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For more than two years, Valarie Arseneau lived with pain so severe she could barely put weight on her leg. What she did not know at first was that the source of her pain was coming from her hip.
“I found a note by my computer the other day, and it was in April, right when I was having this imaging done,” Arseneau said. “I wrote, ‘I’m going to have to die to feel better.’ It was pretty intense.”
After months of searching for answers, imaging finally revealed the problem.
“I think your femur is in your pelvis,” Arseneau recalled being told. “Well, that explains why I couldn’t bear any weight on my leg for two years and four months.”
Arseneau turned to Dr. Alexis Jorgensen, an orthopedic surgeon, who performed a total hip replacement.
During a hip replacement, the damaged parts of the joint are removed and replaced with new components designed to help the hip move more smoothly.
“I cut away the arthritis on the ball, and I shave away that arthritis in the socket,” Dr. Jorgensen said. “I put metal components on both sides of the joint and a plastic piece in between to help act as a new hip joint.”
For Arseneau, the change was immediate.
“I woke up from surgery, and I didn’t have to take one pain pill, not even a Tylenol,” she said.
She also praised the care team that helped guide her through the process.
“If this experience were an Olympic event, she and all of her staff would have gold medals because they are just like the gold standard for what health care should be,” Arseneau said.
Now, physical therapy is helping Arseneau rebuild strength and regain independence.
“It makes me emotional because I thought that’s just the way my life was going to be for the rest of my days,” she said. “And now there’s a ray of hope that I’m going to get my prior life back. I’m going to be able to ride my bike. I’m going to be able to walk upstairs. I’m going to be able to do my own grocery shopping.”
For Arseneau, hip replacement was more than a surgery. It was a step toward getting back to the life she thought she had lost.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.
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