Regrouping Part 3 - Tidbits

OK so I said I would talk about my goals in this post, but I remembered I have a few short bits of news to share first.  


Brace Yourself
 
For the most exciting news - I finally got my braces off last Wednesday, after 2 years, 9 months, and 18 long tortuous days!!  Yeah, I know, "First World Problems"...  I should be glad to have the opportunity to spend $6500 to get my teeth straightened and another $6000 to get dental work done. Anyway, although the horrendous metal contraptions are finally off my teeth, I'm not done yet.  It'll be another 6-12 months before I get new veneers on my four worn down front teeth and everything is finally 'fixed.' :)

Hip Hip No Hooray

OK, so I haven't done an update on my hip lately.  I got the results back from my MRI and met with the sports doctor last week. The good news - no tear in the labrum (the inside coating of the hip joint).  The bad news - I have a 6mm (1/4 inch) piece of bone or cartilage floating around loose inside my hip joint. They could not tell what the object was, nor where it came from, and there's not even any definite connection that this loose body is what is actually causing my pain.

The MRI report recommended a CT Scan to see if they find out where the piece came from, and I tentatively have one booked for Oct. 25, however my doctor isn't sure it's worth getting the extra radiation because the treatment will likely be the same regardless of where it's from.

My doctor and I both suspect that:

1) the loose object may be a piece of a bone spur that broke off when I hurt my hip skiing last winter.

2) the pain in my hip isn't actually being caused by the loose object, but rather, other bone spurs (osteophytes from mild arthritis) in my hip joint are rubbing and/or catching when my leg is moved into certain positions.

However, we aren't positive so....


Call in the Surgeon

After some discussion, we decided to get a consult with a surgeon to get his thoughts. He can view the actual MRI and might have some insight as to what course of action I should take. If it is a bad thing to have that piece of bone in my hip joint, it's a fairly simple procedure to 'scope' my hip and remove it. I say 'simple' in the relative sense, since anything surgical is never really 'simple' and naturally would require some time off training, and probably work as well.

The way this hip pain affects me right now, I really don't feel that surgery is necessary, but I am concerned about the long term effect of that loose piece floating around in there. If it ends up doing damage to the hope joint over time, the resulting repair could be much more complex.

In the meantime, I will wait to hear from one of the local surgeons and hope I can get a consult appointment within the next few months.  I have no idea what the wait list time for any of this is.

In the meantime, I'll keep you posted.

Tomorrow - short term goals.  Thanks for reading. :)