former patient

I've been going through bouts of being fabulously nervous about this whole deal, but I was able to do one thing that helped me feel better. My doctor's office arranged to let me talk with a former patient of my same surgeon. Trying to do that is the best advice I could give anyone going through a major procedure. I spoke with a guy who's 4 years younger than me and went through an open FAI procedure in late January. Before his hip went bad he was a baseball player (a right handed pitcher with a bad right hip) and running 10 or 15 miles a week. Now he's pitching again and back to running. He said at 6 and a half weeks he was walking without crutches or a limp and that he was starting to jog a bit within 3 months.

He also said Friday is going to be miserable. Apparently they usually give an epidural for this procedure in addition to the general anesthetic. The epidural has a 24 to 48 hour window of effectiveness, so waking up on Friday morning isn't so much fun. On the up-side he said that by Sunday he felt fairly human.

I'll be calling this afternoon to find out the actual time of my surgery. They expect that it will be in the morning, which would mean heading out to Stoughton Hospital around 6 or 7 and then leaving the next morning. I'll see if I can find out when they expect me to be coherent too...