Dr. Ball November 13th Hip Resurfaced

[DelMarSurfer]

Yipee!!  Yesterday I got my hip resurfaced. Arghhh  now the hard part. Today has been ok but yesterday after surgery was quite a rough experience since I've never been in the hospital before. I had know idea of what to expect and was very scared prior to the surgery. I came out fine and have started recovery.

Dr. Ball here at UCSD Thornton Hospital in San Diego said the surgery went well and showed my the x-ray of my new hip. In fact he's come by yesterday and today to check in on me. Everyone had said what a great guy he is and I would say it as well. He's fantastic!! Especially his bed side manner and willingness to listen to every concern. Everyone else here has been great as well. I'm in a private room and the staff has been very attentive. I'm very comfortable.

The good news is I was able to walk 223 feet this afternoon. However that's the the only time I've left my bed. Otherwise it's been doing leg exercises laying in bed, working on the computer, on the phone, watching TV and just trying to pass time. i.e. bored...

Last night I was given some Oxycotin and that made me vomit. I have one of those striker pumps that provides pain relief to three of the main nerves in the hip. I think it's an epidural type. I volunteered for a pain study and had a 50-50 chance of getting a placebo, plus I have to stay an extra day but I feel like I could probably go home tomorrow if I hadn't committed to stay the extra day for the study.

This morning I took some morphine but that made me very light headed and lowered my blood pressure and since then I've only had Tylenol and the pain pump. My guess is I got the real deal medicine in the pain study and not the placebo. They keep asking what my pain level is and since this AM it's been 0-1 on a scale of ten. I guess that's as good as one could hope for.

If anyone has any questions let me know. I'm here on day 2 and I have plenty of time.

Regards,
Noel

[Pat Walter]

   Congratulations and welcome to the other side!

223' walk - wow - you are doing great.

Sounds like Dr. Ball is a real winner.  It is nice when they will talk and have a good bedside manner.  Makes life much easier after being sliced and diced.

I hope each day gets better.

Good Luck and keep in touch.

You're and official surface hippy now!

Pat

[avid]

Noel,

Congratulations on getting to the "other side." Happy to hear the x-rays look great. You made it 223', it is definitely time to go home. Hang in there you will be chipper in no time. Do you have friends and or family to help get you organized when you go home? Keep us informed on your progress. You could even start a blog here at SurfaceHippy.info. Go to the front page and click on Surface Hippy Blogs and get busy.

Melissa, one of my Dr. Ure Surfacehippy.info subgroup friends, is counting down the days till I head to the other side. I think it's 26 days remaining. I attended the pre-Joint Replacement workshop  at Mercy Medical Center in Mt. Shasta yesterday. The team they have there is very impressive.

Keep healing and best wishes.

avid

[Chief]

Noel,

Glad it went well and you are feeling OK.  Who knows, you may be home by now.  Hope you are.  Home is always a more comfortable place to be.

Are you in the mood for a question?  Well, here goes.  I'm a hip resurface candidate, I'm told.  I still engage in all my activities, but I'm beginning to feel some definite discomfort when I spend any amount of time just standing around.  I still ski, hike, bike....running is no longer possible.  How were you feeling when you decided to go for the surgery?  Also, how did you go about choosing your surgeon?  You seem pleased with him.  Do you know how much experience he has with resurfacing, i.e. how many has he done?

Best wishes,
Chief

[Pat Walter]

Hi Chief

If you want to know how many resurfs many of the doctors have done - check out my list of doctors. Each doctor has his stats posted.
http://www.surfacehippy.info/listofdoctors.php

If you want to know how many of us choose our doctors, you might find my article How to Choose a Doctor interesting
http://www.surfacehippy.info/pcselectingsurgeon.php

You might want to go thru most of the articles for the First Time Visitor and get quite a bit of info to help you including the list of questions to ask your doctor
http://www.surfacehippy.info/visitorguide.php

Good Luck.

Pat - Webmaster/Owner Surface Hippy

[Terry_Smith]

Noel,
   Good for you!  I had my appointment with Dr. Scott Ball today in La Jolla, CA.  Dr. Ball is a very nice man, informative, and very up front.  After looking at my hip x-rays from a little over a month old, he wanted a new set to look at, so off I went (down the hall) to get a new set of pictures.  Yep, they still looked bad, and slowly getting worse.  He said that both hips are "do-able", though I'm not the "best candidate".  With the re-surfacing, he said at best, there's a 90% chance that there will be no problems after 5 years, vs. 97% for better candidates.  In a range of 1-4, 1 being best ,and 4 being not a candidate, he rates me between 2-3.  Better than I expected.  We also talked about MOM, and he said if I were 10 years older, he wouldn't consider re-surfacing, but being I'm only 44, he hates the idea of me losing so much bone so early (he did mention that Dr. Amstutz, who he trained with, wouldn't even consider a MOM for me but would do the re-surfacing).  He mentioned a "modular" THR, being titanium socket, with a thin shell metal liner, and a 36mm ball, in case of possible ION issues or reaction to the MOM.  Personally, with a 1 in 10,000 chance of a possible reaction, I'd rather go with the large diameter MOM, but we aren't quite there yet.  So, even with all this, it's possible once he gets in there, he might still have to go the THR route, which I'm aware of and can accept.  So, I call his office Thursday the 29th and see when in January he can work on me.  December is totally booked (he had to beg the OR to give him 1 extra day for another patient).  In the meantime, I'm going to continue swimming and focus on losing more weight.  He will do my left hip first, and 4 weeks later do the right hip, as the left is FAR worse. So, until then, I'll have to tolerate the pain and discomfort.  I plan on keeping off my feet as much as I can to minimize wear.  I'd rather have re-surfacing done and chance an issue down the road than lose all the bone now, and face possible revision later on.  I'll let Dr. Gross's office know that I won't be coming out there after all for surgery.  I feel that Dr. Ball will do what's best for me, and with my finances, the travel and follow-ups don't make South Carolina my best option.  That's the news as of now.
I hope my surgery goes as well as yours. 

Terry