Fell Off The Bed, Got A Bionic Upgrade

A small fall on a birthday turns into a life-altering crossroads: months of rising pain, a confusing ER visit, and a label that never fit. When a CT scan finally reveals a 50% hip dislocation, everything snaps into focus. We walk you through the raw truth of misdiagnosis, the grind of rehab that couldn’t fix what wasn’t identified, and the moment a clear choice emerges: a total hip replacement designed for a body that lives with cerebral palsy.

We get real about the options and why only one makes sense for long-term stability and independence. You’ll hear how casting after surgery helps tame spasticity, why tendon lengthening protects the new joint, and how a six-week recovery is structured to rebuild safe movement from the ground up. This is not a miracle story; it’s a practical plan rooted in orthopedics, neuromuscular care, and lived experience. From transferring with a walker to standing with support, we map the milestones that make mobility possible again.

There’s also the human side: waiting on insurance, feeling trapped by a bedbound routine, and leaning on faith and friends for strength. We talk through school timing, sharing updates from the hospital, and using social media to bring people along without losing privacy or agency. Most of all, we center advocacy—how asking for the right scan, insisting on a second look, and having a medical ally can change the outcome. If you care about patient advocacy, disability-informed surgical planning, and the courage it takes to choose a new path, you’ll find insight and heart here. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs the boost, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep this community strong.

Transcript

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A Shocking Turn After A Fall

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Unwinning Heart. I have something to tell you that's been on my heart that I can't I couldn't tell you until it was official. It's still not official, but we're working on it. We're working on the end of insurance approving it. So basically what is happening is I went well let me back up before I tell you what is happening. On June 22nd, which is my birthday, I was feeling perfectly fine, and I fell off bed. Me being the idiot that I am, I fall off the bed. Typical sample folding fallisk falls off the bed on my birthday. Um and I thought I internally bruised my right hip. Yeah, my right hip. And so I don't do anything about it. I go give my speech at my church and I go celebrate my birthday. My birthday. All is good. All is good. Well July so that was the middle of June. July sixteenth happened. Oh my god. The night of July 16th into July 17th. Oh my god, that was the worst night of my life. Because owie, owie, owie and my right hip. So basically July seventh July 16th, I I can't bend my right knee to I can't get my legs to go down to save my life. And I'm thinking, uh oh. So I tell my aide, we need to get dressed. Get me dressed. Try to get me dressed. And I tell my aide, we need to try and get me dressed. My knee won't go down. We need to call. So I press the SOS button on my phone, call emergency services, go through all that. I'm sitting here calming the cucumber on the outside, freaking out on the inside. I'm thinking, oh my god, what did I do? So then I go to the hospital. I keep saying, my hip is out, my hip is out, my hip is out, me screaming in the emergency room. Well, me talking loudly enough not to yell, but I

ER Chaos And Missed Diagnosis

SPEAKER_00 3:20

keep saying my hip is out. So they do a CAT scan, they do I am I. They no, I'm sorry, they didn't do IMI. They did a CAT scan and an X-ray. Well, turns out, and this is in Phoenix, Arizona, we have Mayo Clinic. No, this was not at Mayo Clinic. We have a Mayo Clinic five minutes away from my house. If that we have, and for those of you that don't know, Mayo Clinic is one of the top hospitals in the country. They have campuses in Florida, Won, Chester, upstate New York, and then Arizona. So people fly in to Mayo Clinic like there's no tomorrow. And I happen to have Mayor Clinic five minutes away from my house. And so I go to the local hospital here, which is a teaching hospital. They it met me thinking it's a remember I told you guys I have a psoas in penchant. Well, all they kept saying is we well, first of all, they canceled hip surgery on me. That was a good one. They put me supposedly for hip surgery, and then they cancel it and say it's a psoas impingement. Well, I'm thinking, okay, so I go to my orthopedic surgeon and so then my orthopedic surgeon goes, geez, I hope let's try con let's try physical therapy. So we started that after rehab. We started that after remember I told you guys I spent two weeks in the rehab center that wasn't good? Well, the hospital made that because they couldn't figure out why. So the hospital made me go to rehab. I'm like, what, what? I have nothing with me at this point. And so you're making me go where? To rehab to try and manipulate this leg. Well, rehab was a disaster in the half. Owie, owie, owie, owie, owie. Owie still. And so rehab said, well, why don't you go to outpatient PT? Yeah, with one bent leg and one straight leg. So yeah, that and my medical liaison is looking at the rehab

