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From Marathon Running to Double Hip Replacements and Back: Carrie’s Story

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69 min read
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Summary:

What’s it like to learn at age 41 that you need double hip replacements?  In this inspiring conversation, Cheryl speaks with Carrie, a mom and marathon runner who received the surprising diagnosis of congenital hip dysplasia and osteoarthritis in her early 40s.

Carrie shares how she  managed being a mom to two young kids and returned to her passion of running after undergoing two hip replacement surgeries. Her story emphasizes the importance of getting second opinions, persevering through setbacks, listening to her body and asking for help.

Cheryl and Carrie discuss the challenges she faced and the mindset shifts that helped her return to running, including the importance of “staying in the mile you’re in” and remembering that “the comeback is bigger than the setback.” This episode serves as important representation for those looking for stories of younger or middle aged people returning to their passions after joint replacement surgery.

Episode at a glance:

  • Carrie’s Remarkable Journey: Surviving hip dysplasia, osteoarthritis, and  two hip replacements to become a marathon runner.  
  • Carrie’s Journey from seeking a “miracle cure” to accepting the need for surgery
  • The importance of advocacy and second opinions: While most doctors said she could never run again, Carrier found one doctor who believed she could return to her passion post hip replacement surgery. Her surgeon had done over 6,000 surgeries for hip replacement, with only 3 patients ever returning to half marathons. She and her doctor worked together with the current (very small) set of data to decide what was best for her.
  • The Complexity of Parenting Small Kids while in Pain: Carrie shares the physical and emotional hurdles she faced post-surgery, including the difficulty of explaining her pain and limitations with small children. How do you balance the goal of being honest without giving your children false hope?
  • How Carrie recovered from Surgery: the power goal-setting, listening to her body, and pacing in Carrie’s recovery.
  • Community Support: Cheryl and Carrie discuss how a strong support system helped Carrie stay motivated and focused.  
  • Mindset Matters: How Carrie developed resilience and adaptability in the face of limitations.  
  • Takeaway Message: Embrace challenges and pursue passions despite obstacles! 

Medical disclaimer: 

All content found on Arthritis Life public channels was created for generalized informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Episode Sponsors

Rheum to THRIVE, an online course and support program Cheryl created to help people with rheumatic disease go from overwhelmed, confused and alone to confident, supported and connected. See all the details and join the program or waitlist now! 

Speaker Bios:

Carrie Bradshaw

At age 40, Carrie Bradshaw’s world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with bilateral congenital hip dysplasia & severe osteoarthritis and was told by doctors that she would need double hip replacements. Carrie is a young mom to two kids (Theo and Poppy), a former elementary school teacher, and a passionate marathon runner & Boston Marathon finisher. Eighteen months after her double hip replacement surgeries, Carrie is back to doing what she loves – running – and will be running the iconic Boston Marathon in April 2025 with her new, titanium hips.

Cheryl Crow

Cheryl is an occupational therapist who has lived with rheumatoid arthritis for nineteen years. Her life passion is helping others with rheumatoid arthritis figure out how to live a full life despite arthritis, by developing tools to navigate physical, emotional and social challenges. She formed the educational company Arthritis Life in 2019 after seeing a huge need for more engaging, accessible, and (dare I say) FUN patient education and self-management resources.

Episode links:

Full Episode Transcript:

Cheryl:  00:00

I am so excited today to have my fellow arthritis friend and friend in having the same name as a celebrity, Carrie Bradshaw! Welcome.  

Carrie:

Hey, Cheryl Crow, how are you?

Cheryl:  00:12

I’m good. How are you?

Carrie:  00:14

I’m doing great.

Cheryl:  00:15

Yay. We met in September 2024 at the Healthy Voices conference, and that was an amazing experience. But first of all, can you just let the listeners know where do you live and what is your relationship to arthritis, or what kind of arthritis do you have?

Carrie:  00:30

Sure. I live in Houston, Texas. I’m a mom with two kids. I have an interesting story. I don’t have rheumatoid arthritis. I have, I had osteoarthritis in my hips. I was diagnosed at the age of 40 with something called congenital bilateral hip dysplasia, which I never knew I had. And eventually, it’s the leading cause of early osteoarthritis in young adults. So, after that diagnosis, I was in a lot of pain. I had to undergo two hip replacements the following year. So, I am now a bit of a bionic woman.

Cheryl:  01:07

Yeah, I mean, and I would — that this is something we have not covered on the podcast. So, far, there have been a couple of people who’ve had joint replacements, but none from my memory, which my memory is faulty sometimes, but with from hip dysplasia and resulting osteoarthritis. Can you tell me a little bit about, like, what led you to get that diagnosis? Like, what were you feeling? What were you doing before that? Because you were pretty active, right? You were running, and yeah. 

Carrie:  01:37

Yeah. So, my whole life, I played sports. I know, like you, we both played soccer. I played through high school. I was a marathon runner. I’d run Boston Marathon in 2000, the Boston Marathon in 2015, I’d run 10 marathons, probably 50 or 60 half-marathons. It was, it’s a huge passion. And basically, yeah, like in my late 30s and around 40, I was starting to experience hip pain, mainly in my left hip. And I kind of thought it was normal at first, but it got progressively worse, to the point where my leg literally locked up on a run one morning and I couldn’t walk home. Yeah, and I was still like, okay. I thought maybe something was broken. 

So, fast forward, I went and saw a specialist, and they took some imaging, and said, “Carrie, did you know you have something called hip dysplasia?” And I was like, what is that? You know, I don’t know what hip dysplasia is. And they basically said, what hip dysplasia is, I was born with it, congenital hip dysplasia. I want to say I read a statistic, 1 in 1000 babies are diagnosed with it. A lot of times it goes misdiagnosed, like in my case, and your hips don’t form correctly. So, my hips never formed correctly. The sockets are too shallow for the hip. And what happens then, over time, your hips, you could guess, grind all over each other, and it causes arthritis. And so, by the time I went into surgery, it was already bone on bone. They said it was nasty. I have pictures. But yeah, it caused a lot of pain and arthritis, and it was basically a big curve ball in my life.

Cheryl:  03:20

I mean, I can’t imagine. So, all those marathons, the majority of them you ran before, and the half marathons, before your diagnosis, right? 

Carrie:  03:27

Mm-hmm.

Cheryl:  03:28

Yeah. 

Carrie:  03:28

Before kids. Before kids, I had my first son in 2016 and I ran the Boston Marathon in April 2015 and then another marathon in May, and then got pregnant with Theo, and I did run during my pregnancy with Theo. And I did have pain that was really bad. But I was told it was probably because we didn’t know I had this issue. It was we, were told, I was told probably round ligament pain. So, I would live around — I think it was starting; basically, I think the arthritis was starting. So, I continued to run even after pregnancy, but it was still, it was starting, the hip pain was starting, and it was just progressively getting worse over the next few years, to the point where I couldn’t run, or I couldn’t even basically walk around like the block. 

Cheryl:  04:11

And then, you got — what year did you get your diagnosis?

Carrie:  04:15

It was in 2021. I was 40 years old. It was in the — it was right after school started. It was the morning that when my hip locked up, and then I went to the doctor, got into a really good doctor, a couple months later. 

Cheryl:  04:29

Wow. And, you know, just a little educational tidbit, because I know a little bit about hip dysplasia, or congenital hip dysplasia, as an occupational therapist. And also, Charlie, my son was breeched, a breech baby. And what they do with all breech babies are screened for hip dysplasia because his head wasn’t down in the pelvis, his head was up high, and then his butt and hips were in my pelvis. So, his legs were stuck up a little bit at first when he was first born. And that’s really common for breach babies. But then they screen right after birth, and then again, like, I forget how many months to make sure. And you can correct for it if you catch it early, but if you didn’t, in your case, over time, it had so many years to evolve. And it’s kind of incredible that you were able to do so many marathons and run so much before it was causing problems, you know. 

