I received Birmingham implants in my right and left hips.

You will notice two curious things if you read my past entries – I have not blogged for almost 2 years, and the last entries alluded to something huge going on with my health which I did not know at the time.  For the record, in those two years, I have had  1 arthroscopic hip surgery, 2 hip replacements, massive pain and depression.  Here is my story.

On Monday, June 4th 2007 I woke up with a lot of pain in my back.  Shortly after waking up, I went to pick up my laptop computer from the floor, and collapsed onto the floor with massive pain and back spasm.  I had to call my neighbors for food and water as I could only lay on the floor.  It took me 10 minutes to crawl to the toilet and way too much pain to use it.

Four days later I was finally able to drive to the doctor, and went on full dosing of Vicadin.  After 2 months of full vicadin dosing, my doctor ordered MRI’s and found that I was screwed - I had a disease in my teens that deformed both of my femur heads, which led to severe osteo-arthritis.  I needed surgery to attempt to buy me time before 2 eventual hip replacements.

I asked around for and then went to one of the best hip surgeons in the Denver Metro area – Dr. Armando Vidal.  What a great name!  And how the women swooned over him and his male assistants – all GQ quality.  One friend told me she would seriously do the whole surgical team if she had a chance  You know who you are…

On Dec. 5th 2007, I had arthroscopic surgery on my right hip.  Shortly after I woke up from surgery, I discovered that almost 2/3 of my cartilage was shot – I had not bought myself much time.  Dr. Vidal had warned me that MRI’s do not tell the whole story, so it was possible I would not get much from the surgery.  However, it was worth a shot!

I danced 3 weeks later.  Up till that point, 3 weeks had been the longest I had gone without dancing.  To have the opportunity to dance Tango, it was worth the pain.  I did my best to not let my dance partners know how much pain I experienced, for I did not want them dancing differently.  However, I did not lead ganchos!  The San Diego festival of 2008 challenged me, to put it lightly.

I continued dancing, and during the 2008 Valentango festival, I felt so much pain I may have never been lower in my life.  While on the dance floor, I stifled back many tears of pain, and walking back from each milonga was excruciating.  The one thing that I had become most passionate about – Tango – I had to acknowledge the possibility I would never dance it again.  Upon that realization, I made appointments to see a couple of doctors/ surgeons to immediately get hip replacements.

My all-time favorite doctor, Dr. Bereznoff, counseled me to stop dancing for good, and that if I went through with hip replacement surgery, I could die, and that there was literally a 50/50 chance it would not work!  Good doctor/ Bad News!  The top surgeon for hip replacements within 100′s of miles, Dr. Rector, told me to get 2 more opinions and he suggested I stop dancing and not get any surgery for 5-10 years.

OK – what would you do?