I’m happy to share that my total hip replacement was a success! I had the surgery on Tuesday and was home Wednesday afternoon. My first home physical therapy session was Friday and he cleared me to walk the cul-de-sac. All the pre-habilitation has paid off!
Out walking the cul-de-sac.
Thank you to everyone who has sent well wishes and flowers and text messages. They are very much appreciated and each one brightens my day.
So, it turns out that my right leg was 1.5 centimeters shorter than my left leg. Over time, with the cancer eating away at my hip, the socket flattened out. The top of the femur also flattened out. It was months in the making so I didn’t necessarily notice the leg difference. It feels weird now to have both the same length – the right feels longer than the left.
He put a ceramic socket in and attached it to the cement/hardware that he put in a couple of years ago. My hip is not strong enough to have the socket attached to the hip bone, like in a normal hip replacement.
The top of the femoral head is metal (titanium I think). When he was putting it in my femur cracked (again, weak bones) and so he had to wrap some wire around it, kind of like a wine barrel. Overall he said the procedure was good and doesn’t expect any kind of complications with the healing.
Ann came out and was my caregiver for which I am extremely grateful. Maddy took the day from school to come to Denver and wait with Ann during the surgery.
The weather has been good and so I’m looking forward to walking outside. My PT comes again on Monday and I’ll be looking to walk longer. The cat is happy that I’m spending a lot of time in the recliner! On Monday I’ll get back to working, probably from my recliner!
I’ll have a check up in 2 or 3 weeks. I’m still planning to go to Belgium with Maddy for a breast cancer symposium later in September. The work must go on!
I also have a PET scan mid-September to see if the cancer is stable or growing. Keep those fingers crossed! 🤞
Happy end of summer everyone. It’s been a good one for me all things considered. I had some work travel and also some fun personal travel. I was in Wisconsin with Evelyn and Maddy to visit family and shortly after that we took a family vacation to Kauai, Hawaii.
The Nepali coast. You can only see this area by foot, boat or aircraft
Kauai was beautiful as you might expect, it is called the Garden Island! We had a grand time. I was not able to do all the things they did with hiking and surfing. I did mange to read two books and get through a full season of a Netflix series. Those are things that an are tough to do in daily life.
My cancer is still here of course, just hanging out. I had a PET scan in July and it was a bit “brighter” than the previous scan. What does that mean? Could mean that the bones were healing (growth) or it could mean that the cancer is growing. Confusing? Absolutely!
My tumor marker numbers (taken via blood work) have been pretty reliable. The higher the number the more active the cancer. Over summer, they had been creeping upward a bit. But….the most recent blood work saw them drop back down.
So, my oncologist decided we would repeat the scan in 2 months instead of 3. I am scheduled for a PET scan mid-September. After that we will determine if we should switch medication (progression) or stay the course (stable). We talked about what is next….a different kind of chemo. There is the possibility of getting into a clinical trial which I will try to do. More on that later when we get to that point. It is good to have options. As I’ve mentioned many times before, there are limited lines of treatment. Once I run through them all, then that is it. So, we want as many options as possible. Adding in clinical trials is a way to increase the number of treatment lines AND help advance scientific research.
In the meantime, I have this fracture starting in my acetabulum (extending from the socket of my hip) extending upward into my hip. The femur connects with the fracture when I step, causing a fair amount of pain and discomfort. I continue to walk with a cane to relieve the pressure. I actually wore out my first cane and had to buy another one!
Tuesday, September 3 (the day after Labor Day) I will have a full hip replacement. I’ll stay in the hospital for 2 nights and then recover at home. Glen has some international work travel so Ann has kindly agreed to come out and help me. I’ve been told by numerous people that recovery is not difficult. I’ve been working with my physical therapist on some pre-habilitation to make sure I’m in the best possible place. In addition to the PT exercises I continue to walk daily. I’m up to 8000 steps a day which I think is pretty good.
I did learn what it means to have a full hip replacement. If you are squeamish you might want to stop reading here!