Carrie:  05:20

Right, right. Well, looking back actually, and I talked to a, I saw several doctors. I did have pain my lower, I had a lot of lower back pain growing up. And I didn’t — and hit some, you know, like, glute and back pain. And I didn’t realize this at the time, but it was probably linked to the hips being deformed, basically, and my back was having to compensate. I had severe lower back pain, and I would, like, I would get, like, tight hips and SI and so I was, I don’t know, it went on for years, but I just kind of thought that was normal, on par for the course, you know, for running. But yeah, that wasn’t until my actual hip locked up that I realized this is in my hip. Something’s up with my hip, not my back. 

Cheryl:  06:03

Oh, fascinating, yeah. And I remember, this is one of these funny memes I’ve seen online. But it really relates where someone’s like, “How much pain are you in?” Like, a guy, I don’t know, like a guy in his 30s asks his friend, “How much pain are you in right now?” And he goes, “Oh, the usual amount.” And then, other friend’s, like, “The usual amount is zero.” And like, oh, like, so many of us who have pain just get used to it. You think that’s just normal.

Carrie:  06:24

Right. Right. And then, my husband, I mean, I don’t remember how he phrases it exactly, but he said, he was telling somebody, yeah, I remember this was, like, 10 years ago, Carrie would just, like, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up and I’d be doing these, like, weird, crazy stretches off the bed to get some sort of relief in my back and hips. Like, my legs would be contorted in different directions, like it was, it was, like, it would bother me. Just, I needed a lot of deep massages and, like, super deep pressure. And they, yeah, I don’t know it was obviously, you know, manifesting or presenting itself early on, but it wasn’t until, you know, 2021 where everything you know came crashing down, basically.

Cheryl:  07:08

I’m so sorry. What, yeah, how did you feel when you got that diagnosis? 

Carrie:  07:13

Well, at first, I was kind of in denial. They told me that they thought at first they didn’t see the osteoarthritis yet on the imaging, they missed it. So, they, and I didn’t know what dysplasia was. And they’re, like a lot of people have a torn labrum and dysplasia, so we put you in PT. There’s, you know, surgery. I’m kind of glad, looking back that I didn’t know the extent of how bad it was going to be right away. It would have happened eventually, but they told me to try PT, and maybe I’d be able to, you know, it would get better. But it wasn’t getting better with months of PT; I was still in severe pain. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong, because the MRI, the angle of the MRI, for some reason, didn’t show the extent of the arthritis. 

So, they had a bunch of surgeons all looking and doctors all looking at my imaging, being like, what is going on with Carrie? Because she is still having like, it felt like my bones were broken in my left leg. And so, they sent me to another specialist who specializes with hip dysplasia. And I went around to a few more specialists, did my research, interviewed several doctors. And finally, you know, found the one that I eventually went with, Dr. Scott. But so initially, when they told back to your question, when they told me, I had hope. I was in denial. I had hope that with PT, that I wasn’t going to need any surgery, it’s not that big of a deal. A lot of people have, you know, this, and don’t have any problems. I didn’t realize what I was really in for, and maybe the Universe and God were protecting me from it because it was just my way to start processing it all.

Cheryl:  08:42

And that’s super common, like, just denial, or kind of, you know, optimism, a form of optimism, right? Being like, okay, well, we’ll gonna figure it out. And, okay, I’m validated that there is something wrong. You know, this isn’t just me running too much. Like, you know? 

Carrie:  09:00

A funny thing — it’s not funny. But one interesting thing is, one of the surgeons I saw told me that, he said, “Carrie, most people would have been in the ER 10 years ago with your pain,” and I’m sure you can relate with your arthritis pain. And he said, “You’re,” you know, once they realized what was going on, he’s like, “Most people would have been in here 10 years ago.” But, you know, we’re so used to just putting up with it and thinking it’s somewhat normal until, like, something literally breaks or it’s so bad where you can’t ignore it anymore. 

So, yeah, he thought, too, the reason why it didn’t come on sooner, because I had been, I was an athlete, I had built up the muscles and the strength around my hips and my back and my glutes, so that was able to sort of protect them and maybe kind of buy me a little bit of time before, you know, everything that, you know, the straw that broke the camel’s back that day when everything, you know, I couldn’t walk, and everything came crashing down. But yeah, he said a lot of people probably would have been in there 10 years ago. 

Cheryl:  09:56

Yeah. And in a way, it’s like a testament to the positive effect of exercise to some degree that, you know, people with arthritis are often tired of hearing how important exercise is. It’s really important for us to arthritis and inflammatory arthritis, like, you know, study after study after study. When I say inflammatory arthritis, that’s like the autoimmune kinds, like rheumatoid, psoriatic, ankylosing spondylitis. And I think in your case, I would imagine that if you hadn’t exercised so much, that you may have been presenting into the doctors earlier with a lot more pain, but we’ll never know, right?

Carrie:  10:29

Well, it’s funny, too. I keep saying funny, but one thing that’s frustrating, and I know you’ve talked about it before with your diagnosis of arthritis with other guests is when I found out, like, once I found out that I was going to need, going to need my hips replaced, and was on that path, so many people, you know, a handful of people would just say, “Oh, it’s from your running. You have this from your running.” And I’m like, no, it’s actually I was with this condition. And I didn’t, I couldn’t get into it with them. You know, they wanted to believe what they wanted to believe. But they were quick to, like, they said, blame it on my running. When, really, I think a lot of times, in this case, that actually helped protect my body and my hips. And, you know, let me make it to age 40.

Cheryl:  11:14

Yeah, running does not cause someone to need double hip replacements from osteoarthritis at age 40. There’s no evidence that that — but I think it has to do with this, yeah, this phenomenon that many other guests have also shared where people in your life, they want to make, they want the world to make sense. We all want the world to make sense, right? Like, I share this example, my mom has given me permission to share this that, you know, she said a few times, “Oh, I know,” you know, kind of, “You might have gotten rheumatoid arthritis because I drank Diet Coke when I was pregnant, because we didn’t know back then that diet soda,” who, I don’t even know if that’s true that it’s bad for pregnancy. But, you know, you want there to be a reason, right? Yeah, and, or maybe it was, “If I had just gone vegan or something, I wouldn’t have it.” But then the day health conditions, they sometimes have no reason, they just happen in your case, or it’s a reason that you had absolutely zero control over that you had hip dysplasia. You were born with it. You didn’t, like, fail at trying hard enough not to have it, like.

Carrie:  12:19

Right. Right. And I tried everything I could to try to make it go away. I kept believing there was some miracle. I did something called PRP, which is a process where they inject, they take your blood and spin it all around in like a centrifuge, and then inject it back-to-back into your hip or whatever area on your body needs it to help sort of restore the cartilage damage or help. And it did buy me a month or two. I did it twice. It’s really expensive, painful, but I was just trying everything I could before I actually went the surgery route. 

And also, a lot of doctors, it’s kind of controversial that I’m running again, which we’ll get to a lot, you know, that’s a part of, huge part of my life and my, you know, that I didn’t know if I went under this surgery, went under these surgeries, if I would ever be able to run again, which is my passion. And a lot of doctors said absolutely not, like, it’s over. So, I had one surgeon tell me, after interviewing several, like, “Carrie, assuming everything goes well with your recovery, I have no problem with you trying to run again.” He said he had seen such great results in the new technology for the prosthetic joint is so good, but he feels confident. 

And it just depends, obviously, depending on he’s not making me any promises, but he wasn’t shutting that door for me. And it gave me that hope. Because backing up a little bit when I was going through this, like, process, trying to do everything I could to avoid surgery, hoping there would be a miracle, I was like, also, I felt like it was, I was in, like, no matter what I did, I was in a crappy situation. It’s like, I’m in pain, trying to manage all of it and go through all of this stuff, or I do the surgery and I still can’t run, and I’m in a lot of pain for the recovery. 

