THE RECOVERY -- PART 7

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

Those seven days in the hospital were perhaps the longest of my life.

As the senior orthopedic resident said to me: “Consider this surgery a hip replacement, times two.” 

Twice the pain, twice the rehab effort, twice the recovery time. 

To even sit up on the side of the bed filled me with horrific, nauseating waves of pain.

It took one person to lift my torso into a sitting position while another held my leg and little by little, lowered it to the floor.  

Compounding the misery was the hospital’s -- how can I put this? – less-than-stellar quality of care. 

The A/C in my room barely functioned during sweltering August Miami days.

 Nurses repeatedly failed to support my leg while getting me off the bedpan, allowing it to slam back down onto the mattress.

I needed a special chair to sit in when I got out of bed. 

What they brought me was a glorified bar stool that 4 foot, 10 inch me would have needed a ladder to reach. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 8

THE RECOVERY -- PART 6

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

When I began to awake some six hours later, I was preparing myself for the worst: that the doc would tell me my femur had completely shattered in the process of him removing the old prosthesis. 

Perhaps he had simply shored me up best he could, but that further surgeries were needed, and I may never have a functioning hip joint again.

But the news was good. While my femur was as thin as a sheet of paper in places, Dr. T had gotten out the old prosthesis, implanted the new one, reconstructed half of my femur and part of my pelvis, and carried out the necessary bone grafting.

Now it was a matter of healing up enough in the hospital so I could then go to an in-patient rehab facility.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 7

THE RECOVERY -- PART 5

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

After a few X-rays, Dr. T announced the verdict: the left hip prosthesis was pushing outwards from my femur to the point where it would inevitably fracture the bone. 

Maybe not today or tomorrow or next week, but it would most certainly happen.

And if it did, it would make a hip revision much harder to do. In short, if I didn’t have the surgery soon, I would be in a much bigger world of hurt than I had ever bargained for.

Six weeks later I found myself sitting on the edge of an operating table, dopey and propped against the shoulder of an O.R. nurse, while someone from the anesthesia team attempted to insert a needle through the calcified ligaments of my lower lumbar region.

 RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 6

THE RECOVERY -- PART 4

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

This appointment, however, was different.

In his most fatherly, reassuring voice he made it clear that it was time to consider a revision of the prosthesis in the left hip. 

Since I had chosen my doc because of his reputation as an experienced “revisionist,” I figured I was in good hands. 

That was until he told me that my arthritis-ravaged anatomy and thin, decalcified bones were too big a challenge, even for him. 

Which is how I soon found myself in the waiting room of Dr. T.

Doctor J. had spoken of Dr. T. in hushed tones of reverence, a pioneer in the reconstruction of joints ravaged by cancer or severe arthritis.

He pioneered a procedure in which he handcrafts a customized joint to each patient.

I figured that, when I finally met him, there would be cherubim and seraphim fluttering around him, shielding his face from the gaze of mere mortals. 

But he was just another guy, although a very tall and large-framed one, built like a college football linebacker, as so many of the best human carpenters are.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 5

THE RECOVERY -- PART 3

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

What I kept pushing out of my consciousness was the reality that the hips weren’t going to last forever. 

Because even though I use a wheelchair most of the time and only walk short distances, the man-made appliances that had been driven with surgical power tools into the shafts of my femurs before I was old enough to drive were not made to last forever.

I made an appointment with my orthopod, Dr. J., and hoped upon hope it would proceed as usual. 

Which is to say, twice a year I would go to his office, and have X-rays taken of my hips.

He would say the same thing each time: that the prostheses had, over time, moved a bit out of their original positions – not uncommon for these types of old style implants. 

Yet as long as I was functioning without pain, I could go along my merry way and return in six months.      

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 4

THE RECOVERY -- PART 2

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

Fast forward 30 years: I am now 45 years old, an attorney, a disability compliance professional and a wife of 22 years.

My metal and plastic hips have served me well.

They have seen me through college, law school, and two decades of employment as a public servant. 

They were with me when I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, when I first rode in an all-terrain wheelchair down the sands of South Beach, when I ascended into the air on the London Eye, when I ventured across the floor of Monument Valley, and when I explored the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra.

But in spring 2010, I noticed a problem that just wouldn’t go away: when I would lie on my right side in bed, I felt a troubling ache in my left groin.

I tried every trick I knew: heat, ice, rest, stretching. 

You name it, I tried it. 

And all the while I prayed it was a temporary soft tissue thing and not a permanent joint problem.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 3

THE RECOVERY -- PART 1

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

At age nine, I was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis.

It raged out of control for years.

Nearly every Christmas break, summer vacation and lengthy stretches during the school year meant ghastly orthopedic surgeries.

Surgeons would saw entire joints out of my body, then hammer in pieces of metal attached with screws. 

In between surgeries and the prolonged recoveries, I made the best of the life I had with all its limitations and chronic pain.

And yet I had friends and loved learning foreign languages and dreamed about traveling to exotic places someday.

I was 15 when I spent the month of June 1980 in the hospital, having both of my hips replaced, then the remainder of the summer recouping. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the breadth and depth of it, nor for the depression and anxiety I suffered, but kept hidden from my family and friends. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 2