Please Not Again!

It all started with me flying in the air hoping that I won't smack the tree or lift pole after getting t-boned at full speed by another skier off of a jump in Keystone in January 2016. I remember feeling relieved after crashing about three feet away from the tree, but at the same time extremely mad at the other skier who disregarded any 'rules' in the park from the start of the line. At the time this accident occurred, I felt great physically and ended up skiing the rest of the day; the next day however, I woke up not being able to lift my legs due to severe pain. After seeing an orthopedic doctor and being sent to radiology, I came back to my doctor telling my mom and I, "So nothing actually happened with the accident you described but we did notice that you have bilateral hip dysplasia".

The type of hip dysplasia that I was diagnosed with was acetabular dysplasia meaning that the head of my femur is not sufficiently covered by my acetabulum (Adler, Cook, Yen, & Giordano, 2015) caused by a deformity in my acetabulum (Sink, n.d.). If acetabular hip dysplasia remains uncorrected the risk of degenerative joint disease (due to labral hypertrophy and pathology), functional impairment, capsular attenuation, and bony impingement increases (Adler, Cook, Yen, & Giordano, 2015). In order to decrease the possibility of hip replacement and hip arthritis at 30-40 years old and prolong it to when I am 50-60 years old by 60 percent, I ended up getting a combined surgery to adjust my acetabulum and repair my torn labrum on my right hip as it was more severe than the left side. The surgeries consisted of hip arthroscopy to repair my labrum and the Ganz osteotomy, or periacetabular osteotomy (PAO), to adjust my acetabulum.

The Ganz osteotomy involves making three cuts total in the pubic bone, ilium, and ischium in order to rotate the acetabulum and fix it in a new position with the use of screws (Kamath, 2016). After four long, restless, excruciating days in the hospital while being hooked onto an epidural, a urinary catheter, and taking over ten different drugs for pain control (still felt like I was dying from pain), I was finally discharged only to spend the next two months on bed rest. From bed rest, I progressed to using a walker with limited weight bearing on my right leg, then one crutch which was more so used as a cane; later I was allowed to walk a total of one mile on my own and two weeks later I was allowed to walk for however long only if it didn't cause severe pain. I had physical therapy every week for six months total and was finally able to slowly return to physical activities beyond the scope of walking after one year from my surgery. Thankfully, I made a full come back to all the physical activities that I was involved with before my surgery. It took awhile but the surgery has not restricted what sports/activities I can partake in. To this day the lateral side of my upper right hip has nerve damage from surgery, but it has improved over the past three years as I can now sense light touch but not deep pressure. As I mentioned earlier, I do have bilateral hip dysplasia and while the goal of this surgery is to increase the coverage of the femoral head by re-positioning the acetabulum and improve the functionality of the hip (Kamath, 2016), it was also noted that this surgery should allow me to become more dependent on my right hip and hopefully help decrease the chance of me needing to get the same procedure done on the left side. Fingers crossed!

I have attached my X-Ray in case anyone wanted to see where the cuts were made:

Adler, K. L., Cook, P. C., Yen, Y.-M., & Giordano, B. D. (2015). Current Concepts in Hip Preservation Surgery. Sports Health, 7(6), 518–526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1941738115587270

Kamath, A. F. (2016). Bernese periacetabular osteotomy for hip dysplasia: Surgical technique and indications. World Journal of Orthopedics, 7(5), 280–286. https://doi.org/10.5312/wjo.v7.i5.280

Sink, E. (n.d.). Periacetabular Osteotomy: An Overview - HSS. Retrieved December 1, 2019, from Hospital for Special Surgery website: https://www.hss.edu/conditions_Periacetabular-Osteotomy-PAO.asp