Cheryl:  14:03

Yeah, yeah.

Carrie:  14:04

So, it was just like, it was just, like, a lose-lose situation. But yeah, luckily, I found my miracle doctor who was able to back it all up with research, and he was the one who gave me hope.

Cheryl:  14:16

That’s incredible. 

Carrie:  14:17

And here I am, yeah.

Cheryl:  14:19

That, and I want to, I want to get more into that for sure. First, I do want to talk a little bit about what it was like to get double hip replacements at age 40. Because I remember when we were talking at the conference or the event, you were saying how, you know, it was, there was — I mean, anything you want to share about it is great. But also, the specifically what it was like to kind of look through the pamphlets and try to find stories, like, wanting to know if someone else had been through it. And every story you could find was people who were like, in their 70s, which not to be ageist, it’s just representation matters, right? Like you wanted to know — yeah, tell us about that. 

Carrie:  14:55

So, that was another thing. I couldn’t find anybody like me. So, I would just, I’d be up at night with, as you guys probably know, with arthritis pain, it would wake me up. I would have a hard time sleeping. And I was just depressed and anxious. And I would be like, searching for somebody like me to be like, all right, is there somebody, an athlete who’s young, who can go back to doing what they love to do, whatever sport that is, or running for me, long distance running, and I couldn’t find anybody. All I saw was like, you know, just normal everyday people, mostly in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. And so, when I went in for my pre-op, so when I decided to go through with this, that’s a whole other story, but when I finally was ready, and it was like, I’m okay, I’m doing this, it was a week before — which I’ll get into the story about that, what made me decide to go do it. 

I had to go in for pre-op. And at the hospital, and I mean, it’s kind of funny. I just remember being in there, and there were all these, like, 80-year-olds and me for the joint replacement in the joint replacement area at the orthopedic hospital. And, you know, they were, I felt like so out of place, right? Like, here I am with the marathon, trying to go back to running marathons. And they’re like, what are your goals? What are your goals? We had to talk about what our goals are with the surgery. And, you know, they’re like, do you want to go back and play with your grandkids? Do you want to get on the floor and do you want to garden? And I’m like, I want to go back and run the Boston Marathon. Is that possible, you know? And I just didn’t know. 

So, going into the surgery, I didn’t have somebody, you know, that I could look at and be like, okay, they did it like that. Everything was uncertain. And that was one of the scariest parts about going through with this surgery, is I didn’t know. The surgery in itself scared me, the pain, the recovery, just getting your leg basically chopped off in a construction zone, all of that scared me. But then, I didn’t know if I didn’t know if I was even going to be able to do what I love.

Cheryl:  16:43

Still, wow, that is so, so heavy. And so, it’s no wonder that, yeah, that it was a huge decision whether to have a surgery at all. So, you said that you want to, yeah, what would you, what are some of the things that you were going back and forth on when you were deciding about surgery? 

Carrie:  17:00

Well, I went, I interviewed a lot of surgeons. That’s my main piece of advice we can talk about at the end. But I went through, I interviewed like, oh, Houston has the Med Center. We have a lot of great doctors and surgeons here, so I’m really fortunate for that. So, I researched, did a lot of research. I even talked to one out of state, especially ones that work with athletes, and met with a lot of surgeons, did my own research. And when I finally met my doctor and asked him, I expected him to say ‘No’ about the running. I was like, I was just like, I had that. I got like, a little piece of hope, like, are you serious? Like, and then I wanted him to explain, like, why are you saying I can do this? But other doctors are saying I can’t. And he was able to explain it anyway. 

He, at my appointment — so, this happened all over about a year. At that appointment, I kept trying PRP, and he was like, “Why don’t we just, why don’t we just put a surgery on the books for this Fall? I book up really fast. Let’s just get something booked.” I put it down for November. I met with his assistant. And he was like — I didn’t think I was really going to go through with it. So, he’s like, “Just get it on the calendar. And if you don’t want to do it when the time comes, don’t. But book up, and if you decide you’re ready, then we can do it. No pressure.” So, did I really think I was going to do it in November? No. It was November ’22. This was back in June or July. So, fast forward. It was Halloween, Halloween night. So, about a week I was scheduled for November 7th. It just happened, what, like, a week ago, and I was scheduled for November 7th. So, on Halloween, October 31st, I was trick or treating with my two kids and my husband, and I couldn’t walk around the block. My leg was in so much pain, my hip. So, I tried, and I limped around for probably 10 or 15 minutes. 

And then, I was like, I can’t do it. I have to go home. I was in a skeleton outfit ironically and I can’t, I had to, I had to leave my family and go home. And that was the moment of clarity that I needed. As depressing as it was, and as painful as it was, that was my moment where I was like, all right, I’m doing it in a week. I gotta. I’m going to have the surgery. I can’t even trick or treat with my family. Forget the running. I can’t even trick or treat or walk down, you know, walk down the block with my kids, go to the park, whatever it is. Like, what am I doing? This is the answer I need. I needed, I needed an answer. I felt like it was my sign from God. So, a week later, I was like, all right, I guess it’s on. So.

Cheryl:  19:28

Your kids were four and six, right? 

Carrie:  19:31

At that time, yes, they were four and six, first grade and pre-K. So, yeah, first grade and pre-K. 

Cheryl:  19:38

That’s just a lot to have to be handling on top of being a mom. And, you know, I think that’s just, I mean, what can you say? It just, it’s just a lot. It’s not a simple decision. 

Carrie:  19:51

Right, right. And then, just having two, they don’t really, they didn’t really understand, especially my youngest. So, I had, we don’t have any family here. There’s my mom flew down for one week when I had to use a walker, but my oldest cried when he saw me, like, you know, he didn’t know what to expect. And he sees his mom, who seems, quote unquote ‘normal’, like nothing’s wrong. And then, he goes to seeing me living, you know, walking around with a walker, and he was really scared and cried. And, you know, there’s a lot of hands-on parenting going on with those ages. And luckily, I had my husband, but he has a job, and so it was really hard to navigate all the logistics in the parenting part during the recovery. 

Cheryl:  20:31

Yeah, I mean, there’s this pressure that you feel, and this is how I felt with my only, I have one child, and I got in a car accident when he was two-and-a-half on top of, like, the arthritis stuff. So, it was also, like, a kind of acute injury on top of multiple, you know, chronic things. And you just, you have this urge — at least I did — to tell them, “Oh, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be all better.” But I also, like, for me, sorry, not to make this about me, but to be like, I don’t want, I also don’t want to give him, like, a false sense of, like, this life includes problems that are solvable and problems that aren’t. And it includes things that get better and things that don’t like. And I don’t want to say that every owie always gets better, because we know it doesn’t. Unfortunately, that is not how life goes for everyone. So, it’s just like, how do I keep my commitment to being honest? 

Like, I’m so honest to a fault. I never even told him, I never told him Santa was real, like, from a young — I was determined not to say that, because to me, that’s a lie. That’s a whole other thing. So, I’m not gonna lie to him. I’ll say the Santa is like a superhero. Some people believe he’s real. I believe it’s a character people dress up as, you know, you can make up your own mind, you know. So, I’m like, I’m not gonna tell you that it’s gonna get better. I just, I can’t lie to you, but I also like want to say it’s probably, I ended up saying it’s probably going to get better. I think it’s going to get better. No one knows. I don’t know. What do you think?

Carrie:  21:50

I understand why you do that, and I do that to an extent, too. I mean, my kids still believe in Santa, and I’m trying to, but my oldest is going to be pissed when he finds out.

Cheryl:  21:59

I’m not judging. I’m not judging. That’s just my choice. Yeah.

