Kerry’s Hip Resurfacing with Dr. Boettner 2010

February 28, 2010

I found this website after my surgery and am so impressed with it, so pat, and everyone else who makes it work, thank you.

To introduce myself, I had my left hip resurfaced on Feb. 19th, after years of not knowing what was wrong, with gradual deterioration in my ability to function, then not so gradual in the past year (I’m fifty years old, female, and the surgery was done by Dr. Boettner at HSS, who has me on crutches for three weeks).

I’m recovering well, I think, though a little stir crazy being inside and unable to go out because it has snowed pretty much every day since I came home, and I’m thinking crutches and snow are probably not a good idea. (I live in the mountains in upstate NY)

Here are my questions:

Did anyone experience skin rashes after their surgery, not necessarily at the incision site? I seem to have little itchy bumpy rashes in random places. I did have a reaction to the adhesive and have adhesive burns around the incision site, but I also have these other rashes that sprouted, and I don’t know what to do for them. the nurse was stumped.

When I do even the slightest stretching into flexion, or activate hip flexion past about forty-five degrees, my adductors go into spasm. did anyone else have this?

I am home with my husband now, but he leaves in two weeks for work out of town, and I will be alone (with our animals) for the rest of my acute recovery (he’s gone for ten weeks). I feel nervous about it, since I am really letting him do everything right now and I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do on my own. I would love to hear some feedback of people who took care of themselves during their recovery, how it went, what they got help with, that sort of thing.

I’m very reassured to hear that I won’t need to worry too much about being alone after a few weeks, I know there must be people who recover without much help at all and do just fine and pat, I will try to hit the nearest shopping mall when we get dug out a bit, just to lift the cabin fever.  I have to admit it’s been the first time I’ve looked out at such a beautiful snow and not been able to go out in it and it was getting me down a bit.

From what I read elsewhere, the answers seem to be patience and time for so much of the recovery, I need to readjust my normal impatient temperament.

March 4, 2010

My surgeon (Dr Boettner) was upfront with me about this possible complication, and I still chose to go through with the resurfacing. I think that you have to weigh the possible benefits with the odds of having a problem. I considered waiting until there was more data out there about the long term outcomes, but ultimately it felt like that would have been years of my life not hiking and biking through the mountains and it was really a quality of life issue. Of course, I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t have to confront these possible complications.