They cut off the top of your femur and replace it with an artificial top. It could be metal or ceramic or plastic. Your bone is hollow and so they basically hammer the artificial femur top into your bone so it stays. They also put something in where the socket is. I’m not positive how that will be attached but likely with special cement. Apparently the material of the femur and the new socket are not the same material, it is rare for a surgeon to use a metal-on-metal replacement.
This image shows the various parts and how they fit together.
This image is pretty self-explanatory. The material for the socket and femur head will be TBD. My surgeon said he will be doing a posterior approach which might take a tad bit longer to recover from.
I am cautiously optimistic that this will go smoothly and I will be up and about in no time. My surgeon has green-lighted me to take an international trip 3 weeks after my surgery so he thinks the same thing apparently!
A few fun photos from summer. Missing here is Maddy’s first day of senior year, visit to Wisconsin, and many walks and lunches with friends.
Onward!
Red Rocks to see Santana. Amazing!We did a private air tour of Kauai which was great except that Maddy got motion sickness. Preseason game of Broncos and Packers. I can always rely on my good friend Amy to get me out and cheering for the Broncos!
This morning was my last radiation treatment. The purpose of the radiation is to knock down any cancer that might be lingering in my hip and pelvis. The radiation does not cure my cancer.
Overall the radiation experience has been pretty straightforward. I only had 10 sessions and I haven’t really noticed any side effects. Fortunately, the treatments are quick and I live pretty close to the cancer center so the impact to my daily routine was minimal.
Radiation is done one person at a time and so you don’t interact much with other patients. I did get to know my 2 technicians relatively well. Interestingly, both of them were here on assignment (one from Tennessee and one from the Caribbean). The cancer center does not have enough full time local employees and so they contract health care workers from other parts of the country. This is not a new phenomenon, it’s been happening a lot since COVID not just here but across the country.
Did the radiation help? It’s too early to know. There won’t be a clear, obvious signal. If my cancer become stable again then, yes, it probably helped.
So I’m “done” with radiation. When I arrived, the technicians greeted me with “happy graduation day.” When I finished, the nurse I met with to ‘discharge’ me handed me a certificate of sorts congratulating me on finishing radiation, signed by all the staff. It was a lovely gesture. After I met with her, I cried.
I shed tears not because of the kindness of the radiation staff or for finishing radiation. I cried because I know this is just one small blip on my road of trying to keep this disease under control. I’m not “done” with cancer. I haven’t really graduated to anything. I don’t feel like this venture into radiation is anything more than documenting and checking off a procedure.
I know it’s ok to cry about this. I feel sad knowing the reality of my situation. I let tears fall until I got to my car. I composed myself and drove home. I have things to do today and I’ll tuck this into the back of my mind and get back to living.
Hope you have plans to live big today too.
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See my day-to-day living with MBC on Instagram: @nottodaymbc Sciency-cancer stuff on Twitter: @dcharlevo
I got a call late Monday (yesterday) saying my insurance approved the treatment plan, so in I went today for my first dose.
As my kids would say when they were younger “easy peasy lemon squeezy”. At least this one was. 15 minutes from when I walked in the door to when I left.
Two things stuck out to me.
The first is that it sounded exactly like when you get x-rays of your teeth at the dentist. Except, it lasted for like 20 or 30 seconds. Not gonna lie – that was a little unnerving.
The second was that they radiated the “front” of me and then the machine spun around the table and the radiated the “back”. This tripped me out a little because that radiation was traveling through the table into me. That hit differently. This is some powerful stuff.
Of course I knew this. At the same time, I go through most days with stage 4 cancer compartmentalized, ideally in the back of my mind. This made it come screaming front and center.
Tomorrow my appointment is at 8:45 am. They’ve already closed schools across the front range area due to a winter storm so there is a good chance I won’t make it. Not to worry, I have more appointments in the afternoon for regular oncology check ins and it sounds like they can squeeze me in for radiation in the afternoon. All the appointments are in the same building.
I’ll leave you with this wintery scene. We are expecting anywhere from 4-12” inches by tomorrow mid-morning.
