This whole process began on February 20th, 2009. I remember specifically because the pain had started the morning I woke up from the Black and White Ball. I don’t think the pain was attributed solely to that night but for some reason that night had tipped the boat or whatever other metaphor you can think of for something going overboard.
The pain started off like it was aching within the days follow and then turned into the worst pain I have ever had. Making it hard to get out of bed in the morning but would subside for the day, mostly. I had seen a couple doctors while still at Pacific to cure this problem. A couple trips to the emergency room and to urgent care and the doctors either couldn't find what was wrong, or didn’t care enough to actually see it though to give a proper diagnosis.
Urgent care might as well be for people with strictly colds because they didn't seem to give a fuck that I was dying of pain. I was prescribed some bullshit medicine that reduced inflammation, which helped for about a day. They just see people, give them a prescription and send their ass home while billing the fuck out of their insurance. I was limited to the Emergency Room and Urgent Care because I was from out of state at the time and my HMO only provided for emergency care. I also saw a chiropractor because for some reason the general consensus of everyone who had heard about my pain said it was coming from my back via the sciatic nerve. This nerve can be pinched and cause pain to shoot down the back and cause pain in the legs. $100 later, I deemed that it was not the sciatic nerve and called it quits there.
After I graduated I came home from California to take care of this nonsense.
I was sent to do an EMG test which tested my nerves throughout my legs and my back to see if there was damage. They stick needed throughout your legs and lower back and then send and electric shock through that region of your body near the nerves. It was definitely not the most pleasant test I had ever taken. I remember the doctor saying there was some damage at the time, but nothing ever came of it through my primary doctor, who is fucking useless basically, all around.
Next was the MRI of my back that was ordered in order to see a spine specialist who would ultimately tell me that the pain was in my head because my spine was fine. Oddly enough this doctor also took x-rays of my hips and deemed them perfectly fine. Had he ordered and MRI of the hip region he would have found the disease I would eventually be diagnosed with 8 months later in February 2010.
The whole finding the problem and cure process took a break while I went back to California to live and work for awhile but that ended up not working out so well. The pain was in my every aspect of my everyday life, so nothing had changed in that department. I finally moved home in late October of 2009 but didn't see a doctor until February 2010 because of the holidays and I kept putting it off for some reason or another.
The spine doctor that said the pain was in my head referred me to a pain management doctor, finally, someone who gave me some answers. So the long and short from this doctor was that he did an x-ray of my hips and gave the diagnosis of Avascular Neurcrosis which is a disease in which the blood supply is cut off to the bones, and is prone more or less to the hip region. If the blood supply is cut off to the bone, the bone starts to die and dead bone starts to disintegrate. It was noticeable on the x-rays this time because both of my hips had finally collapsed, because the blood had been cut off for some time. The only remedy for this would be an eventual total hip replacement on both hips.
There was another referral, Dr. Jones, in between who was basically useless, but through his referral to another doctor, I was finally referred to Dr. Eric Smith of Tufts Medical in Boston.
I went in for another set of x-rays and a consultation for range of motion in my hip. We shot the shit for awhile. He is actually from Modesto, CA and knew of Pacific and the Pike house there because he was a Sigma Chi, not at UOP but somewhere else (yeah I know, boo.)
No doubt would I need to get two total hip replacements. Metal on metal for longevity and because I am a bigger guy, he did not want to run the risk of cracking a ceramic ball replacement. All I had to do was call and schedule them. He was scheduling them three months in advance at that point in time so we made the appointments.
Another rigmarole of the healthcare system is that if I wanted to get on a cancelation list to possibly move up my surgeries, I would have to get clearance from my primary care doctor. So I called for an appointment and scheduled one three weeks away and somehow ended up on the cancelation list for Dr. Smith.
My first major surgery was a total right hip replacement at the ripe old age of 23.
So the process of this took over a year to get to halfway through a final solution. I can’t believe the process and holes you have to jump through to get anything diagnosed and done when it comes to your own body. Throughout the entire process from when the pain started and the surgery I have seen seven doctors. SEVEN FUCKING DOCTORS. Really?
And on the job front: I still deliver pizzas.
