bone. This surgery was made for active, young, healthy people. The most important thing was that he would be able to get back to the active life he was missing out on: snowboarding, windsurfing, bike riding, surfing etc.
We got news in October that his surgery was authorized and even better, with the Dr. he wanted to do the surgery; Dr. Scott Ball from UCSD. We met Dr. Ball and knew right away that he was the one that we wanted to do the surgery. He was young but had done 400 hip resurfacing surgeries and was very up to date on the procedure.
On November 8, 2008 and after 6 hours of surgery and another 3 hours in post-op, he was strolled into a hospital room with a smile on his very swollen face and body. He told me that the agonizing constant pain in his hips and legs were gone. Amazing! The only thing that he was feeling was what felt like a bad "charlie horse" in both incision areas of his butt. And to him that was nothing compared to what he was feeling and living through before the surgery.
He was up and walking the next morning and left the hospital 4 days later on a walker, 2 weeks on crutches, 1 month on a cane and 6 weeks using nothing. He went back to work 3 months post op and just had his 4 month check and was ok'd to snowboard and everything else. He rode a bike with his son a couple of weeks ago for the first time since Tanner was 6 years old and Tanner was stoked. They are planning a snowboarding trip soon before the snow is gone and they are both excited about that.
It has been very difficult for me to watch his deterioration over the last 5 years and having Dr.'s misdiagnose his medical condition as his back and just "age" (only 46) until he almost couldn't have this surgery because of the bone cysts and bone on bone grinding that was going on. It really tore my heart out to see him walk out the door every morning to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I love him very much and I am very proud of him and his hard work each day towards rehabilitation. He does Yoga and other stretching exercises daily and rides a stationary bike 4-5 miles. His range of motion is what will take the longest because of how rigid he was prior to surgery but he is coming along. He can do squats now which is huge!
We want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this stressful time for us and love you all.