It's a God thing...

Some people contribute good things to luck. Others say that the stars aligned just right. Me? I say, it's a God thing. I love to look back at my life and see God doing his thing.

Take for instance, this whole surgery business. The way I've gotten from where I started back in October 2008 to where I am now has definitely been a God thing. Here's my story...

It all started back in June 2008 at Relay for Life (Go Team Lawnscaping!). It was my responsibility to walk for my team for an hour at a time a couple of times during the night. I'm not sure how many miles I ended up walking that night but around 4 a.m. I began to have hip pain. It gradually got worse and worse until I had to stop walking due to the pain. I thought this was pretty weird because I had never felt this type of pain before and certainly not in my hip. I was a bit tender for a few days following Relay but I didn't think a whole lot of it.

In August we decided to take the girls to the NWW Fair. After walking around the fairgrounds all day, the sharp pain in my hip came back and by the time we walked home, I could hardly lift my leg high enough to step up to the curb on the sidewalk. This pain lingered for a few days as well, but never really went away. It would flair up while I was sitting on the couch, laying in bed and just sitting in chair. If I changed positions it would ease for awhile. I wasn't in agonizing pain, mind you, but on a scale of 1 to 10, I was constantly at a 4 or 5.

My dear husband got tired of me complaining of my pain all the time so he suggested I see a doctor and get it looked at. At this point I was sure that there was nothing really wrong with me and that perhaps my spine was out of line and it was throwing my hips out of whack. So I decided to see a chiropractor. My chiropractor was very nice and helpful but didn't hesitate to tell me that if my pain didn't decrease after a couple of visits, he probably couldn't do anything for me and I should go to a specialist.

Sure enough, my pain did not subside so my chiropractor referred me to a muscular-skeletal specialist - we'll call him Dr. X. Dr. X said that he didn't think my pain was joint pain, he was sure it was muscular but he sent me for an x-ray anyway. The x-ray came back and Dr. X said the x-ray tech didn't see anything really abnormal in the x-ray but did think that I may have pelvic scoliosis. I'm not even sure if Dr. X even looked at my x-ray. Dr. X then referred me on to physical therapy because, as he said before, my pain was muscular. Right.

So off to PT I went. I was evaluated by a wonderful physical therapist that did an entire hip evaluation and came to the same conclusion I had. It's not muscular. She then told me that Dr. X had ordered 8 sessions of PT but since my pain was not muscular, there was no reason for me to return to her. At this point I'm feeling just a tad bit frustrated with Dr. X. Fortunately for me, God was doing his thing. I received a voicemail from the lovely physical therapist later that day. She said that she spoke with an experienced PT in her office and he subtly suggested I seek a second opinion and referred me to Dr. Thorpe.

My insurance does not require that I have a referral from a MD to see Dr. Thorpe so I was able to get into see him fairly quickly due to a cancellation. Dr. Thorpe pretty much did the exact same evaluation as Dr. X and then retreated to his office to look at the very same x-ray Dr. X had supposedly looked at. I waited patiently in the exam room until Dr. Thorpe's nurse came in and said that he would like me to come into his office because he would like me to see my x-ray.

I walked into his office and there on his computer screen was an x-ray of some poor sap. This poor sap's x-ray looked as if there were some hip issues going on. The name on the x-ray was one I was very familiar with. The poor sap's name was my own. I took one look at the x-ray and said, is that normal? It certainly did not look like what I thought a normal pelvis should look like. This pelvis looked a little bit crooked. Dr. Thorpe said that he knew right away what was wrong with me. He said it was hip dysplasia. My childhood ailment had reared it's ugly head once again. He said that any x-ray tech should have been able to see the problem and Dr. X should have caught it, too. Sigh.

Dr. Thorpe then explained the options I mentioned in my previous post. Surgery or live in pain and slowly wear away the cartilage in my hip and need a total hip replacement by age 50. He explained that this was a specialized surgery and a surgery that he did not perform. He said that there are only about 12 surgeons in the U.S. that will do this surgery and my heart sank. 12? You mean one dozen? In the entire U.S.? Oye vey. Then Dr. Thorpe told me that he knew of someone that performed the surgery. In fact, they used to be colleagues and as another added bonus, the surgeon works in Tacoma! His name was Dr. Mayo and I decided right then and there that he was my new best friend. I couldn't believe it! God and his things. :)

This is turning into a very long post and I'm not even to the good part yet! Oh well, if you've been able to stay with me this far, you can make it to the end. Go eat a quick snack or something. I'll wait.

It took me awhile to get into see Dr. Mayo because in my opinion, Dr. Mayo has an awesome schedule. Well, it's awesome as long as you aren't a patient trying to get an appointment. He only works on Tues., Wed. and Thurs. Maybe I'll pitch that schedule to my boss when I return after surgery. Anyway, I went in for an evaluation and a whole slew of new x-rays and he confirmed what Dr. Thorpe had said. I would need surgery. Keri, Dr. Mayo's medical assistant and right-hand gal, explained that she would pencil me in for March 2009. Unfortunately, Keri had some bad news for me. My insurance most likely would not approve my surgery. To make matters worse, the approximate cost of this surgery is $100,000. Gulp. Keri said that she had recently submitted two other requests for this surgery for two different patients and they were both denied right away. They had appealed both of them but only one of them was approved. So my chances were 50/50.

It took awhile for my claim to be submitted to the insurance company due to the holidays but not long after it was submitted, I received notice that it was denied. Keri had already prepared me for this so I knew that the plan was to appeal the decision if and when it this happened. The appeal process took a little longer than I had expected but late last week I received two letters in the mail from the insurance company that were post marked within a couple of days of each other. I opened the older of the two first and it was a letter stating that my original claim had been denied but they had received an appeal from Dr. Mayo. I was expecting this letter. I then opened the second envelope and inside was a letter that stated that benefits had been extended for my POA. I think I read this letter over about 10 times before it started to sink in. We won the appeal! I was shocked!

Really, this post is getting too long! I think I'll close on that high note because there still are a couple more low notes until we end on the final high note.

Until tomorrow,
Kari