By Madeline Sharples

In all the years my husband and I have been traveling we have never had to cancel a trip. Nor had we ever even considered buying trip insurance.

That is until this past November. For months, we had planned to take a tour of Israel and then go on to Istanbul, Turkey and Frankfurt, Germany. This time, with our travel agent’s urging, we decided at the last minute to take out insurance to cover the Israel tour portion of the trip. It was too late to buy insurance on our airline tickets.

About two weeks before we were due to depart my husband started having shooting pains down his left leg – a totally different experience from his chronic back pain. Through the years he has been able to manage his back pain with two Advil tablets a day, assisted by his regular gym workouts, Pilates stretching, and a weekly massage. But his usual routine did nothing to manage this new pain experience.

As the time for our trip got closer, we both started to panic. Going on such a vigorous trip would hardly be any pleasure for me if my husband couldn’t walk, and it certainly wouldn’t be fun for him if he were constantly in pain.

So he decided to see his orthopedic doctor. At that appointment the doctor took an x-ray that showed my husband’s left hip was the problem. There was no more cartilage – just bone-on-bone.

Well, this doctor, not prepared to talk surgery just yet, gave him a cortisone shot and ordered a MRI. The shot that came with assurance its effects could last one to six months stopped the pain for all of two days. And the MRI reconfirmed the poor condition of his hip. As a result his doctor gave him three prescriptions: 800 mg ibuprofen, oxicodone, and a six-day supply of cortisone to be taken by mouth. He also prepared a note advising my husband not to travel because he couldn’t guarantee he’d be pain free during our three-week trip. By the way, my husband got very sick to his stomach after one dose of the oxicodone and never touched it again.

Needless to say, we canceled our trip later that day. We also decided to get a second opinion from another doctor regarding his now pending hip replacement for two important reasons: this first doctor didn’t perform the anterior minimally invasive hip replacement surgery, and he performed all his procedures at a hospital where my husband and I both had had uncomfortable experiences.

And I’m glad we did. About two weeks later – the first appointment he could get – my husband saw the surgeon who successfully did his partial knee replacement a few years ago. This doctor reconfirmed the need for hip replacement, and he assured us his procedure would be minimally invasive. They set a surgery date for four weeks later.

In the meantime, my husband did his normal schedule – working as an engineering consultant, regularly going to the gym, and getting his massages – while he managed his pain with several doses of 800 mg of ibuprofen a day.

However, once he inched closer to surgery time he had to stop all blood thinning drugs – the ibuprofen and his usual one-a-day dose of another blood thinner that he takes to ward off a repeat of Atrial Fibrillation – a rapid heartbeat condition. He went off both these drugs five days before surgery and started taking Thamadol – which took away his pain for so long and so well, he began to wonder why he needed a surgery after all. I had to keep reminding him what the x-rays showed and what kind of pain he was in without any pain medication. With that he went to the hospital on surgery day ready for the procedure he definitely needed.

The surgery is now over. It was a success with absolutely no complications. And since he had a spinal, he experienced no wooziness afterward. All that’s left is getting mobile again through a series of cold and compression therapies, physical therapy, and at home exercise. We expect he’ll be back to normal – pain free and ready to travel again – within weeks.

I’ll keep you posted on that.