My surgeon, let's call him Dr. T, was recommended to me by numerous people. Not only did he use the advanced anterior method for a total hip replacement, but he also didn't use standard implants.
Instead, he does imaging of the patients’ current hips and then has new ones 3D printed. The process takes about 2 months. It works out alright as Dr. T is so busy it usually takes 4 months to get a consult and 4 months to have a surgery date. Dr. T is one of the inventors of this tech, so it is pretty exciting.
In May I had the imaging done for both hips, and the surgery was for the end of July.
As part of my prep for the surgery, I changed my insurance plan to be one with no deductible and no coinsurance, a really good plan costing me too much me from each paycheck, but very important for this year with 2 major surgeries planned. The end cost was close to the same.
Having two broken hips is quite interesting. I usually walked around holding on to things and certain positions didn't hurt as much as others. I didn't have any prescription medications, so I just took way too much ibuprofen and acetaminophen. And by too much I mean 800 MGs of ibuprofen and 1000 MGs of acetaminophen every 4 hours, and even then every moment hurt. I just got used to it.
I did stop doing a lot of things and climbing stairs felt like climbing Mt. Everest. I just couldn't do so much of anything.
As part of the surgery prep, I had to stop taking ibuprofen 10 days before surgery. In anticipation of this, I started reducing my daily intake. I was prescribed Celebrex in place of ibuprofen, but it was worthless. I had zero relief and it was overall much worse than taking ibuprofen.
So the last week before surgery was very painful. I still continued to work but struggled at times to concentrate. And the excitement started to build. The idea of living with 2 good hips seems impossible.
The surgery was scheduled at 1 pm with an arrival time at 11 am. The office called at 10:45 and asked if we could come early. We were ready and the hospital is 5 minutes from my house, so we came right over. Once we arrived it was hurry up and wait. By the time I went to the operating room it was almost 1pm.
The doctor said the plan was to give me a spinal block and no pain meds. I would be put to sleep. The anticipated surgery time was only a single hour. The spinal block was designed to last 3 hours, so I was told that I would wake up not feeling my legs and toes.
Everything seemed to go as planned, at least up to surgery.
I woke up to extreme pain as I was being moved around on the gurney. This was surprisingly. I wasn't supposed to feel anything for first 2 hours after surgery. Consciousness gradually returned.
My legs felt extremely cold, as if I had just jumped in a glacier fed lake. When I was 10 or so I did that, up in the high Sierras. It felt like it was about the same.
My left hip felt like someone had a serrated knife stuck in my hip and was spinning it around. Something wasn't right. I heard someone typing on a computer next to me.
I opened my eyes and saw I was in a random room, which I figured was the recovery room. I said, “Can I get some warm blankets and pain medicine?” No response. I repeated it about 20 times before the nurse stopped typing and went and got some warm blankets.
She told me to relax and not worry so much about the pain. Then she told me that she was worried about my breathing. No matter that she had just told me to relax.
I asked what time I got there. After about 6 times she said 3pm. I was not supposed to feel anything until 4 pm, no pain, no cold, nothing. Something was very wrong.
She asked if I could wiggle my toes. I could. Then she just went back to typing.
I needed to consciously breathe deeply and steadily, which I did. She finally told me, after a few hours, that she had already given me the max pain meds she could. I told her it did nothing.
She eventually told me she had given me 2 doses each of dilaudid and fentanyl. I told her that I had zero pain meds during surgery and that these meds didn't work for me.
Finally, after 5:30, she took me to my room. I was really feeling awful. And my family was not there. I called them from the room phone and it wouldn't connect. The nurse tried calling on her station phone and it didn't work. I finally tried an operator assisted call and it work.
My mom and wife were there in 10 minutes. They said they waited until 4pm without an notification from the hospital or doctor.
The nurse told that they would be giving me a “breakthrough” dose of dilaudid and that dilaudid was 7 times more powerful than morphine. This did nothing for me as well.
Around 7:30 pm I took my first steps post surgery. The photo someone took shows me looking very happy. With the walker it was pretty easy. They started me on morphine and my other meds soon after that, including oxycodone.
Sounds like torture and a sociopathic nurse to me. Had a buddy that had surgery for colon cancer and got a bowel obstruction. The nurse told him to quit whining and would do nothing for him for hours. He almost died.