The Upside of Surgery by Tina Sprinkle

I had my first hip replacement when I was 50 and my second one just two and a half years later — on the same hip!  If 50 is upposed to be the new 40, you might want to call me an overachiever!

I have been in the health and fitness industry for over 30 years, teaching everything from hip hop, to spinning to step aerobics. At the time I began to have trouble walking, I had changed my focus to Pilates and opened a successful studio. I was in the best shape of my life and I couldn’t walk!

 

My Body Couldn’t Keep Up with Me

It not only hurt my hip to walk, it hurt my feelings. I was supposed the be the role model; you know, the one who helped other people get healthy. I tried to rehab my tightness, my imbalances, my pain, but my limp only persisted. I sought help from body workers, chiropractors, acupuncturists and physical therapists! I got x-rays; but even then, my prognosis was unclear.

When I began to hobble, I finally bit the bullet and got a referral for an MRI. It was expensive and uncovered by my insurance, but I did finally find out what was wrong: I needed a total hip replacement and soon! It seemed the pain I was having was from a badly deteriorated hip.

It had become bone on bone and getting “gnarlier” by the minute.

I had a good friend, an (ex)professional athlete who’d had his hip replaced the year before by a physician he highly recommended. He was one of the few doctors at the time in our area doing an anterior approach, meaning I would have less pain and recovery time than traditional surgery.

My MRI was in April and my surgery in May. I was ready. Of course, I was embarrassed fending the questions, “how did you do this to yourself?” and “do you think you overdid it?”

I began to feel ashamed that I had exercised myself into a hip replacement, but when I told this to my doctor, he just smiled and said I had bad genes…  Better bad genes than bad jeans, I told myself.

 

 

From Fitness Role Model to Woman with Walker

Having a hip replacement is not easy. It’s hard to be a role model when you can’t walk or teach classes.

Essentially you’re having your body sliced open, pulled apart, bones sawed and drilled before being glued, compressed and sewn back together. Despite the new surgical method, it hurt like hell. It was also humbling. I had a walker, then a cane, a high chair on my toilet seat, and couldn’t drive for weeks.

There were also some good things: nice letters and cards from friends, co-workers who cooked delicious meals for me and a wonderful partner who never blinked an eye at my instant aging or instability. I learned to be grateful.

I also learned to be patient. Contrary to my friend who’d had his hip replaced, I did not bounce back. I used a cane for weeks and broke into a sweat the first time I ventured out to the pharmacy on my own. It wasn’t the pain meds. I was actually scared. I was afraid someone would bump into me or I would fall down. I knew it was irrational at the time but my pits and palms told the truth. I felt vulnerable.
 

 

Something Was Terribly Wrong, I Still Hurt

My prized red Vespa spent the entire Summer in the garage, which seems a crime in hindsight. I’d had my hip replaced and something wasn’t right. Even after I got through physical therapy and should have been feeling secure, I felt my hip “clunking” around inside of me.

I went back to my doctor with questions but he just said the x-rays were fine and I was probably just too active (that again).

At work I was able to see clients, teach mat classes, reformer classes. That Summer I was able to hike in Colorado. I didn’t attempt any 14’ers but I was able to get into climbing shape. I felt encouraged. Maybe this was what it was like to live with a prosthesis. Maybe this was as good as it gets.

I taught a weekly step class and learned to loved kettlebell training. I looked fit and had good energy but my hip continued to hurt.

I went back to my doctor, got more x-rays, took anti-inflammatory medication, stretched- I did Pilates. I slowed down. But it didn’t help.

 

One Giant Fall

In October 2012, I took a trip to Arizona with my partner Herb. He often invites me out at the end of a work trip and this time we got to play in Scottsdale. We decided to hike Camelback Mountain, and being folks who climbed big mountains in Colorado, this seemed like a piece of cake. It wasn’t.

I don’t mean that it’s technical, or long, or a grunt. It’s pedestrian and crawling with tourists. But there is some rock climbing involved that meant taking big weighted strides and crawling around in a crouched position. I enjoyed the challenge, but my hip was bothering me.

Perhaps in an effort to finish in a hurry (I am always a horse to the barn), I was skipping down the final steps to the trailhead and missed a step — my legs flew up from under me and I went down hard on my bottom.

Just as quickly, I was right back up, as if it was choreographed, but my hip was never the same after that climb. What had been annoying but manageable, now became familiar. It felt like my hip felt BEFORE my hip replacement.

I went back to my doctor. I asked for more x-rays. No problem he said. I told him I was in pain. I got pain meds and physical therapy. I went to a new PT and after 6 visits of getting worse, not better, the owner of the facility, Biago came in to see why I was failing to improve. I was fit, I was relatively young for hip replacement surgery, and I was motivated: that should spell improvement but I was getting worse.

After assessing me, my gait, my pain, and the apparent clunking in my hip, he said something that I didn’t want to hear. He said, “I think there’s something wrong with your prosthesis. It’s not stable and should not be clunking around in there. Everything we’ve done here should have had you feeling better but you’re clearly not getting any relief. What’s your doctor say?”

