The Diagnosis

When I was pregnant with Dane I expected my biggest complaint to be my back. It was pretty bad with Will and I expected it would only be worse the 2nd time around. To my surprise, my hips were my biggest discomfort, and that was putting it lightly. I specifically remember thinking that my weight would be too much for my hips and that at any moment they were going to break or crumble apart. I knew that probably wouldn't happen, but that is literally what it felt like. Very painful. After Dane was born they got much better. But they didn't go back to normal. I guess I learned to live with the discomfort, plus I was still breastfeeding so I wasn't sure if some of those hormones that change your body during pregnancy might still be around so I was just being patient. Plus pregnancy, childbirth and toddlers have the ability to age a person so I thought maybe these were the aches and pains that go along with getting older. Then about 6 weeks ago I fell down our stairs. Limping around for weeks on end I realized that my hip pain was only on my left side. Strange I never noticed that before, but it was very apparent once I was having the knee pain on that side too. I decided to make an appointment to have them both looked at. Going to the Dr. isn't an easy task for me. With Luke working in Ohio all week it means I either have to take the little ones with me (who are we kidding!), schedule my appointment last thing on a Friday (good luck with that) go while I'm working (taking at least 2 hours out of my work day) or find someone to watch the boys. All of these factors make putting off doctor appointments inevitable. On my way to Bloomington I was thinking to myself how ridiculous it was that I was going to the Dr and how I knew he was just going to send me on my way with a "Congratulations, it's just what we suspected - you're old! And you've birthed 2 children! So get on out of here and learn to love your new body." So it was much to my surprise that I was quickly shuffled in for 2 X-rays. I was shocked when he put up the X-ray of my hip. I immediately noticed a, well, a something, on the outside of my hip bone. Right where the pain was. It looked like a cotton ball had jumped on my X-ray. I knew that wasn't supposed to be there.





It was even more to my surprise when my Dr. told me he was sending me down for 2 MRI's. He thought that my knee was a torn meniscus and my hip was a calcium buildup, but wanted to be sure. I'd never had an MRI before but as I was filling out the paperwork and checking the "no" boxes for whether or not I was claustrophobic or got panicky in tight spaces I remembered what they were. That huge, loud machine where they slide you in that small hole and you can't move anything, not even your toes, for long periods of time. And I was going to have 2! The Dr. assured me it was nothing to worry about and he would call me that night to let me know for sure that it was nothing. Well of course he didn't call me that night. He called me the next morning and was wrong about both. My knee was a strained MCL, which will heal on it's own. But my hip was a bone tumor! He assured me it was benign (99.9% sure) but it needed to come out asap. The tumor is called an osteochondroma and it's a bone tumor that forms early in life when growth plates shift. Most are 4-5 milimeters (about the size of a pencil eraser) and mine was 6.25 cm x 5 cm (the size of a large plum!) He said it was by far the biggest one he had ever seen, was undoubtedly the source of my pain, and had probably been growing there for 15 years! I was referred to Dr. Murphy, my surgeon, and met with him the next day and we scheduled my surgery for the following week.