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On August 9, 2012, Brad Hartwell, 57, was cleared by his doctor to return to full active duty for the Long Beach Fire Department \u2013 a mere four months after having surgery to replace his right hip. \u201cBy August 13, I was back on the fire truck,\u201d says Brad.<\/p>\n
Brad had been suffering with pain for a few years. In 2008, he began to notice occasional clicking and popping in his hip followed by a loss of range in motion during certain exercises and stretches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was constantly uncomfortable,\u201d says Brad. \u201cMy job at times can be very vigorous, climbing up and down the fire engine. If we had to go from the fire engine up to a fourth floor, that was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walking became difficult and Brad developed a severe limp. \u201cAfter some time I was unable to disguise it, people started noticing and asking why I was limping all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his career as a firefighter, Brad has water skied competitively for more than 40 years. During the season, he is on the water two to three times a week and regularly competes in tournaments.<\/p>\n
Curious about his hip pain, Brad went to see Douglas Garland M.D., Medical Director of the MemorialCare Joint Replacement Center (JRC) at Long Beach Memorial. After an x-ray, Dr. Garland had no doubt what the course of treatment would be. Brad was suffering from severe hip dysplasia, which is an acquired deformation or misalignment of the hip joint, typically caused by multiple factors. He would need a total hip arthroplasty \u2013 surgery that would replace his hip joint with an artificial implant.<\/p>\n
Brad hadn\u2019t suffered any major injury, but the combination of years of water skiing and a physically demanding job caused gradual damage to his hip. \u201cI was floored that I needed a new hip at age 56,\u201d says Brad.<\/p>\n
It is virtually unheard of to do a total hip replacement as an outpatient procedure, but with careful planning Dr. Garland and the JRC team determined that Brad was a good candidate since he is young, strong and in good shape.<\/p>\n
Brad went into hip replacement surgery at 7:30 a.m. on April 16, 2012; by noon he graduated to crutches; and was on his way home by 7 p.m. \u2013 all in the same day.<\/p>\n
Before surgery Brad participated in the JRC\u2019s pre-op education class. \u201cWhen you\u2019re doing something new you have to have confidence in your physician and yourself,\u201d says Dr. Garland. \u201cOur pre-op education is such a confidence builder, most of the patients come away from it knowing what to expect and knowing they can handle it. What has really changed about surgery is the preparation and getting patients through the recovery \u2013 we emphasize that we\u2019re on the move,\u201d says Dr. Garland.<\/p>\n
On the move is exactly what Brad was after surgery. A unique part of the JRC program is the emphasis on rapid recovery, which is translated to its patients through a cruise ship theme, \u201cCruising to Recovery.\u201d On the JRC recovery floor there is a \u201cwalking board\u201d that patients use to track their walking progress. Each patient uses a compass magnet to visually track their progress along the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took my first walk down to the end of the hall and back with no pain or discomfort,\u201d says Brad. \u201cBy the afternoon, my compass was all the way down the board (3000 ft) and by 7 p.m. I was home and walking up the stairs in my two story house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Garland\u2019s average recovery time for joint replacements is 2.1 days. \u201cThirty years ago, I never thought I would be doing a hip replacement as an outpatient procedure,\u201d says Dr. Garland. \u201cWhen I received training, joint replacement meant 7-10 days in the hospital, followed by months of rehab and therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brad is only the third patient to go home on the same day as surgery. \u201cMy biggest fear was that my hip would never be the same, but Dr. Garland assured me that I would be able to return to all the things I love,\u201d says Brad.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been several months since his surgery and Brad is back in the gym, back on the water and going on 26 years of service as a firefighter.<\/p>\n
For more information about the MemorialCare Joint Replacement Program at Long Beach Memorial, call (562) 933-4014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n
On August 9, 2012, Brad Hartwell, 57, was cleared by his doctor to return to full active duty for the Long Beach Fire Department \u2013 a mere four months after having surgery to replace his right hip. \u201cBy August 13, I was back on the fire truck,\u201d says Brad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":69296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4103"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4103"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}