Rehab Struggles And At-Home PT

SPEAKER_00 7:00

like I can't do this. She can not move. She can not move. So fine, we hook up with at-home PT. They're doing what they can to bring the leg down. I even remember I told you guys I even rented a dino splint from insurance, and I didn't buy that thing out. Right. I had it on a couple times. That thing is huge. So fast forward, we're not dealing with the diner splint. I made the fatal mistake. Well, I made the mistake of announcing something on Facebook last night because I was so freaked out that this is actually happening. So for those of you that don't listen to the podcast, you might have read it on Facebook. And so I am now in the midst of as if I don't have much going on, wean saw a total hip. Because my hip, my doctor said, continue physical therapy. Second visit, he said, geez, I wish you were better now. Third still continue physical therapy. Third visit, he says, well, my medical liaison assistant mentions X-rays. Doctor doesn't think of X-rays to begin with. And with X-rays, you can only get one viewpoint. So my doctor literally says, I need Wynn to go get a CT scan. If Wyn can get in the CT scan at this point, and my aide is sitting there, and I'm thinking, yes, I can get in the CT scan. They did a CT scan for the blood clot, the mysterious blood clot they thought I had when I had pneumonia. So I'm like, I'll go get a CT scan. So on Halloween, I went and got a CT scan. Well, the results are in. Basically, my hip since June is out, out of the socket. And I knew this going in. The hospital didn't see anything. Always have a medical advocate with you. Or always advocate for your body and scream it at the top of your lungs like I did. Apparently they don't listen to me. Which I'll get to in a minute why. And then so my hip is out, out of the socket, 50%. Which means every time I move, it hurts. It hurts like hell. So basically, he gave me my doctor, my orthopedic surgeon gave me three options. He said, We can either take the ball out of the hip and just leave it. And that would leave you with a fairly floppy leg, which wouldn't

CT Scan Reveals The Truth

SPEAKER_00 11:10

help you in standing. And I'm like, no, it wouldn't. Who does that leaves with a fairly floppy leg? So and the third option is a total hip. So I said, I will go with a total hip. Now, in my case, which typically they don't do this. Typically they they don't do this. In my case, they are doing a cast after the total hip. The reason why they're doing the cast, and the reason why they're not leaving it alone, like a typical total hip is to calm CP down because muscle spasms will pull the dang thing out if they don't cast it. So we have that. We have six weeks of recovery. We spend I spend two of those weeks in the rehab center. Yes, working on PT daily. Yes, because in my rehab center, I get treated like a VIP. I've been up there twice. I didn't go up there for the initial diagnosis of getting leg down, but because the initial diagnosis of getting leg down was such an emergent emergency situation that I couldn't. So basically what happened, what is going to happen, I'll have the surgery, I'll have a total hip on my right side. Now for those of you who are thinking, what what? A total hip? Yes, you heard me right. A total hip, which means they take my hip out and put mechanics around it, or they leave my hip and then put mechanics around it. I believe they take my hip out and put mechanics around it. No, my hip is not bone on bone. It's not, I'm not at the age where it could be bone on bone, but they want to do it because it's a high rate of success. And it will bring my mobile my mobility back. So basically, you will see