Carrie:  22:02

No, no, no, and I get it. Because, you know what, my oldest, Theo, he is very like logical, very black and white. Once he finds out — I’m surprised right now he’s still, but we probably have one more Christmas where he’s going to believe — once he finds out. I’m scared that Theo is going to be so mad at us. He’s like, you guys, he’s going to be like, “You guys lied to me,” you know, and so, I get why you’re doing that. You don’t, you want to build the trust so that when something comes up, they can really trust that you know what you’re saying. But hopefully the Santa thing isn’t going to do that. But, I mean, it’s a kid.

Cheryl:  22:34

Yeah, but it’s the same thing. Like, probably a better example related to chronic illness would be like, and this is just, again, maybe this is, like, my little soapbox, but when people, when the doctors tell kids, “It’s not gonna hurt,” like, and like, you don’t know whether it’s going to hurt. Like, I actually once did that to the dentist when they were saying to my son, “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t,”  was getting the X-rays done, I was like, “I’m sorry. He said it hurts. Like he doesn’t lie. Like, please honor,” I didn’t say please honor, but I said something like, I think it does hurt him because he’s saying it hurts. He’s never lied before to us, like, about good for you, no. And I was just like, please don’t tell him it doesn’t hurt when he’s saying it does. Like, you’re telling him that his, like, what does it tell children if we say that you don’t know your body, you don’t know what’s hurts and doesn’t, you know, right? I don’t know. Sorry. I’m like, refraining myself. 

Carrie:  23:29

I get it. I get it and, yeah. Yeah, no, I get it. I think that’s awesome that you are so open with him about it. 

Cheryl:  23:35

But in your case, like, you know, when I had my car accident, there was a standard process of, it hurts a lot at the beginning, and then your body recovers. You know, it gets better, with an acute illness or acute injury, that happens. And with a hip replacement, you know, hip replacement surgery, there is a typical progression, right? It hurts a lot at first, and then you get better and better and better. And obviously, as evidenced by you now, two years down the line, running and doing all sorts of things, it did get better. So, that it is true, that it gets better sometimes. So, how — So, you know, at first, you’re saying, back to your story, back to you, that your kids were like, it’s so true that kids are like freaked out by, like, medical stuff, sometimes equipment or bandages or whatever. And they do habituate to it, though, I will say most of the time they do habituate or get used to it over time, just throwing it out there. But like, there’s lots of people out there who are, you know, power wheelchair users, who have little kids. And yeah, at first the kids are just, like, interested and intrigued and confused. And then, they’re like, oh, it’s no big deal. But how, what was your recovery process, like, from the hip replacements?

Carrie:  24:43

So, the first one was in November, the second one was in April, five months later. But just to add a little funny side note about that, my daughter, the four-year-old, once they got used to it, my daughter thought my walker was the coolest thing. Theo is more sensitive. They called it the bad guy car. So, they would like to push it around and pretend like it was called, like, a bad guy’s car. I don’t know. I just remember that randomly. What was my recovery like? I mean, it was, the first one was great. Basically, the doctor told me for a hip replacement, the full, full, full recovery is 18-months to two years for your body to completely heal inflammation, because basically that prosthetic has to fuse to your bone to the metal. But I was feeling better after, what, six months, I was pretty much in the clear. 

But you have a protocol. Like, for the first six weeks, they’re strict. You have restrictions like the way you sleep. You can’t bend in certain angles, because what you risk is it going out of socket, and that’s a bad thing. So, you have really, it’s really painful. You have really strict restriction, or restrictions, the first six weeks. And I had the posterior method, which is a little bit of a longer recovery than the other method that goes through the front. And then, after 12-weeks, once you get to 6-weeks, you can sleep on your side, on your stomach. You know, you have some restrictions are lifted. But once you get to 12-weeks, then you can start walking, jogging. He told me — and you’re still doing PT. And then, once you get to six months, he said I could, because he knew my goals, what my ultimate goals were, to train again for a marathon. Not, you know, go play on the floor with my kids, but that too. But you know. 

Cheryl:  26:20

Of course, you want, yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

Carrie:  26:23

Yeah. Six months, he said. Okay, we did our checkup again. He took the X-rays, and he was like, all right, now you can start, you know, training a little bit harder, because he said that first six months, it’s really crucial for the prosthetic joint to fuse to the bone, because they basically cut your femur and then drill, it’s a construction zone, they drill the titanium stem into your femur, so it all has to fuse together, you know, and you don’t want to compromise that healing and that fusion. 

Cheryl:  26:51

You don’t want to rush the healing. 

Carrie:  26:53

Yeah. Recovery was hard because I’m a mom with two kids, and my husband has, like, a really demanding job that he where he doesn’t get to work from home, and we don’t have family here. So, it was really hard being able to take care of those responsibilities. When I had my mom here for the first week, it was kind of nice. I was like, this is kind of great. I get to hang out here. I’m like, you know, watch my movies, you know, yeah. But I was like, I’m kind of taking it as, like, a little vacation, kind of like when you’re a labor for the day or so before you go into labor. I’m like, this is great. Nobody’s bothering me. So, anyway. But yeah, the hardest part was just navigating it with the kids. And yeah, there was a lot of pain. 

But the second time I had it done, so fast forward five months when I had the second one done, I had a more complicated recovery because the hip flexor tendon, that’s also I found out can happen after hip surgeries. The nurse described it as the tendon got pissed off, and so it was tightened and like it had tendonitis. And I was in so much pain, I couldn’t get out of bed or anything. And so, because it felt like my whole leg might was spasming, my husband would have to carry me. And I still — it was extremely painful, like, crying. I thought something was broken with the hip replacement. I called like, I remember one night calling the emergency helpline at the hospital and being like, something’s wrong. Do I need to come in like I am in so much pain, like crying, you know? And my doctor called me, and he said, “I think it’s, I’m looking at your X-rays, I think it’s the tendon. This can happen.” So, fast forward. I had to, you know, I had a couple relapses with the tendon, but it still bothers me a little bit to this day, that tendon. But overall, like, as far as pain goes, it’s amazing. Like, I don’t have the pain aside from that little bit of that tendon pinching. But, yeah, the recoveries were great. I mean, it was, I couldn’t walk for seven weeks. 

Cheryl:  28:47

So, how did you did you have Home Health, like home visits from PT and an OT to help you navigate any of this? 

Carrie:  28:55

No. I stayed in the hospital for two or three nights, and they did PT there and had the nurses come. But when I got home —

Cheryl:  29:03

When both my parents had their hips replaced, they had Home Health like, oh, sorry, home health nurse, and then maybe physical therapist. So, physical therapy, probably, yeah, but I wonder whether they, because you’re younger, they didn’t think that you needed it, but it’s just such a shame that you had to navigate this all on your own. That’s one of my other soap boxes. Because I’m like —

Carrie:  29:24

Yeah, well, so I stayed — usually people don’t stay in the hospital as long as I did. Wasn’t long, it was a few nights. But my, I think it was a blessing, my oxygen and my blood, my blood pressure dropped a lot, and my oxygen, and so I was fine with it. I’m like, you know, I have these two kids at home. It’s going to be chaos. I feel more comfortable being here at the hospital with the nurses taking care of me before I go home to that situation. But yeah, I went to, I started PT, I want to say it maybe like five or six weeks. 

Cheryl:  29:55

Okay, okay. 

Carrie:  29:56

I had to have somebody drive me. Because I couldn’t drive for at least six weeks on the first one, on the second one, which was my right leg, which the one I drive with, I had to wait longer, because if you slam on that brake or something with your hip, or if something happens, it’s just you’re at a little bit more of a risk for affecting it, you know, affecting the healing. So, yeah, I would have to have arranged drivers, or, like, for example, I would have to try to find somebody to take my son to school and take him home, things like that. I ordered, we ordered a lot of like DoorDash. My husband had works a pretty demanding job, but yeah, during the day, I was kind of on my own, and I would have to get rides to the PT until I could start driving. But yeah, that was the hardest part those first four weeks, I would say, first four or five. 

