The Crutches.

Ok, I've been getting bombarded with questions on Facebook asking what the deal is with the crutches.

For the cliff notes version, scroll to the bottom.

On my mission (around October 2005 I think), I started experiencing some random pain in my left hip. This pain was only caused when I moved it a certain way multiple times a day (the hip would pop with this movement). Common sense dictated two things: That A: I stop moving it that way, and B: Call the mission president's wife. I don't remember the exact words she said, but it was to the effect of "walk it off". Now I had no problem with this advice, because I was pretty much thinking the same thing. After controlling my hip better, the pain eventually went away, and everything was fine. The pain downgraded itself to an occasional annoyance and discomfort.

Fast forward to post mission. The discomfort remained, but didn't really bother me all that much. I was still able to do active things like mountain biking, biking from my house to UVSC (now UVU) and back for summer school, and water balloon wars (those involved know that I'm talking about EPIC balloon wars here). Anyhow, the hip popping returned, and the discomfort turned into dull pain, but this time it was harder to control. I was still fully functional in my activities, so I just kept ignoring it, occasionally mentioning it to my mom.

In December 2006, I submitted my resume to work as a Food Worker in Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. After being hired in January, I had to do work that while not hard labor or anything like that, could be physically demanding (I lost 30 lbs!). I moved huge food carts much of the time, which doesn't sound like a big deal, except that it put a lot of pressure on the already aggravated hip joint. By this stage it was popping with every step I made, making life turn into a living hell. After about 5 months, I couldn't stand the pain any longer and had to quit.

After ignoring the problem for almost 2 years total, I finally decided to see a doctor. It took multiple X-Rays, an MRI, and an arthrogram (which is just a fancy MRI with dye injected into the joint area), to finally see what was wrong. One of my doctor's nurses called me up saying that I had a labral tear in my hip. "Okay thanks" I said cheerfully (thinking that we could fix the problem in a jiffy), and then promptly hung up the phone. I'm no doctor, so I just figured it was the fancy name for a ligament, or a tendon or something and just left it at that. After about 20 minutes of thinking about this, I decided to call them back. I asked "um, whats a labral tear?", "it's the cartilage in your hip socket, that's the labrum. You've torn your cartilage Grant".

I wanted to pass out. I was seriously freaking out about this. I had just been accepted into the culinary program at UVU, and now this comes along. Being the moron that I am, I figured that I could just see an orthopedic surgeon, get some physical therapy, and hold out during the cooking program for a year, and then get it all fixed in summer '08. The surgeons assistant who saw me was stumped for a while as to how this was caused. He got copies of the x-rays and made an interesting discovery, our conversation went like this:

Doc: Did you have hip problems as a child?
Me: Yes, why? (I had terrible hip problems while on a soccer team as a child. It was supposedly a pinched nerve. Whoops, try again!)
Doc: I figured as much, you have hip dysplasia.
Me: Hip dysp-what?
Doc: Its a shallow hip socket, those who are affected can have the problem go undetected until problems show up when a patient is in their 20's

Well crap...

The plan was to put me on physical therapy for the time being. My cooking classes started in late October of this year...and ended early November. My left hip by that point could do no more, making it so bad, that I can no longer walk the length of a city block unassisted. At another visit to the orthopedic surgeon (I actually saw his assistant the first time), the true reality of this situation finally set in. While this was all going on, the Culinary program at UVU was gracious enough to let me drop out but not get an F, just so long as I resume next fall. The doctor took more x-rays, pointing out exactly how big this problem was. "If you DON'T get this fixed soon, you WILL need hip replacement within 5 years", "Both hips are affected by this problem, and we'll only be able to work on the right hip once you've fully recovered from the left hip's surgery". It was at this point that he yanked me off the physical therapy, saying that it was useless at this point.

On January 22nd, I will be getting major reconstructive hip surgery, and I'm terrified, but I know it's necessary.

For those of you who are interested in exactly what this surgery entails, go here:
http://hipandpelvis.com/patient_education/periace/page1.html

They are going to cut open my side, dislocate my hip, deepen my hip socket (who knows what power tools they're going to use), cut OUT the hip socket completely, re-align it, and then screw it back into place how they want it. The recovery time will go something like this:

1-3 Days after: Stay at the hospital drugged up on morphine.
3 days - 2 Weeks After: Bed ridden at home, probably still on morphine
2 weeks - 6 weeks: Wheel chair/crutches, I can put no more than 30lbs on the joint. (I probably can't take anymore morphine as well)
6 weeks - 4 months: I can put more weight on the joint. This period will have me working towards walking normally. Lortab, here I come!
4 months - 12 months: Walk normally but cannot run or jump.
After 12 months: Things should be back to normal...BUT...

I have to get the surgery again on the right hip in January 2009. Last week, probably due to compensating for the left hips issues, the right hip has started to crack a lot as well, causing extreme pain there too.

I would just like to mention at this point that I blame nobody else for this (as far as detecting it was concerned). I don't blame my mission presidents wife for not sending me to a doctor to have it looked at. I don't blame my employers at the hospital for giving me work that made the problem worse (the funny thing, is that I'm going to be at the exact same hospital I was working in! Free pudding, woohoo!). Apparently as a child, my pediatrician tried to look for this, but due to sanctions on South Africa at the time, the latest and greatest medical equipment wasn't accessible. I'm not bitter or anything, there's no point to that. At least I know that I'm not getting married for about another 2 years because of this.

My culinary career has ended before it could start.

Please pray for me, and if you're not religious, then please keep me in your thoughts.

Cliff notes:
My hips are buggered and are basically collapsing at a rapid rate.

Edit: I've made a few edits removing names from this post. I want to make it abundantly clear that nobody is to blame as far as trying to detect the problem earlier is concerned. The facts state that this problem is mostly detected when the patient is in their 20's, I'm just glad I got to serve a full mission before it got too bad.