My Experience With Hip Dysplasia and PAO Surgeries

I wanted to share my experience with this, because of the little amount of knowledge and discussion on this topic when I was in need of research of it. I am a 17 year old male, living in North Carolina. In eighth grade I was diagnosed with Acetabular Hip Dysplasia. I was bullied constantly for the way I walk and run. One PE teacher went as far to make a video mocking me telling other students to "Run like Colton". After being diagnosed, I traveled to several hospitals and specialists across the state and finally settled with Dr. Virginia Casey at Carolina Orthopedic in Charlotte. She agreed to do my first PAO alongside Dr. Brighton. My first POA happened on May 31st of 2017. This was my first surgery ever and it was very stressful leading up to the surgery. I prayed about it and eventually came to peace with it. I was very unsure about anesthesia and so on, so I will give you some insight. As soon as I got to my room at Levene Children's Hospital in Charlotte, I changed into my gown and they started my IV. This was the worst part of the surgery. I have great veins but horrible luck so the IV was rough. I am however more scares of needles than most people. They sedated me through the IV which was incredibly effective. In three seconds of the sedation going into the IV, my eyes drooped and became very heavy. Suddenly the worry and anxiety of surgery was diminished and I no longer feared the risks of having surgery. I felt that dying would not really even matter at that point. That statement is rather alarming, yet my mind was extremely soothed at this thought. As my family said their final goodbyes, I saw the love in my grandfather's eyes that I had not seen in many many years, a special mix of concern, curiosity and comforting love. I watched as the hospital lights passed by my tired eyes. They rolled me into a room of what seemed like all metal. I was placed on a metal bed, with metal clanging and crashing behind me. I stared up at the lights surrounded by a metal ring. The metal exam light hung low above my head. I tried to count how many people were in that room but my mind was not in a place to count very well, making the nurses seem countless and identical. A focused, busy lady approached my right side. My eyes were now too heavy to look her in the eyes as she raised up a mask above my face, claiming "this is going to be a little but of oxygen". If only oxygen acted like that all of the time... I had planned to fight the anesthesia like a cowboy and see how much I could take, but just like a baby, I was asleep instantly. It did not hurt, it did not tingle, but it felt as if my eyes were being forced down by the strength of a thousand men. I woke up in an orange room. I was sure that something had gone wrong because it felt like I had instantly awoken from anesthesia and the surgery had never happened. Thankfully I was wrong. My mouth was eternally dry, and my pleas for water were ignored by the nurse in the room, rightfully so however. They brought my parents into the room which I instantly asked whether or not the nurse was hot. She was standing right next to me. I then began cussing repeatedly, and had to be reminded that I was in a children's hospital. So, I decided to sing. My song choice however was not appropriate in a hospital of potentially terminally ill children, so my cries of "I'll fly away" were not appreciated by the nurse or my mother. The estimsted hospital time for a PAO is 3-4 days. I left the next day. I slept horribly, and any time of rest that I did manage to achieve was interrupted by a nurse checking my vital signs or a faulty beeping heart moniter which seemed to assume my heart had stopped and a nuclear attack was imminent. I mentioned earlier that the worst part of the surgery was the IV. The only other comparable issue was when the IV had to be taken out. The tape on my skin was stronger than steel and seemed to be welded to my body. Things got immediately better when I got home. The ride home was tough because I was sensitive to bumps in the road, and I had an hour and a half to get home. After arriving home I sat down and started my recovery. I watched a ton of movies, rewatched the entire series of "The Office" again, and slept a lot. I do want to mention one pretty big problem I had. I lost a lot of blood in this surgery, that made me have some pretty bad swelling. I am a guy so it wasnt just my hips that swelled. My left testicle swelled to the size of an orange. It didnt cause much extra pain but it was hard to manuvere and move it out of the way sometimes. The swelling did quickly get better though, so do not be worried if it happens to you. It sucked but it was not the end of the world and I have been through worse in my life. You can do it and it will not be fun but it is absolutley doable and I am glad I did it. As soon as I recovered and finished physical therapy, I got back in the gym. People will tell you to "take it easy on them hips" or "don't over-do it" and some are totally fine with taking that advice, but I was not. I had not properly run since the fourth grade. I credit a lot of my ability to run to physical therapy. I love to run and during the year after my first surgery, I ran nearly every day. It hurt at first but I noticed that the longer I ran, the better it felt. I was building muscle to hold my hips together in the right place finally. I worked out hard and ran hard because it is what I wanted to do. I had a groui p of friends that would play football once a week and we played very hard. I loved it. The first surgery was for my left hip, but my right was still in need of surgery. So we scheduled my surgery for June 27th of 2018. Don't believe anyone that says "your second surgery wont be as bad, because you know what to expect". You do not know what to expect, but you probably will do better the second time. You can plan and try to repeat things the second time but it will be different in many ways. I find it quite irksome how many people offer advice to me or try to give me some sort of personal knowledge about hips, especially the people that have normal hips. People will relate your surgery to a total hip replacement every single day. This is nothing like a total hop replacement. A PAO is much more involved and requires much more recovery, but yes Sharon, that is quite wonderful that your cousin