Cheryl:  30:40

It’s just — and how did you, you know, you are obviously very mentally tough in that, you know you’ve anyone who puts themselves through multiple marathons is, I would diagnose as mentally tough. But, like, how did you — you mentioned how bad the pain was. Like, how did you cope with it? Like, did you do breathing? Did you do visually, like, how do you, or did you just kind of say, just deal, like, I don’t know.

Carrie:  31:05

I kind of, it’s a great analogy to running marathons, actually. Yeah, there were some, I was in a lot of pain, but I kind of, there’s a quote that runners use, long distance runners, and it’s like, stay in the mile that you’re in. Did I word that right? Stay in the mile you’re in. So, if you’re in a lot of pain and you’re doing like, a five mile run, let’s say in a mile three, you’re thinking, “Oh, my God, I can’t make it, you know, to mile five,” stay in the mile you’re in. Don’t think about what’s next. Finish that mile three, just get to mile four. So, it’s, I relate. That helped me a lot mentally. Subconsciously, I used that tactic to help me navigate those first few weeks of my recovery.

 For example, to get out of bed, to go to the bathroom, was the hardest thing, because you can’t move your knee in. If my knee went in a little bit, like with the hip, like trying to scoop myself using my arms out of bed, it would send like a shooting pain in my body. It’s my body protecting me because it doesn’t want to go out of socket. So, basically, every step, every day, was like, okay, just this is the mile you’re in. Or every, I guess every six hours was the mile. Stay in this mile, get through it, and day by day, and then it got into week by week, but mostly day by day. And that’s how I did it. I tried not to think too far ahead and did what I was supposed to do or could do for the day that I was in. But some days were way harder than others.

Chery:  32:29

That’s such a good analogy, though, because I think, like, one thing that my therapist pointed out to me, because I didn’t realize I had anxiety. I thought I was just really good at worrying, like, I’m gonna — when I worry about it, I stop bad things from happening. She’s like, do you though? And I’m like, no. But the thing is, it’s like, anxiety is always about all the things that could happen. It’s about the — or the mind is about the future, you know? And so, you’re in moment, you’re at 1am and you’re in pain, you’re trying to go to the bathroom, and you’re like, well, how am I going to help my kids this morning? How am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? That’s just causing more suffering, versus saying, what’s my job? Sometimes that’s kind of a mantra. I say, like, what’s my job right now? You know, it’s kind of like a reorient yourself to the present moment. And we say things like mindfulness. Sometimes people think it sounds so like, pie in the sky, like I’m peaceful, mindful, meditating on a mountain. No. Like, mindfulness is literally what you’re saying, like being in the present moment, right.

Carrie:  33:26

Yeah. And I kind of another quote too, is, I try to tell myself when I’m overwhelmed, it’s just like everyday stuff is, do the next best thing. Stay in the mile. Stay in the mile that you’re in. Don’t get me wrong, I fail at doing this a lot. But sometimes it works for me a lot, right. Or, like, I was behind the scenes, even though I wasn’t physically able, like, I couldn’t, the kids would come down and visit me in the morning, but they had to be very gentle, you know, because my leg moves in the wrong direction, it’s very — everything was healing, or, you know, very sensitive. There was a lot of trauma. But I still, being the mom, you know, we’re the moms and the type A, I was still like coordinating, even though I wasn’t physically driving them, I was still coordinating and sending messages to my husband or whoever, to friends, making sure they were taken care of, you know. And it was, I felt like I still had to run the ship. I was just doing it from my bed.

Cheryl:  34:22

I love that. And, yeah, well, I think, I think it’s many people who have young kids who end up getting a health condition, whether they had it like I had, you know, rheumatoid arthritis pre-pregnancy, or whether they get it after ,a common trend, a common thing I’ve heard parents say is that my child learned — like, not to say toxic positivity — but my child learned some degree of empathy and compassion from seeing me need help, and it also kind of reinforced, or it can help them forge an identity of like I, you know, or in our family, we are helpful. Like, can you help? There’s like, it’s not the parenting relationship. There’s a spectrum between, like, I’m not gonna like, saying that the child is becoming like, parentified, and that they’re responsible. You’re the parent all the time. But like, you know, we live, we’re humans in a social society. And like, they can help us sometimes, too. It’s not all about them, so. 

Carrie:  35:20

Right. And, no, I think there was a good I mean, there were positive, a lot of positives that came out of it. I mean, that’s a whole ‘nother thing. I think, I feel like I’ve said this before, and I truly mean it, that it’s traumatic and depressing and all the lows and the trenches that my family and I went through before and during and after the surgeries, I feel like I’ve gained more than I’ve lost now that I’m on the other side. My kids, yeah, that was a little bit traumatic for them to see that. And you know, knowing their mom was hurting or was in the hospital, but I love that it motivates me too with my running, that they see me now overcoming that setback, and it’s good lesson for them, you know, that there are going to be, whatever your setback is in life, you know, maybe rheumatoid arthritis, it may be a hip replacement, a broken leg, who knows, a learning disability, whatever that you can, everybody’s going to have something. You’re going to have challenges in life. And I like modeling that you can get to the other side and get through it.

Cheryl:  36:18

Yeah, yeah. That’s, true. That’s true for things like this that have, like, a solution. Like, surgery that works. They also there’s like, another skill to learn. Of like, sometimes we try our hardest and our bodies aren’t cooperating, and when we can find other ways to enjoy life. Like, maybe, I know some people listening, if maybe they have, let’s say, like severe rheumatoid arthritis, where it’s just to the point where it’s there just aren’t any treatments that are working for them. And maybe, even if you used to be a runner, there’s a process where you, like, mourn your, mourn the loss of that, but then discover something else. Like, this is the life we have. So, what can we do? Maybe there’s a new hobby, a new something else that brought you joy, like maybe singing or music or something. And that’s also good for people to say, okay, well, you know, we can, we can pivot. But I’m curious. I know people listening are going to be like, Wait a minute. Okay, so we learn about the surgery. We know that we learn about the immediate, you know, six weeks, six months. How did you get from then, the six months post surgery, to now where you’re able to do these half marathons?

Carrie:  37:23

Yeah. Slowly. I took it, I was, I listened to my doctor and my PT, yeah. So, at six months, six months is the main clearance point. But keep in mind, 18-months to 2-years is the whole. Because I make the analogy, and maybe you can help me think of a better one. I’m like, your body basically is adjusting to two new siblings in your home, right? Yeah, because you got your old ones cut out, and so you’d be surprised, like, even though my hips, now I have these metal, awesome hips, my feet and my shins, your whole walking gait and running gait changes. So, there were a lot of months where my shins would hurt, or my feet, or random aches. Everything’s changing; your whole gait.

Cheryl:  38:02

That’s so true. I don’t know how — I’m trying to remember what it felt like before. I kind of learned all the complexities of human anatomy in my OT program. But, yeah, it’s like every single thing you do with your body, from literal — actually, from before you’re born in the womb, like we’re talking about with hip dysplasia, breech babies — but let’s say from when you’re born onward, that you are developed, your brain is developing a math of where your body parts are in space. That’s called proprioception. Your vestibular system is figuring out your sense of balance. And it’s also your brain, your motor cortex, your sensory cortex, are developing a sense of, like, where your body parts are, what happens when I do this? What, how much pressure do I apply? That’s why babies are often like, they’re trying to reach for something, and they overreach, or they underreach. And then, you have this lifetime, your brain has these, like, very highly developed maps of where your body parts are. 

And all of a sudden, now you introduced this new thing. You’re like, oh, actually.  And it doesn’t have, that metal part in your body, doesn’t contain within it nerves, right? And everything, the nerves and the everything around it are having to adjust and your brain has to make a new map in the same way that somebody with a prosthetic, you know, anything. Well, now prosthetics have become, there’s like, smart ones now that actually do communicate to your brain, but yeah, point being, you had to re — your brain had to remap your body in a way that’s, like, the way I would see it, tour brain had to, like, reconnect to your body, your muscles, and tendons, and joints, which had developed around not only your pre-surgery body, but the fact that you did have hip dysplasia, which is then, quote unquote, like it’s an ‘abnormal’, it’s not the way the human body is ideally balanced, right? 

