The diagnoses & therapy

First off if you are not the medical type and pictures of surgery gross you out, you might want to skip this post :)

The only information that we knew for sure going into surgery is that my labrum would need repaired.  From there it was a guessing game until Dr. Byrd got in there to see what what going on.  I was hopeful that would be all that he found, but unfortunately it turned out to be a lot worse than I even thought.  

First off here is the tear in my labrum:

The left is how they entered the joint and the right is the actual tear.

The next picture is of the significant damage to my articular cartilage.  This caused them to do a procedure called a microfracture.  On the left you can see the damage to the cartiliage.  From there they drill into it to promote blood flow to the area.  The body will form whats called micro cartilage.  This isn't as strong as the articular cartilage but it helps reduce the chance of arthritis down the road.

The need for this procedure has been down for the count longer than I expected.  Instead of the hopeful 4 weeks on crutches with weight bearing, I am now on crutches for at least 8 weeks with minimal weight bearing.  I can only put 30lbs of pressure on my foot as I walk with crutches.  That pretty much means I can graze my heel and toe to the ground with my crutches but that's about it.

The final part to my surgery was to grind down the head of my femur to help with the FAI.  Smoothing out the bone will help prevent tears in the future. The left is the before, the right is the after.

I didn't quite process this information until I met with Dr. Byrd on Thursday.  As he was talking me through what they did and why, he just kept shaking his head saying "I don't know how you were moving around, this was significant damage."  In a way it made me feel tough, but in another way it made me scared for the recovery ahead.  I know I am in good hands and if I listen to the doc and therapist (stop laughing the people that know me too well) that I will recover just fine.  It's just going to take patience, some more patience, with a side of patience.

I ended up with 5 incision holes, on Thursday they took the big bandage off and now I just keep band aids on them until I get them out next week.  Here is the hip post-op:

I met with the physical therapist Erica on Thursday after seeing Dr. Byrd. She gave me a set of 12 exercises to do twice a day, on top of the therapy I will do with my PT at home twice a week.  It felt good to get my legs moving, but I was extra cautious so I was glad I worked with her.  She taught me to stop BEFORE the pain, which is tricky to figure out.  The first rep you almost have to find where that pain starts and then stop short of it.  It's different for each exercise and each day.  I can tell I am getting more range of motion with each day that I do the exercises which is good.  I have my first PT in Columbus on Monday.  Overall I left Nashville feeling prepared for the journey ahead.  Everyone in Dr. Byrd's office was so nice and helpful, I definitely made the right choice.