December 20, 2007  2 weeks post op!

After several years of joint pain, and trips to doctors, a friend put me onto your site at the end of this summer. I am a 54 yr old female runner, who used to do sprint triathlons and bike and kayak.  The pain got to me, and I finally listened to my body and realized the pain wasn’t going to get better by itself. (Why did it take so long??)

Dr. Rogerson in Madison said I was only a 20% chance of a BMR because of the large cyst, but he encouraged me to get a second opinion.  With your wonderful info, I sent my x-rays to McMinn, De Smet and Bose. Both De Smet and Bose replied quickly that I was a 100% candidate, but needed to act soon.  That was the middle of November. Things started to fall into place, a substitute teacher, plane tickets, insurance calls, and then my husband I flew to Belgium on Dec 3rd, and I became the new owner of a pain free resurfaced hip on Wed, Dec 5th. (some sore muscles came with it, as a package deal.)

Just 8 short days later, we flew home Thurs Dec 8th (only to be stranded in Newark because of freezing rain!).

Am now home, moving about at a faster pace every day, swimming at a local pool, and trying not to do too much for Christmas. I’m still giving myself the blood thinner shots, and will take off the stockings tonight, and have removed the bandage. Still some bruising on my lower calf, but it’s slowly working it’s way out of my system.

The personal care from Dr. De Smet’s staff was great, and as everyone will tell you, the hospital stay was a total contrast, but was, indeed for just a short 2 1/2 days.

At the clinic with me were:  a man from Greece who had both hips done, a man from Turkey, an older woman from Belgium, two women from the Netherlands, and then people from the area returned for water therapy.

Word was, the young (38 year old) man from the windsurfing video was in the recovery room with the Turk, having his other hip done.  I didn’t see him.  (Where do the people recuperate if they don’t go to the clinic?)

Things learned:  we are now in an age where we are responsible for our own health care.  Having access to your site, having electronic copies of our x-rays, and having the ability to talk to doctors across the world for second opinions is pretty powerful, but also daunting. Being informed is a task in and of itself. Interesting that the (international) people at the clinic in Gent went through a very similar process to mine in researching and then choosing De Smet.