There’s like a right balance that has evolved over time as humans became went from like quadruped, you know, to like bipedal people. And so, you had, your body had compensated and adapted for the old way. And now it has to develop a new way. And so, yeah, I, honestly, I didn’t think about — that’s me not thinking about it. Well, how that would like affect your running. Yeah, of course it did. Yeah. 

Carrie:  40:08

So, my lower back issue, since I was a kid, you know, that would, looking back, that maybe I had some lower back issues, but looking back now, it’s like, oh, that was because it was compensating. My back had to take over, because my hips didn’t work right, you know? And so, I did still have that, everything still had to adjust after the surgeries, and there was pain in a lot of areas, and that — you have to be, yeah. But now, fast forward, I’ll go back to, you know, how I am, where I am now. But my lower back pain, I mean, I still have some, but it’s essentially gone. I don’t want to say gone completely, but pretty much gone, because now that I’ve strengthened everything, and I have these hips that are working, it took the pressure off my back. My joints are working correctly. 

So, it’s amazing. And it’s one of those things where it’s not like it happened overnight, like severe back pain. It happened gradually. So, it’s kind of, I step back and I’m like, wait, I haven’t had back pain in a while. It’s because these, my joints and my muscles are my hips are good now. I mean, they’re strong, and I’ve built up all the muscles around it. So, now my back is okay. It’s just not like it was, you know, overnight. It’s not like you can, it’s not like you can see it right away, you know. It was something I look back on. I’m like, oh, my back pain is not there anymore. So, yeah, I followed all the protocols. I was in, you know, communication with my PT and my doctor. And yeah, I just, I was very conservative in how I started training again. I started with walk running. And —

Cheryl:  41:37

Wait, what’s walk running? 

Carrie:  41:39

Okay, so walk running. So, basically, instead of just going straight to running, I was on a strict program. So, this works for anybody who, if you want to start running, walk for four minutes, jog for one minute; repeat that a few times. Then in a couple weeks, or a week, walk — jog for two minutes, walk for four minutes, you know, and kind of slowly build up. So, because I couldn’t just start from zero to hero, because all of my, like, we were talking about my joints and everything, and my bones and muscles weren’t used to it, the pounding and how, you know, my gait was off. My gait was totally different. 

So, I had to start very slowly building up to that, to walk running, and then, you know, slowly, just one step at a time. And, you know, distance and speed work eventually. And, you know, the whole time for the last 18 months, I’ve just been also like learning how to trust my body again. Because I’ve been scared, a little scared at times to push it.  I followed everything I was supposed to do. I got, aside from the second hip like, I had a really good, strong recovery. It was painful, but great recovery. No regrets. I still have a little bit of pain in my right hip flexor, but it’s manageable. And I learned a lot from my PT. I try to get massages, you know, every six weeks or so, take care of myself and yeah, just try to be conservative with my training, as far as more days off, running lower mileage. Like I said, I’m trying to figure out what my body can take. And I’m not, you know, I don’t want to push it. I’m a little bit scared still,

Cheryl:  43:13

Yeah.

Carrie:  43:13

Like, how hard to push it.

Cheryl:  43:15

Yeah, yeah. That’s understandable. I mean, I don’t know. Like that, my next question was gonna be about your doctor, like, the surgeon, you know, do they have many other case examples to pull from? So, yeah, they’re like, medicine typically is very like, better safe than sorry. Like, they don’t want to tell you, “Oh, go run a marathon,” if they don’t, like, but someone has, if they don’t have that ‘proof’, quote unquote, from someone else doing it. But if no one’s done it yet, that doesn’t mean that no one can do it, potentially, right, safely. So, maybe you’re going to become the example that changes the practice, potentially.

Carrie:  43:52

Well, he did say he’s done like, 6000 or 7000 of these surgeries he did. He’s amazing, yeah, he’s amazing. He’s incredible. He can’t even comprehend that, right? And he did say he’s had three run half or full, but nobody’s ever run Boston. And Boston’s the one that that’s like the old, that’s like the Super Bowl for runners. That’s in April. And he had a basketball — that was, I needed to hear these stories to give me the confidence and to back up what he was saying, that I could run again. Why, like, why do you think this, if the other doctors are saying ‘No’. And I did end up going back to one of the other surgeons who’s great that I saw before Dr. Stocks, and that doctor had told me no running with your hip replacements, because there they just don’t have enough information and data. He said, like, we were just talking about how runners, if it’ll wear out the prosthetics a lot sooner. 

So, my doctor, you know that the technology has gotten a lot better, but my doctor, Dr. Stocks, and I had the conversation, you know, if he thinks that they just don’t have enough information, but he was like, are you willing to take on the risk? So, I was like 41 and let’s say, hypothetically, they really don’t know. Let’s say these hip replacements last you 30 years. Are you — or 35 — so that would put me at what, 70, 75? Are you willing to take the chance that there’s a chance, if you’re running long distance, it might wear them out sooner? They don’t know. Are you willing to have 20 or 25 years instead of 30 or 35 before you need to get a revision and get it again? Absolutely. Tomorrow’s not guaranteed. I’d rather get 20, 25 years in my life. Do what I love, run again. Who knows what’ll happen? So, that’s the way I view it, you know, and who knows if I’ll even need it. I’m assuming I will, because I got it done at a young age, but I’m fine with that. I’ll be in my 70s, and I want to live these years with my kids. I really want to, I don’t, I feel like I have unfinished business with the marathons. 

It’s something that brings me, it’s just a part of my soul. I feel like I got a second chance at life again, getting this back after it was stolen from me. So, yeah, there is a risk that I will wear down the prosthetic joints, and I think that’s why a lot of doctors are scared to give the green light to their patients. I’ve actually had, through my social media, through Instagram, a lot of people message me around the world who are going through this surgery or who might get it, and asking me, “How are you doing this? My doctor told me I couldn’t,” or, “You’re giving me hope right now that I’m going to be okay and I can do it,” they ask me, you know. So, I’m so glad that I can be — that’s the best thing that’s come out of it. 

Well, aside that I can run again, let’s not lie about that. But, yeah, that’s the second best thing that’s come out of it is that I feel like I can be that person that I was searching for all those late nights and give people that hope. And I always say, you know, this is what I’m doing. I’m glad I can give you hope, like, your life’s not over, but you need to run this by your doctor. I am not, I don’t —

Cheryl:  46:48

Yes. The conditions — and that’s, I think that’s very ethical of you, and that is, like, I think I spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, the promise and the perils of social media and we have to just take both side by side. And one of the downsides is people over generalizing, looking at one person’s story and over generalizing that, assuming that what happened to X person is going to happen to me. And our bodies are different. The conditions are different. Your hip dysplasia affected your body the way it did due to many factors, not just that it was hip dysplasia, but just your height, your genetics, your weight, your activities. Someone else, even at 41, like, same gender, same age, their conditions might be very different, their body shape might be different, their activity levels. So, sorry. This is just rant. You’re so right to say, like, but it helps a patient to know looking like, it just helps to know that even though Carrie’s not guaranteeing it will happen to me, it has happened with one person. Like, she ran a marathon, you know, like, that’s amazing. 

Carrie:  47:58

I haven’t run a full yet. I’ve done —


Cheryl:  48:00

Or a half. 

Carrie:  48:01

Like, whatever, like —

Cheryl:  48:02

To me, I’m like, it’s in the category.