Weighing Surgical Options

SPEAKER_00 14:20

me standing again with a walker, with my support crew behind me, and you might see videos of me walking because yeah, for those of you that know me personally, for those of you that know me in public, like you know that I like to keep keep my independence, and you know that bedbound is driving me absolutely crazy. Being bedbound, eating three meals a day in this bedroom is driving up is driving me up the wall. So what do I do in the function of weighing for total hip? I go to church number one, because church is my same space, so tomorrow I'm spiding everyone up there, and when I say everyone, they have no idea that I'm coming. And so I have friends up there and they have no idea that I'm coming. So that should be interesting, and then I, as I said, I will announce the date of my hip surgery. They're also lengthening the muscles in my tendons to keep my tendons happy while they do the total hip. Yeah, so it's a lot. It's a lot. So I'm going to church. Busted hip should be fun, should be interesting. But yeah, I can't I can't be in this house anymore. I won't be. This is gonna be a crazy month and I'm supposed to go back to school and I'm like do we blame after hip surgery and then start once recovery is going or do we pick it up in recovery? I think I think once I figure out the hip what date my hip surgery is, I'll call them, I'll call them on Monday and ask them to start it in January. So if so if that yeah, I'll probably do that. So if my hip surgery is in December, which I shouldn't get a call in five to seven days, to schedule hip surgery. Yeah, and so unfortunately

Casting To Tame CP Spasms

SPEAKER_00 17:30

I'm gonna be down for the count for six weeks. But when they told me that two big huge braces later in uh bionic cam, I'm like, great, fun, but it's better than having I want my hip in socket, of course, but it's better than having a hip that's 50% out of socket and screaming at me every time I move, exce for the exception of lying down. Although it some sense screams at me even when I'm lying down. So I'm like, great hip. Yeah, yeah, winning this Christmas, you're winning this new year, it's gonna be a Christmas present, and uh, maybe a new year's present. I don't know when insurance has decided to approve it. So I don't know. Busted hip. Here we come to fix it. Bionic woman, here we come. So it's like really Merry Christmas to me, a total hip. And I just thought of that. Merry Christmas to me, a total hip. Expensive Christmas, I thought, but thank God insurance is coming out of it. So we'll see when my date is and I'll be dancing down always after this. And so yeah, either I'm down for the count around Christmas or I up for the count around Christmas and down for the count in 2026. But I think it's gonna be down for the count around Christmas and start the new year with a brand new hip. I think that's gonna be the goal. Or I don't know, now I'm waiting for insurance to approve it. So yeah, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. And yeah, so fun. Sometimes hip replacement here we come, and I'm gonna let you guys go, and then next week we're going to go on the lighter note now that you know about my hip. And I will set the day of my surgery, no matter what day it is, I will release special podcast of the speech I did on my birthday. I have it recorded, and so you can hear me. I don't win wince in pain, you can hear me speak while having

Recovery Plan And Regaining Mobility

SPEAKER_00 20:40

the first day of having a broken hip. So that's gonna be fun. You can hear me speak while I'm getting my hip fixed, you guys. So I'll release that the day of my surgery. But we're gonna let you guys go, and next week we're gonna talk about cruising and other fun with Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the Disney Cruise by Danny I've got to not mind me because I haven't looked at it four months. Yippee, I'm so excited for uh 2026. I I don't know if, as I said, I don't know if this surgery is going to be the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026. But either way, I'm excited for 2026 to be up and moving finally and have the public diagnosis. So I want you guys to tune in next week and we'll have fun, and it's gonna be a pill battle from here. And yes, I'll be recording TikTok and possibly we be recording podcasts either in the hospital or on um in rehab talking about uh hip replacement as a 37-year-old slash study eight year old, and so be on the lookout for that and talking about a hip replacement with cerebral palsy, and so I'll be doing it all via myself, and it's gonna be interesting. So you're gonna come along with on this amazing journey with me, and we're gonna let you guys go, and you have a lot to think about, you guys. So, how you can help me is just send prayers and good wishes, and I'm not asking for any monetary donations because I've got health insurance, I've got it all covered, and so it's perfectly fine. We just need to wait for the green light, and as I said, I'm waiting for a shunt to prove it, and then we can get the green light. And so we're gonna let you guys go. But Danielle, do you wanna leave us out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so uh thanks for following us, you guys, what the cute funny said on the other side. Oh, and this is being recorded via my phone because I was afraid that Zoom would kick us out. So this is being recorded via my phone. So that's how I would be doing it in the hospital and in the rehab too. I would be well in the rehab I would be using the Wi Fi, but in the hospital when I feel up to it, I'll be using the phone because hospital

Life Plans, School, And Timing

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Wi Fi is icky. So we will catch you guys next week. Bye you guys. Bye.