A couple people have asked me for an update on my hip situation, and until Monday afternoon I didn't have much to say. My hip has been about the same. Some days it hurts a lot; some days it's OK.



I've wrapped up physical therapy for the moment while I was waiting on my appointment with an orthopedic surgeon.

I was at the beach last week, and running on the boardwalk is one of my favorite things to do. I tried not to let me hip stop that too much. I jogged a very slow mile my first day there.

My hip hurt, so I walked the rest of the time.



The remainder of my time at the beach, I didn't really attempt much running. Instead I stuck with walks on the boardwalk. I guess it was better than nothing, but it kind of broke my heart.

I had my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon Monday. I'm not sure how to describe how it went. There were some good things and some bad things.

On the positive side, the doctor said he'd like to try to avoid surgery. That was one of my biggest fears, so I was happy to hear that.

On the negative side, he also couldn't quite figure out what the problem was. He looked at my MRI and said there could potentially be a small labrum tear. But he also said I don't exhibit the common sides of a labrum tear. That's exactly the same thing my PT said.

So for now, he wants to try a couple of things to see if any of them help.

First up is a month-long course of a prescription strength anti-inflammatory. It's a drug that was originally released to treat arthritis. While on this drug, alcohol is 100 percent forbidden because there could be some nasty interactions/potential liver failure.

The timing of my month of sobriety totally sucks. I'm not a big drinker in the first place, but I had a whole bunch of events already scheduled this month where it would have been nice to be able to grab a drink.

I go back to the orthopedic surgeon in a month to see if this medicine helps with anything. If not, we could move on to things like cortisone injections or another MRI with some contrast/dye to see what those pictures look like and if anything comes back more clear.

Then of course, there's always surgery. For obvious reasons, I'd like to avoid surgery. I'm really hoping this medicine does the job.

With all my hip stuff going on, I realized I never posted my book recaps from May or June, so I wanted to catch up and update you on what I've been reading the past two months.

I did a decent amount of reading in May, but in June I only got through two books. I had a lot going on last month that made it hard for me to sit and concentrate on books.

All that said, I read some great books in the last two months. Seriously Darktown and When Breath Becomes Air are probably two of the best books that I've read all year.


On to the recaps!

May Books

Darktown by Thomas Mullen
Holy crap was this book good. Not only did it have the twists and turns one would expect from a typical crime novel, but it also carried the plot line of the first group of black police officers established in Atlanta in 1948. This group of officers had very limited power, and when two of them find the body of a dead black woman, who was last seen with a white man, they aren't allowed to investigate the case. It's instead turned over to white detectives. Being in the deep South during that time period, you can probably imagine how well that went. This book was excellent as a piece of historical fiction, but I also found the parallels with what's going on today between police forces and black citizens to be particularly striking.

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
I happened to stumbled upon this book at the library and picked it up because the story sounded interesting. The gist is that a descendent of the Bronte family ends up at Oxford and copies of her cousins' books keep appearing on her doorstep. The book tells the story of the girl trying to find out who is leaving her the books. It was fun and pretty easy read -- and it definitely made me want to go back and read all the Bronte books.

The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
I felt kind of meh about this book. I think I thought it would really suck me in because I think Amy Schumer is really funny. While some of her essays hit, others didn't. There were a mix of funny and serious stories, and while I enjoyed getting to know more about Schumer, I didn't totally love the book. I've read a bunch of books by women comics (Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler) and I think this book fell above Poehler's, but below Tina and Mindy's.

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
I know this is one of those books that everyone is supposed to love because it has good reviews and all, but I just didn't. It started out really promising, but I could not get into the main character's creepy relationship with a much, much older dude. That pretty much ruined the book for me.

June Books

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Break out the tissues, this true story will break your heart. I basically sobbed my way through the second half of this book. It's heart-wrenching, but so, so good.

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This book had an intriguing premise -- how does a single decision you make impact the rest of your life moving forward. The book followed the main character from that single decision point and each chapter alternated between what happened in her life if she chose option A or if she chose option B. I will say, at first I found the jumping back and forth between story lines to be a bit jarring, but I eventually got used to it. This was a light and easy read. Good for the summer or a day at the beach.

I suppose it's time I actually write an update on my hip situation. I've been putting off writing this post for a while now as I've tried to jump through what feels like a million medical hoops and deal with my roller coaster of emotions about this injury.



I believe we left off after my first dry needling appointment and my upcoming MRI.

I got the MRI done on a Thursday night and had a second dry needling appointment while we waited for the results.

The second dry needling appointment went better than the first. I mean I still got super light-headed, but we got through five whole needles the second time. I think it was two in my butt and three in my hip flexor. Man did I feel it when she was working out those knots and trigger points.



Dry needling certainly helped my hip feel looser, but the pain wasn't necessarily going away.

I was pretty impatient waiting for the MRI report mainly because I wanted to know what was going on. My doctor called me on Wednesday with the results.

And the results were of course zero percent straightforward.

The MRI found a couple incidental things, which may or may not be contributing to any of my pain, and it found something that maybe suggested a labrum tear.

The exact wording was "truncated appearance of the anterior margin of the acetabular labrum where a tear is suspected."

Basically that means the radiologist couldn't actually see a tear, but something on the image made him think one was there. That could mean I moved when the image was being taken or it could mean I have a torn labrum or it could mean who knows what. Super helpful really.

As you might be getting from this post, I am frustrated. I've lost count of the number of times I've cried frustration tears in the last week, but it's been a lot.

I've had this pain in my hip for more than three months now, and I've been actively working on making it better for two months. But I feel like I'm no where closer to knowing what's causing it or how to fix it.

My next step is to meet with an orthopedic surgeon, so that he can look at the MRI results, perhaps send me for some other tests and come up with his own diagnosis. That appointment is in three weeks.

I miss running. I miss being able to do normal things like get out of car without being in pain. I'd really like some answers.