I told him. He suggested going back. He also suggested getting a second opinion. I did go back and my doctor ordered more x-rays, a special MRI, and blood tests – he couldn’t find anything wrong. I made an appointment with another doctor (Biago went with me) and he said while he suspected it was the prosthesis, no one in his practice would revise it. Why take on another physician’s problems, right?

 

A Limping Pilates Pirate

That day sucked. I didn’t really want to go back to my first doctor, but I felt I had no choice. Herb went with me as by this time I was really not walking well.  In fact, my staff had started calling me a Pilates Pirate!  My limp was so distinct, I now looked like I had a peg leg!

My doctor said all of the tests looked okay, but when he manipulated my hip, there was that big clunk. He determined that my bones were so small, we needed to do a total revision and order a specially made prosthesis to insure the fit this time. I was just too little. (Okay, I may have waited my whole life to hear a man call me especially petite, but at this point, the words were lost on me.)

I asked him for a referral for a second opinion. He had his nurse call and got me in quickly to a colleague for an appointment.

I was nervous when I showed up in his office. They took x-rays and put me in a little room. My heart was pounding when he came in and asked me how I was. I kind of smiled and said, “not great.” He pulled up my x-rays and said, “I can see why. You can see right here how the cup of your hip has slipped almost 40 degrees that’s where the pain in coming from and why you felt the clunking. The cup failed to grow in and will need to be replaced.”

I was in shock. “My other doctor has been looking at my x-rays for the past two and a half years and he said I was fine.  “What the hell?”

He placed my previous x-rays on the screen and showed me the comparison. Even I could see the cup had slipped in those x-rays as well! Biago had told me that this might happen.

One doctor immediately sees what the other has missed; and this is exactly what happened to me.

I did not need a specially made prosthesis. I did not need to have my femur risk breaking when it was hammered open for a total revision. I did not need a total revision. All I needed was a new cup inside my hip — a cup that would be screwed into my bone so that this would not happen again.

 

Repeat Hip Surgery and Sewing Back My Life

I scheduled my surgery that day for four weeks later. It was the holidays and I was also hosting my nieces wedding. I wasn’t happy about having another surgery, but at least I had a plan. Needless to say, I was upset and disappointed in my former doctor. I’d wasted lots of time and money on unnecessary tests because he couldn’t read an x-ray.

I learned a lot from my second surgery. I learned that you could have an easier recovery and lose the cane after a couple of days, not weeks. I learned your recovery is dramatically easier if given a spinal instead of a general anesthesia. I learned that you really can have major surgery on a Tuesday and go home Thursday afternoon, by choice!

I learned I really don’t understand why people get hooked on pain meds. I love being ambulatory and riding my scooter with a clear head! I learned that my business could survive without my daily appearance and that I work with an incredible group of people. People who lovingly prepared home cooked meals for my recovery.

So I had to have my hip replaced twice, before my mid 50’s, but I learned that doctors are fallible, hips sometimes don’t grow right,and it’s just shitty luck when it happens to you.

I also got some goodies from it. I got pampered again by my partner, spent time playing with my dogs and learned to waste time: you know, watching old movies, the entire season of House of Cards, and dusting off the Kindle for books long overdue. I learned to sit still on my patio and look at the birds. And if you’ve seen my patio, you know that’s not bad.

Most of all, I’ve learned to appreciate my life’s passion even more. For thirty years I’ve preached health, balance and good nutrition, but it’s different when you feel your own health and mobility is compromised. The stakes get higher because it’s personal. Would I go to pot? Would I get flabby? Would I get depressed?

Luckily none of that happened to me. I learned that you don’t have to get fat just because your exercise routine is severely derailed. Duh, you just have to eat right. As a former fatty and exercise-aholic, that lesson became more profound when I didn’t have the freedom to move. By adopting a Paleo lifestyle (cutting out starches, gluten, dairy and processed foods), I was able to maintain my weight despite my current injury. I wasn’t in as good as shape as I wanted to be, but I didn’t go to pot either.

After my first hip replacement, I was heading out the door of my studio when one of my staff, a much younger marathon runner, asked me if I was heading out for my “power walk?” I don’t know if she meant it to sting or if I just projected that myself, but I resented the fact that I could no longer run, and she seemed to be making fun of that.

Last week, on a gloriously sunny Spring day, I found myself busting loose — feeling good in my stride, strong and secure, digging in my heels one at a time, eating up the pavement; and yes, “power walking!”

Listening to Neil Diamond, sweating and moving and loving it! It made me laugh out loud. So this is now — Power walking and Neil Diamond… and it’s all good. In fact, it’s Awesome!

 

Thanks to Herb, my friends and family, clients and staff for supporting me through a difficult time. Your caring and understanding puts life into perspective; compassion and giving is what matters most. I couldn’t be more lucky or humbled.

If you are dealing with an injury or facing a health crisis of your own, please know there is healing and health on the other side.  Let me know if I can help you through it too.  

Tina