Curiosity is a natural thing

It's a natural curiosity to know why I limp, and of course NOW you can't ask me, ha ha (after my last FB status and conversation)!  I wish it was as exciting as surviving a train wreck or as heroic as having served in the armed forces (are women allowed to fight yet?), but this is the boring, and long-winded, truth:

I was born with congenital hip dislocation, which means my left hip was dislocated when I was born due to a misshapen hip socket.  The doctors were able to re-locate the hip joint, but did not or could not fix the socket deformity (I've been told that had I been born 10 years later, they could have fixed everything 100%).  "Congenital" means I was born with it and it probably developed like that in the womb.  Sometimes these things happen, and it's nothing to do with anything my mom did or anything like that.  It's amazing to me the process ever works at all! (the process of developing a human body)

Anyway, the malformed hip socket causes the hip joint to rest higher than my right hip, which makes one leg longer than the other, and thus, I limp.  Also, because of the weird socket and hip placement, my gait is not normal.  In addition, I'm missing some of the important cartilage needed for proper joint function, and it is wearing down over the years.  It's like the ball and socket are grinding against each other without any lubrication.  It does this in everyone over time, but the process in mine has been accelerated.  So it causes arthritis and bursitis, and can be painful, but the pain can be managed.

When I was 11 years old, I had surgery on my right knee.  I can't tell you the technical term, but they "scraped the growth line" from that knee so that leg would stop growing in the hopes that my left leg would catch up.  I think that helped, as in, I think the length discrepancy is less than it would have been.  The discrepancy obviously still exists though.  (and there is your explanation for the scars on my right knee)

The pain comes and goes, and has everything to do with whether I'm doing strength training or not.  I need to keep those ligaments and tendons as strong as possible so they can do their job in supporting the bum hip.  Right now, I am not doing my part.

Being pregnant with the twins and the spreading of the hips and the weight they have to support, along with my age, has made the hip pain noticeably worse.  Sometimes I am not just limping due to one leg being longer than the other, but due to actual pain.  Again, the pain can be managed, and I often forget to take anything.

Because of the wear and tear on the hip, I was told as a child that I would have to get hip replacement surgery by the time I reached 30.  I am now 42.  I've talked to several doctors about it, and b/c the wear and tear is not too bad yet, relatively speaking, they want me to wait as long as I can, as long as we can manage the pain.  The reason why is because hip replacements do not last forever (people usually get them when they are way older), and we want to limit the number of surgeries I'll have to have.  Makes sense to me.

Anyway, this is why I get bummed when I have to explain to people when I'm not prepared to do so.  It's not a simple explanation.

Writing this makes me want to get a handicap parking pass, since I am limping and all!!  Also, I need to work out again.