Last summer, on a trip to Topsail Beach with her family, Mary McVicker was looking forward to splashing in the waves and enjoying the sunshine. But a growing discomfort in her hips was making the short stroll to the water nearly unbearable.
“I had difficulty just walking to the ocean,” she said. “I thought I had pulled something, so I just tried to take it easy. I made it through the rest of the trip, but with a lot of pain.”
After returning to her home in Erwin, she visited her primary care provider and described her symptoms. She left with a prescription for anti-inflammatory medication, but found the medicine had little effect.
“It just continued to worsen,” she said. “I found myself having trouble sitting, walking, and even sleeping.”
Still struggling, she was referred to Harnett Health Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine. A cortisone shot provided no lasting relief, and when her imaging revealed irreversible bone degeneration on both sides, it was clear that both hips would need to be replaced.
“I was initially very scared and nervous,” she said. “But at the same time, it was a relief that there might be an answer to my pain.”
McVicker is younger than the average hip-replacement patient, but with a family history of joint issues, she wasn’t totally surprised by the need for surgery. And she felt much more confident about things after talking with her orthopedic surgeon, Bikram Grewal, M.D.
“He has a very calming demeanor,” she said. “He is very kind and compassionate and was very easy to talk to about what was happening.”
Her hips were replaced in two separate surgeries, the first of which took place just before Thanksgiving. She put her husband in charge of the holiday cooking and focused on the daily exercises she’d been taught to help speed her recovery.
“I went from walker to cane within a week,” she said. “It was not easy or fun, but I did it.”
Before long, she was doing something surgical patients rarely do: looking forward to another surgery. At her six-week checkup, she asked Dr. Grewal how soon she could get the other hip replaced.