This continuing story is that of my daughter, whose hip is pictured in the X-ray at the top of this page. She continues to face pain and more medical procedures than many people her age. I write this in celebration of her.

I have seen you face profound trials for more than twenty years. You stood up and walked when the laws of physics and the rules of anatomy said you could not. You learned to walk four times when most children only have to do it once. You proved yourself academically. You made good and loyal friends. And now you are standing at what might be the beginning of the last battle you will do with a hip you didn't ask for, but were given anyway.

In February of last year you had your annual check-up at  the Shriners Hospital where you have been treated since the age of 3 for a condition called developmental dysplasia of the hip. These convoluted words serve to describe the ugly truth that you were born without a fully formed left hip. The doctors pronouced you good to go and you were sent on your way back to university to study, to learn, to improve the world and yourself.

Part of your quest was to get healthy, exercise, lose weight and take charge of yourself and your journey. You began a regimen of good food, plenty of exercise and walking up and down the hill to classes. You spent the summer helping youngsters enjoy and thrive in a university vacation program, spending your days teaching mathematics to middle school-age girls and encouraging them to become the smart, capable women they had a chance of becoming. I remember you calling me with excitement when one of your students wrote you a note, in several shades of colored pencil, to let you know how much she enjoyed the class and how much more fun math was because of you. A shining moment and unforgetable.

Then the pain began. Soon over the counter pain relievers did no good. You called and said that it was time to go back to the hospital. Something wasn't right in your hip. We made the pilgrimage to Shriners once again. The doctors looked, X-rayed, examined your diminishing range of motion and then sent you for an MRI scan at another hospital.

The next appointment was with another Shriners surgeon who decided that reshaping the head of the femur would be just the right thing to do. You burst into stunned and silent tears. This was much more radical than what you had anticipated. From the earlier appointment, you had understood that what you were facing would be an arthroscopic procedure to manage the cartillage in the joint, removing some that was in an awkward position and causing you discomfort. Now you were being told that you'd have a large incision, the hip would be dislocated and your bone would be shaved and filed and reinserted into the acetabulum.

After considering it, after having the surgeon sketch a rudimentary drawing of a hip on the paper covering the examining table, after voicing your concerns and your desire to just walk without pain, if that was the recommendation, you decided, then that is what would happen. You scheduled the pre-op appointments around your school schedule. We made plans to visit far-off family before the surgery date and flew across the country and back. You went for a full day of tests, X-rays, gait mapping by use of sensors stuck to your hips, knees, feet. You looked like a character from Tron.

We checked you into the hospital on a frigidly cold December day, just before the first of the year. As always, the Shriners did so much to make you feel welcome. Teddy bears were waiting on the bed. A custom pillow case was made just for you. There were warm, cozy fleece blankets that you could take home after the procedure. And the nurses brought in a rollaway bed for me to sleep on that night. We settled into the routine of hospital life. We took a short walk to the large, airy playroom located in the center of the square of patient rooms and played games. We watched some cartoons. The surgical Resident came and did an examination, talking with you once again about the details of the surgery and answering the few questions that were left to ask. You went into the shower to prep for the next morning's surgery and then we tried to get some sleep.

 An appointment was made for the next week to follow up. You and he would talk then about whether to go ahead with the surgery. Time seemed out of joint. The letdown was palpable. You had done so much mental preparation for the surgery, the recovery and the rehabilitation that to change the plan now was like standing at the doorway with a parachute on and having the pilot abruptly slam the hatch shut.

We went home and you began in earnest to research the best possible solution for a hip that no longer worked except to give you pain every time you moved.