This long road to surgery started last October. I went on a hike with some coworkers and came back in slight pain. My hip was hurting and wouldn't stop, making me limp for almost a week. Then I tried running, felt something pop, and after I stopped running the pain was horrible. So I did the smart thing and went to the hospital.
Short side note, in Korea you go to a hospital or a small clinic if you have a problem. Even a small doctor's office in the US would be considered a clinic or specialized hospital in Korea.
Since I didn't know exactly what was wrong or where to go, I went to a hospital with an International Clinic, meaning it had people who could help me and who spoke English. So after meeting with the doctor two times, he finally told me what was wrong: I had FAI or Femoroacetabular Impingement. It means the head of my hipbone has extra bone on it which can catch the soft tissue and cartilage around the hip joint and damage it. It explains why I walked a little bit funny (rolling my foot and my toes turned out) and why my hip would pop sometimes. We talked about options and the best was to have surgery as soon as possible. So we scheduled it for around Christmas last yer... Only to discover I didn't have enough money saved up. A surgery on insurance with no time in the hospital in the US? Around $5,000. Same surgery in Korea with a few days in the hospital? Around $2,500-3,000.
So after speaking with the surgeon I decided to take it easy and just hold off on the surgery till Christmas time this year. I've had a few set backs over the year, pain when I sleep on one side, pain from sitting cross legged, and even a weekend spent on crutches after trying to walk from walking a lot and then walking from the subway station up a ton of stairs to try and take the gondola to Seoul Tower.
Fast forward to September. I was having some more pain and figured it was time to see the surgeon again, only to have him say I needed an MRA before they could schedule surgery. A procedure that would cost $850 WITH insurance.... AND if I got one now, I would need another one closer to the surgery. They knew I couldn't have the surgery until the week of Christmas and I told them I couldn't afford the MRA twice, so they rescheduled me to come in on the 21st of November for an XRay and scheduling the MRA.
Fast forward again to last week. I went to see the doctor and he had a bit of good news. After looking at the XRay from last year and this year, he noticed no additional bone growth on either hip, meaning after the surgery, I hopefully won't have any problems down the road! The bad news? They couldn't schedule the surgery till after the MRA, they can only do the MRA on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday afternoons, and the soonest they could see me would be December 9th. I was starting to freak out a little because of the timing thing, but after talking with my boss I said okay, I would get the MRA on the 9th. Only to call back later and learn that they then wouldn't see me about the results till the 12th and there was a possibility they wouldn't even be able to schedule me on the days I was available.... In other words, working at my school was making it extremely, extremely difficult to schedule this surgery.
After a little bit of crying over the frustration of not knowing, I finally did as someone suggested and called another hospital. This second hospital is a university hospital who actually has a pretty good orthopedics department as well. So I'm going in to see them on Thursday, We're going to see if they can do the MRA any sooner or if they will be willing to schedule the surgery before the MRA or... something... It may come down to just having both hospitals on standby, getting the MRA on the 9th, and seeing who can fit me in!
So in conclusion-
The bad: This is a TINY bit stressful. And by tiny bit I mean very. I don't want my hip to hurt anymore, I want to be able to go hiking again, and the pain has gotten bad to the point that I can't even do my exercise of walking for an hour without feeling like my hip was gonna kill me. But because of teaching, which I absolutely love don't get me wrong, I may have to hold off on this for another year....
The good: If I hold off for another year and get into a public school, I'll have more vacation time! I'll also have even MORE time to save up money, which would be nice. And I can use the money I've saved up to do a few things over Christmas vacation that I've been wanting to do.
I'll keep you all updated as more happens!! ^^
Short side note, in Korea you go to a hospital or a small clinic if you have a problem. Even a small doctor's office in the US would be considered a clinic or specialized hospital in Korea.
Since I didn't know exactly what was wrong or where to go, I went to a hospital with an International Clinic, meaning it had people who could help me and who spoke English. So after meeting with the doctor two times, he finally told me what was wrong: I had FAI or Femoroacetabular Impingement. It means the head of my hipbone has extra bone on it which can catch the soft tissue and cartilage around the hip joint and damage it. It explains why I walked a little bit funny (rolling my foot and my toes turned out) and why my hip would pop sometimes. We talked about options and the best was to have surgery as soon as possible. So we scheduled it for around Christmas last yer... Only to discover I didn't have enough money saved up. A surgery on insurance with no time in the hospital in the US? Around $5,000. Same surgery in Korea with a few days in the hospital? Around $2,500-3,000.
So after speaking with the surgeon I decided to take it easy and just hold off on the surgery till Christmas time this year. I've had a few set backs over the year, pain when I sleep on one side, pain from sitting cross legged, and even a weekend spent on crutches after trying to walk from walking a lot and then walking from the subway station up a ton of stairs to try and take the gondola to Seoul Tower.
Fast forward to September. I was having some more pain and figured it was time to see the surgeon again, only to have him say I needed an MRA before they could schedule surgery. A procedure that would cost $850 WITH insurance.... AND if I got one now, I would need another one closer to the surgery. They knew I couldn't have the surgery until the week of Christmas and I told them I couldn't afford the MRA twice, so they rescheduled me to come in on the 21st of November for an XRay and scheduling the MRA.
Fast forward again to last week. I went to see the doctor and he had a bit of good news. After looking at the XRay from last year and this year, he noticed no additional bone growth on either hip, meaning after the surgery, I hopefully won't have any problems down the road! The bad news? They couldn't schedule the surgery till after the MRA, they can only do the MRA on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday afternoons, and the soonest they could see me would be December 9th. I was starting to freak out a little because of the timing thing, but after talking with my boss I said okay, I would get the MRA on the 9th. Only to call back later and learn that they then wouldn't see me about the results till the 12th and there was a possibility they wouldn't even be able to schedule me on the days I was available.... In other words, working at my school was making it extremely, extremely difficult to schedule this surgery.
After a little bit of crying over the frustration of not knowing, I finally did as someone suggested and called another hospital. This second hospital is a university hospital who actually has a pretty good orthopedics department as well. So I'm going in to see them on Thursday, We're going to see if they can do the MRA any sooner or if they will be willing to schedule the surgery before the MRA or... something... It may come down to just having both hospitals on standby, getting the MRA on the 9th, and seeing who can fit me in!
So in conclusion-
The bad: This is a TINY bit stressful. And by tiny bit I mean very. I don't want my hip to hurt anymore, I want to be able to go hiking again, and the pain has gotten bad to the point that I can't even do my exercise of walking for an hour without feeling like my hip was gonna kill me. But because of teaching, which I absolutely love don't get me wrong, I may have to hold off on this for another year....
The good: If I hold off for another year and get into a public school, I'll have more vacation time! I'll also have even MORE time to save up money, which would be nice. And I can use the money I've saved up to do a few things over Christmas vacation that I've been wanting to do.
I'll keep you all updated as more happens!! ^^
"If I hold off for another year and get into a public school"
ReplyDeleteWait, does that mean you're staying for another year?
Send lots of good vibes and wishes your way! *Hugs*
ReplyDelete