Crazy 2 1/2 hour wait to see Dr. Helfet at HSS today. Had a nice conversation with a man from London who got called in before I could find out what he was there for. On the age scale I was by far the youngest for a while. Every now and then a young person would come in and you could feel the older patients wonder and concern at us babes. Turned out Dr. Helfet was seeing 82 patients in one day. Is that physically possible? By the time I left there were people waiting out in the hallway.
But the good news is that he agrees with Dr. Buly's plan! I have coxa valga (on the left above) and because of the cartilage deterioration on the femoral head he said that the PAO was not the right surgery because it doesn't address that issue the way the FO does. He certainly thought that if I was ever going to have a PAO I would need the FO as well. So in his words this was a good step one, to have the FO first and that it might preempt the need for a PAO at all. He even said that a regular PAO might not be the right one to have ever, that the acetabulum was retroverted and so if I ever had one done it would have to be a reverse PAO, but he seemed to think that because of the cartilage situation, and the fact that, in his words, I was 33 (regardless of their brilliance, none of these doctors can keep my age straight. One of them kept telling me I was 35. Have they no decency? Must they continue to age me?), that the whole 9 yards (PAO/FO combi pack) was better suited for someone younger (and he didn't mean just by a year) who didn't have the cartilage complication that I do.
So, full steam ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the raised toilet seat of my near future:
Dignity. Always, dignity.
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