Carrie:  48:06

Right. Right. And they also, it also depends on your recovery. Like, I said, my right one, my second one was different. And your doctor, and the way that they did it. Like, I mean, you don’t, you know, I don’t know your doctor’s technique. Or, like the joints, the prosthetic joints that they use. There is, there’s so much at play here. Kind of like I made the analogy to somebody on social media who was asking about running and what my plan was. I said, look, when you’re pregnant, most people, most if you’re not a runner, you don’t go start running again, right? Kind of like the same with the hip replacement. 

Most doctors now, including my OBGYN when I was pregnant, said Carrie, “You can go run, do what you were doing before you were pregnant.” But if you haven’t been a runner, that’s probably not that ideal time when you’re pregnant, you go start running. Same with hip replacements. Like, not saying you can’t, I’m not saying you can’t go run again after hip replacements, but it might be a while. My body had muscle memory from it. So, that’s why I maybe was able to do it a little bit sooner than other people might be able to. Because I had that experience. It was not like I’m going, like you said, from zero to hero.

Cheryl:  49:11

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, you said zero to hero. I love that. Yeah, the Hercules movie, Zero to Hero.

Carrie:  49:18

Is that the Hercules move? I just love that quote. I didn’t know. Yeah. 

Cheryl:  49:20

[Sings] Zero to hero.

Carrie:  49:22

You’re gonna have to link that. Okay, link that.

Cheryl:  49:27

Yeah, that’s so great.

Carrie:  49:29

I was gonna say, too, though, that like, people that have messaged, one lady — you’ll just find this interesting — like, one lady from these are from all over the world. This one lady, I think she might be in — I can’t remember now. She’s over on the other side of the world, and she was, like, really down. She’s like, “My doctor told me I can’t even, like, sit down or lay on the beach, or I can’t sit in the bathtub with my hip replacements.” And I’m like, wait. Forever? And I go, are you in, like, the initial six weeks, like, with the restrictions? Because, yeah, you can’t, like, move in certain angles while it’s healing. “No, he said, forever.” 

I’m like, why? Like, I didn’t want to make her feel bad. And so, I was like, well, I’m confused. Why? And I just don’t know if some of doctors and other, you know, every doctor, maybe have different training, aren’t as informed with the newest research, or, I don’t know what kind of hip replacement or joint, you know, what she has, but I just thought that was interesting. And then, I have other people who said they, this one man in England who’s awesome. We text a lot. We message each other a lot. We’ve cheered for each other. He said he started running again, slowly, like a couple miles, and he started having severe, I think it was Achilles or shin splints. So, he had to stop. Again, going back to what we said, your body, even though your hips may be feeling fine, your body is still recovering, everything.

Cheryl:  50:50

Yeah, well, I mean, it’s so important to have, you know, I love that you’ve mentioned the word stories a lot throughout this. Like, I think that my brain is always keying in on like key themes, and that’s something I didn’t anticipate, honestly, even being as powerful as it has been, is sharing people’s stories on this podcast. Because it’s so true that, like, it’s such a fundamental need as humans to connect to others and to hear stories, see examples of people living the life that we want, you know. And so, I think what you’re doing and what you’re sharing is is really important, you know.

Carrie:  51:27

Well, thanks. I think so, too. And I think even if they can’t end up doing whatever their goal is all the way right away, I think it’s so important. And I didn’t have a strong sense of hope, because everything was so uncertain, and I didn’t have somebody to look at. But I think it helps a lot mentally for these other people I’ve been talking to, or who are going through, or who will be going through these surgeries, to have that glimmer of hope and to see somebody thriving. Because I feel like going into surgery, it’s so scary. To have that confidence in that hope, I just feel like that’s such a powerful asset to have going under any surgery, you know?

Cheryl:  52:07

Yep, yep. A hundred percent. There’s so much interesting research on mindset in our, you know, mental well-being, and how that affects our pain levels. But just time wise, but we’re both busy moms.

Carrie:  52:23

Has it already been like an hour?

Cheryl:  52:25

Yeah, yeah. But we have a, I think we have a little bit more, just to do some rapid-fire questions. You gave so many great words of wisdom, and I think would you add anything to in terms of giving words of wisdom for someone newly diagnosed, either with hip dysplasia or osteoarthritis? I loved your thought of, you know, stay in the mile you’re in. Is there anything else you would say? 

Carrie:  52:50

Yeah. So, my main pieces of advice are, if you’re having hip pain, do your research. Find not only one doctor, interview a few. Ask questions, bring in your questions. Then, if you do proceed with whatever your plan is, if you want to try PT, find your care team, your find your surgeon, your doctor, your PT, your support team, friends, family. If and when you’re ready, like I was, to go through with the hip replacement or a joint replacement, like I said, interview your doctors and then make your plan. And ask a lot of questions. And yeah, go through it. Have your plan. Have your PT. Have your whole care team ready. Have your support team ready. And take it, like I said, a day and a week at a time. Stay in the mile. Do your PT. Don’t get overwhelmed about, you know, how am I going to be able to do this in three weeks, stay in the day and the week that you’re in and just stick to those little goals.

Cheryl:  53:48

I think that’s so brilliant. I’m going to be saying that to myself, too. Do you have, I mean, this is redundant, potentially. But do you have another favorite mantra or inspirational saying?

Carrie:  53:58

I have a lot. I had to research a lot for that, like, I wanted a lot for myself. The setback is — or, sorry, the comeback is always greater than the setback. 

Cheryl:  54:08

Oh, I love that.

Carrie:  54:10

I actually, I think I posted that the when I posted my first surgery picture. I thought that one was so powerful. And it was like, it’s so much sweeter. The comeback is so much sweeter than a setback. And it makes everything, like, I was a runner, and I always, you know, I never had some huge injury like this that I had to come back from, but now that I’m getting, like, my second chance, like it’s the second chapter of my running life, everything’s just so special and meaningful. It’s like getting something stolen from you, thinking you’ll never get it back, and then you get it back again. It just makes every moment so much more special with these races and like going to Boston, everything is just magnified in, yeah, it just, it feels like the biggest gift ever. And I would have taken it for granted more if I had not gone through this. And it’s made me stronger.

Cheryl:  54:56

A thousand percent. I really feel that way. I mean, my happy place is swing dancing. And I do, yeah, and so, and I love soccer, too. And for many other reasons, I’m not playing right now. But I have been re-engaging with the swing community, swing dancing community, jazz dancing community lately. And this year, and it’s so true. You said, even though pre-diag, I had rheumatoid arthritis when I started swing dancing, but it was really controlled with medication. So, physically, I wasn’t feeling a lot of impacts. I was feeling the impacts in other ways, like financial and insurance and navigating this or that, job accommodations and stuff. But I took, I still took my body for — I didn’t realize I was taking my body for granted. 

Until then, I’ve been through a lot worse kind of body stuff and the health things in the last, you know, 10 years. And that I’m now back to where I feel comfortable dancing again. And I realized I literally wanted to cry, like, going to a live jazz band the other night and dancing with my husband just being like — I think COVID swirls in there too, where it’s like we kind of were shielding for a while, and so we were also, like, took things for granted in that sense too, like, prior to COVID. So, I just so resonate with that. Like, it’s truly, it truly makes you feel when you’ve been through something really hard and you can’t do the activity that you love, it makes it so much better when you’re able to do it again. 

Carrie:  56:26

Absolutely. And I was going to say, remember at Healthy Voices and a month ago at Princeton, you did your dance up there. Yes, it was fantastic. I loved it. 

Cheryl:  56:34

It was so fun. My little yellow basket. I’ll have to put that — I still haven’t uploaded that. I just due to disorganization, so.

Carrie:  56:41

You have got to do that this week. 

Cheryl:  56:43

Yes, I will. Okay. 

Carrie:  56:44

That was amazing. That was amazing.

Cheryl:  56:46

Thank you. Thank you. And do you have a favorite arthritis gadget or tool in your toolbox?

Carrie:  56:52

Yeah, for the massaging, a lacrosse ball. I like to — mine’s a little bit different than yours. When I lacrosse ball, I roll out like my muscle, my calves, and my glutes on that, try to keep my muscles around my hips loose on a foam roller. These are more for running, though.