Happy 2023 everyone! I hope your holiday season has been exactly what you needed it to be. We stayed home and enjoyed each other’s company and brought home this little guy from the Humane Society to live with us.
Meet Toulouse – he’s 4 and the sweetest guy! He’s made himself right at home and we are all head over heels for him.
My hip stabilization procedure was December 12, just over 3 weeks ago. This morning I had a post-op appointment. Everything looks fine. I’m healing as expected.
It’s a bit frustrating to not heal faster. The surgeon commented that right now I’m in a period of time where the recovery slows a bit but our expectations do not. He thought that I was handling it better than most patients so that was nice. I’m trying to give myself a little grace, but it’s hard. I want to get out and move!
It was rather shocking to see the imaging taken just after the procedure.
The cancer is basically eating away the bone. For the surgery, they went in and filled in any cavernous areas of my hip with cement. They also added 2 screws that act like rebar in cement to hold it in place. The surgeon said they were surprised to see so much cavernous area and they put in a lot more cement than they were anticipating.
View of my right hip from behind. The dark area is cement. Within the cement two reinforcing screws are visible.
So, I told him that my pain was legit! He found that humorous and agreed that it was legit.
The image is of my right hip, looking from behind. The dark area is all cement. You can see the screws as well. Insane. It’s a bit sad too because it means that the medication was not really stopping the cancer from progressing. I’m hopeful that the combination of the new meds I started last summer and radiation I will be having next week will knock down any active cancer.
Tomorrow I have an appointment to get palliative radiation set up. They will plan everything out and then I’ll go in for 10 doses of ☢️, daily starting January 9. The actual radiation treatments should be quick.
So, the new year is bringing with it new treatments. Here’s to hoping they get everything stable. I’m also hopeful that 2023 will bring more advances in science that will provide more options for future treatment.
Many people have asked, I finally have a confirmed surgery date of Monday, December 12.
The plan is to have a procedure that should help stabilize my hip and pelvis. It will be done in Denver as out patient surgery and should only take 1-2 hours. I should be home that afternoon. One of my sisters is coming to help me.
I don’t need anything at this point. I don’t know how long the recovery will be; I’ve been told I should be up and about very quickly.
Later next week I have a consultant with a radiation oncologist. I will have some radiation to the hip later in the month just to kill off any pesky cancer cells that might be hanging out.
I appreciate all who have reached out. I hope to catch up with many of you who are local for coffee or a meal.
Thanks everyone!
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Cancer life on instagram @nottodaymbc
My monthly oncology appointment last week was fine. We just keep rolling along. Medications all the same.
Fulvestrant (a SERD that inhibits estrogen from feeding the cancer, 2 shots a month) Ibrance (A CDK4/6 inhibitor that attacks cancer cells Lupron (A monthly shot that puts me into menopause) Zometa (A quarterly infusion that strengthens my bones)
I mentioned briefly that my hip has been bothering me, so much so that I purchased a cane to help me walk.
This is my “fancy” cane. Lovely fleur-de-lis in white on black. It’s collapsible and comes with a bag so I can fold it up and carry it in my handbag.
I can’t walk unassisted, basically. I don’t want to continue to live like this because my quality of life (QOL) is not great.
So, I went to see an orthopedic oncologist in Denver.
I learned that the cancer has compromised my pelvis right exactly where my femur touches it. So, it’s painful whenever there is pressure or force exerted on it.
Dr. Lerman is in Denver and developed a novel approach to helping stabilize the pelvis of people with cancer. Rather than do a full hip replacement, he and Dr. Brown developed a surgical approach that will relieve my pain, take only a couple of hours of surgery, and have minimal recovery time.
I’m very glad that this looks to be an option. At the same time, I’m reminded that while my mind wants to move forward with life and do all the things….my body is riddled with cancer that is dictating everything.
I’m grateful for the access to care that I have. It’s also a struggle mentally and physically.
Thank you all for your support and checking in on me. I post about cancer stuff on this instagram account: @nottodaymbc
Life As I Know It 