January 2021 – Pubic Joint Fusion, Metal Allergy
Capping off this story, surgery number 11! The idea of fusing the pubic joint creeped me out but I knew it would be the keystone that would fix everything – fix itself but also the adhesive capsulitis issues and whatever other related stuff.
This was a really weird day. I arrived prepared, but was immediately faced with having to decide whether or not to stay overnight. What? That was news. I decided no.
Surgery prep was quick and easy and we even went in early, but the last moments before going to sleep messed with my head.
Control the Controllables
On the surgery table, I had a surgical mask on (COVID rules) and the oxygen mask (the last sign that you’re about to go to sleep) went right on top of it. They didn’t swap one for the other like was done in previous surgeries. This caused a brief moment of private panic, claustrophobia – take it off! But in that moment I remembered to also still myself, that however I felt going to sleep would set the tone for how I would wake up. I learned that the hard way at my very first surgery, for wisdom teeth extraction, so it’s been a thing for me ever since – go to sleep with happy thoughts. I had to let it go and relax. Control the controllables and accept the uncontrollables. This was going to be my perfect, final surgery.
I woke up weird, feeling like I was in an alternate reality. I couldn’t shake the anesthesia at all which was surprising since each surgery has gotten better as they dial in my recipe, each anesthesiologist reviewing the previous and listening to what I liked/didn’t like. What happened? There was no way I could get myself together to get in a car and go home so I was forced to spend the night after all.
Of all the rooms in the hospital, they wheeled my into the exact same room I stayed in after my first PAO in 2018. I hoped it was a sign that I had come full circle and this would finally be the last surgery. From PAO to Pubic Fusion, P to P, the end.
The night blew. Hourly vitals, more interruptions than ever before, no food because it was too late, I wasn’t allowed to get up to use the bathroom by myself. I set off a bed alarm trying to get up and use the bathroom which somehow launched a story that I was trying to escape from the hospital in the middle of the night. ??? I would have been better off just going home. This was my least favorite hospital stay so I was out the door bright and early.
Post-Op Day 1:
X-ray Progression:
- 12/04/19 – Before any pubic surgery
- 7/15/20 – Post pubic debridement
- 12/10/20 – Pubic joint is collapsing
- 2/3/21 – 2 weeks post pubic fusion
Itchy, Itchy, Ichabod
The surgery was 7.5 weeks ago now and it has been a wild ride since then. It took me a solid week to shake the anesthesia crazies and see straight. I was itching like mad non-stop. By now I am allergic to all bandages, including steri-strips, and all of the medical soaps, so those first few weeks post-op are miserably itchy. This time I got smart and stuck a maxi pad to the inside front of my shorts and called it a bandage. That was nothing was stuck on my skin and it could breathe! Brilliant!
Metal Allergy
Three weeks in, the hives started. Allergy testing confirmed an allergy to nickel – 14% of the metal now screwed into my body. The bone sites where the metal is placed increased in sensitivity. I wasn’t sleeping and I felt like I was losing my mind, unable to get a grip on myself and break free from this strange alternate reality. This wasn’t a pain issue, it was an anesthesia residue weirdness plus allergy hyper drive. So, I turned to writing, reading, and knitting to center myself. I wrote a lot of dark things, like this:
“I sit in that yucky spot for as long as it takes, so uncomfortable and aching, desperate for it to be over. Like having the flu, or a hefty hangover. It sucks and I know that the only way out is through, with time. In the meantime I do everything I possibly can to help soften the situation. ANYTHING. But mostly I have to calm my self to endure, however long that will be. I know there’s an end – it is a finite game – and I know there will be intermediate easings, but when and in what ways are unknown.”
-Carey Martin, 3/11/2021
The last several days, since beginning this blog really, have been my turning point. I’m feeling much more like myself and that there is clarity. I am starting to feel the improvement in the pubic joint, the actual point of the surgery. I am recognizing that this is life changing and everything I had hoped it would be. The keystone for it all.
And that is the history, extremely briefly. I will go back and fill in the gaps with the in-between, because that is where the real work and healing occurred. It was important to present the outline first for framework and to give me space in which to move around.
Warm Blanket of Certainty
I knit this blanket for my doctor because warm blankets are certainty and he represents certainty for me. I spent a large chunk of time each day working on it over the course of four weeks with a mad dash at the end to get it finished in time for our 6-week appt. It covered the top of my king size bed, and definitely shows that I spent a lot of time staying put, letting the bones heal. My mantra was “be still, stillness is the key”.
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