Cheryl:  57:07

But no, but those roller can help a lot with loosening up the tissues.

Carrie:  57:12

I’d be happy to ever do a video with you and show some people, you know, with rheumatoid or osteoarthritis, some activities or some physical, like, things with the foam roller, or, like, you know, getting some of, you know, loosening, mobility exercises and fascia release techniques. But, yeah, that helps a lot. The mobility and the foam roller and the lacrosse ball massages, like I said, and staying hydrated.

Cheryl:  57:39

Oh, my gosh, yeah.

Carrie:  57:40

I think that for all of us, right? Rheumatoid, everything, electrolytes and water. I need to do a better job about it. I got these big old cups that I put the water in, and I’ve been using a new electrolyte powder that I love called Element. And I love it.

Cheryl:  57:56

Okay. I use Liquid IV, but I know it’s like a lot of sugar.

Carrie:  57:59

I love the pina colada Liquid IV, too. You gotta try the watermelon Element. And just staying hydrated. I think that in getting enough sleep, like, I don’t have anything necessarily physical. Mine is taking care of yourself. The foam, the physical things are the foam roller and the lacrosse ball massages. But drinking your water, getting your sleep, working on your mental health, you know.

Cheryl:  58:20

Yeah. I love that. Same, same, same. Do you have a favorite book or movie or show you have watched recently?

Carrie:  58:27

Okay, yes, so show. Shits Creek.

Cheryl:  58:30

Yes, I’m still finishing it.

Carrie:  58:33

Oh, I love it so much. Okay, podcast, love podcasts, running podcast, but I’ve actually, let’s see. I have a couple pf running podcasts I listened to and Brené Brown. I like listening to her. And then, for books, I actually, through all this hip stuff, my story got set up with an Olympic athlete, Meb Keflezighi. He’s my coach. So, I’m running. I got, I got a golden ticket to Boston. I say golden ticket like jokingly. The hip company was able to get me, fortunately, and they were able to get me a ticket, a bid for Boston in April. So, I’m going to be running the Boston Marathon. Yeah, and they found out about my story. And so, it’ll be super special and emotional. You’ll have to track me, but. 

Cheryl:  59:20

Oh, I will. A hundred percent. Love a watch party. 

Carrie:  59:25

Oh, I would love it. And so, long story short, Meb Keflezighi, he’s amazing. He won the Boston Marathon in 2014 which was the year after the terrorist bombings. And he also, he’s a second he got a silver in the Olympics. He’s a marathon runner, just an all around stand up guy. You should look him up, Meb Keflezighi. Put him in the show notes. But yeah, I actually have it right here. I listen to the audio. Med for mor — or no, not this one. ‘Run to Overcome’. This is his other book, ‘Meb for Mortals’. ‘Run to overcome’. And David, I’m listening to David Goggins’ book. What is it called? ‘Can’t Hurt Me’. Oh, a lot of mental — David Goggins is intense, but he has a great, a great story on, you know, on the first book, ‘Can’t Hurt Me’, and Meb Keflezighi, that’s my coach now. He’s going to be getting me to Boston, so. 

Cheryl:  1:00:13

That is so cool. I’m sorry. I’m so excited. 

Carrie:  1:00:16

You got to follow him. He’s amazing. He’s just a stand up guy. Yeah, and he gets, I got chosen, I got interviewed, and it’s all like I said, some good things, some silver linings came out of these hips. And he’s one of them. And I got the gift of him, you know, being by my side as I make it back there. And so, he’ll be there when I cross the finish line. It’ll be awesome. 

Cheryl:  1:00:35

That is so special. I cannot wait. Okay, last one, how do you thrive with — well, now you kind of have corrected it, hip dysplasia and osteoarthritis. 

Carrie:  1:00:46

How do you thrive? Mentally, like we said, stay in the mile, do your research, don’t give up hope. You can try it, go to PT, go interview doctors, ask all your questions, and when you’re ready, and if you have to have a surgery, like I said, come up with your care team, you know, control what you can control. Ask your questions. Find your doctor you’re comfortable with. Find, you know, put together your care team and your support team, and take it day at a time. Do the best that you can every day, the little challenges that you have, make it to that, you know, get through every day. So, that’s how you thrive. And then, it’s compounding. You know, one day turns into a week, turns into another week, then a month. And here we are, 18-months later, and I’m training for the marathon.

Cheryl:  1:01:30

That’s it. That’s so — I love it. I love it. It really is, I think, that control what you can and accept the rest, that kind of serenity prayer, that seems to be kind of a a theme in all these interviews and episodes I’ve done. I think it’s, you can’t hear it enough times, you know what I mean.

Carrie:  1:01:48

Well, yeah, and I just want to say I’m not perfect at that. Like, when I was going through all this, I’m on the other side now, so, but when I was going through this, you know, it was a long, a couple of years, I think two or three years of going through the early stages, being in it, and the uncertainty, and then getting out of it, and the recovery. This truly tested me. Tested me and my faith and my family. We went through a lot. So, it’s not like, it’s like, do this and you’ll be fine. I mean, you are going to go through some hard times. That’s part of the journey. But, you know, just know that the good days are around the corner. 

Cheryl:  1:02:16

I love that. And you mentioned a few times your social media, where can people find you online? 

Carrie:  1:02:22

Okay, so I am on Instagram, and my little name is, well, my name is Carrie Bradshaw, but my Instagram handle is @BionicRunnerBabe. 

Cheryl:  1:02:30

Yes, I love it. It’s very memorable, so it’s perfect, yeah. 

Carrie:  1:02:35

Yeah, and I’ll be, I’m sort of sharing my journey. I’m figuring it all out. I wasn’t really big on social media until I started making my comeback. So, I’m figuring it all out. And basically, I’m just sort of sharing my journey as I, you know, the ups and the downs as I get back to with my training and getting back to Boston and life.

Cheryl:  1:02:52

You’re amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. 

Carrie:  1:02:55

No, thank you, Cheryl, for having me. I loved meeting you at Healthy Voices. You were just such a, like, breath of fresh air.

Cheryl:  1:03:01

Oh, it was like we were like kindred spirits immediately. Anne of Green Gables and Diane.

Carrie:  1:03:07

Yes, in our little video. I love our videos. Yes, yeah, awesome. 

Cheryl:  1:03:11

Oh yeah. I’ll put those in the show notes too. If you see me looking down, I’m just like adding things to the show notes as we’re talking. 

Carrie:  1:03:17

I do think we need to say that, like, at Healthy Voices — So, we were at this Healthy Voices. I don’t know if you’ve talked about it a lot. We were at the Healthy Voices conference in Princeton, for your listeners, with Johnson & Johnson, where they brought together health advocates from all over. Yeah, it was in the world and different areas, from diabetes, cancer, heart, arthritis, and they were all laughing. I mean, we were Cheryl Crow and Carrie Bradshaw were famous there. I know they were like, there’s a Cheryl Crow and a Carrie Bradshaw at our conference. So, we got together and, like, put together these little fun reels, and it was just, like, connected right away.

Cheryl:  1:03:49

Yeah, yeah. I’m so happy to have met you. And again, one of these silver linings, of, you know, having right chronic illnesses, meeting other people who are redefining what thriving looks like, you know? Yeah, so awesome. Thank you so much. Hopefully everyone will follow you, and maybe we’ll do another episode after Boston.

Carrie:  1:04:08

I would love, I would love to. And if you, if you ever need any advice, or any of your followers do about, you know, getting through, like, you know, some tips to manage the pain, let me know.

Cheryl:  1:04:19

Awesome. You’re awesome. Okay, well, we’ll talk to you later. Bye-bye for now. 

Carrie:  1:04:23

Okay! Bye, Cheryl Crow.

Cheryl:  1:04:25

Bye, Carrie Bradshaw!

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