had a hip replacement 5 years ago. The biggest difference I noticed with this surgery is that I had much less swelling. The surgeon premedicated me to reduce blood loss and it worked wonderfully. Much less pain, much less swelling, and much better bodily functions. I forgot to mention how hard it was to pee in the hospital with the first surgery. They gave me a silly plastic jug for me to try to pee in while staying in bed. That is not how bladders work, so it did a horrible job. As soon as I got up and went to the toilet however, the floodgates were open. Don't even attempt to try to pee laying down or even sitting on the bedside. It will not work. Anyways, lets get into detail about the second surgery. People assumed I would not be as scared this time. They were incorrect. The fear consumed me, but I decided to have the second surgery. I slept the whole ride to the hospital. I did not want to deal with the emotional hurricane of being awake. I sat in the waiting room which was completely erased from my memory of the first surgery until that point. I saw the fear in a young boys eyes as he anticipated whatever he was about to face that day. His parents sat closeby. They were trying to hide the fear they were inevitably cursed with. They tried to hide the fact that they really had no idea what they were doing but they were trying their best, and that is what mattered. His fathers hands were rough and calloused from work. His mother held a folder of medical paperwork and xrays. You could barely see her hands shaking. I thought about life as I sat in that room, about the what-ifs and whether or not I would be able to have that same care and fear for my children some day. My thoughts were interrupted by a nurse in purple calling my name. She didnt know who I was, just another patient on her shift that day. It made me wonder if she treated all of her patients with the cardboard respect that I recieved. I was soon assigned a small room. I changed into my gown and my family and friends soon filled the room. I cried as I heard the prayer said for me that day. The solitude in his voice reassured me that he knew he wasn't just saying words, but he was talking to someone in control of what would happen to me that day. The nurses started my IV. They once again took multiple stabs to achieve this. They sedated me, yet this time I handled it much better. I wasnt nearly as tired as the first surgery's sedation. They stopped at the doorframe when my grandfather grabbed my hospital bed to say goodbye. He said "I love you" in a way I had heard only once before in my life, and that was before my first surgery. I called out to him saying "after while crocodile". He responded with "see ya later alligator" and that is when peace finally set in. They rolled be back to the operating room. It was just as metal as the last time. I remembered to count the people in the room. I counted five but more came in afterwards. I cracked many jokes with the surgeons because I was much more aware of my surroundings this time. As the nurse pressed the mask back onto my face, I interrupted her and said "So, is this gonna be the 'oxygen'?" as I raised my hands in quotations. The nurses and surgeons all joined in laughter. They knew they had been caught. I awoke again in the orange room. I was much more cooperative this time because my brain knew where I was. The hospital was full, so I waited 2 hours for my own room. I remember being rather sad at this point. Not enough to cry or complain but the weight had set on my chest that now my summer was officially done and I couldn't go back if I wanted. From then until I got home, all I could think about was snuggling into my bed at home and forgetting any of this happened. It was a very depressed feeling. I have never smoked or drank and neither has anyone in my family, but at that moment I needed a strong shot of whiskey and a cigarette to help me mope in my sorrow. I slept about 2 hours that night. My heart monitor was even more faulty than last time, alarming exactly every 5 minutes and even sooner if I breathed too hard. I eventually yanked it off my finger and told the nurse to cut it off and that I would let someone know if my heart stops. They put potassium in my IV which they did not do last time. Aparently "some doctors want it and some doctors don't". I didn't understand my mother's frustration with the nurse on this decision until I felt what potassium feels like being pushed against a valve through my garbage IV. This may have been the worst feeling of my life. You do not need potassium in your IV after this surgery. Feel free to dispute a nurse trying to administer potassium in your IV or you will regret it. The pain shot through my arm. I felt it course through my bloodstream with every beat of my heart. It felt like my veins were being cleaned out with steel wool. The next morning I awoke at 5 am and could not go back to sleep. My mother stayed in the room that night and she helped me change into real clothes that morning. The surgeon's resident came in at 8 and was shocked to see all of my bags packed and me fully dressed and ready to leave. There was one more horrible obstacle before I could depart. They needed to take a blood sample for the lab before I could leave. Unfortunately, the team of goober nurses had never drawn blood in a person as old as me. (I have a full beard in a children's hospital) After many failed attempts by many nurses, my mother, who is a day surgery nurse at a hospital gave them copious instructions on how to do it the right way, but they were clueless. The nurse agreed to let her try to draw the blood as long as she didn't say anything about it. My mother hit the vein perfectly on the first try. After the results came back clear, I was ready to go home. I started my recovery very fast and was anxious to be free again. I swam in the pool within the first week and continued pool excersise regularly. I am currently at the 6 week mark and went for a checkup two dsys ago. I am now walking with one crutch to reduce my limp but can walk without it. I will be driving by the end of the week.

Feel free to message me with any questions. I did not think my second surgery would be worth it, but it was and I am happy I did it. I hated being away from friends but I am ready to live life again. THANK YOU DR. VIRGINIA CASEY!

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