Faith Regional Health Services | living WELL | Summer 2020

4 FAITH REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES A Godwink is an event or personal experience so astonishing that it is seen as divine intervention, especially when perceived as the answer to a prayer. MARCIA JOHNSON is one tough lady. During the Christmas blizzard of 2009, Johnson fell. Even though she was in a significant amount of pain, she didn’t go to the emergency room. That Christmas, much of Nebraska was experiencing whiteout conditions that upended holiday plans and stranded many people far from home. So she toughed it out, went to bed, hobbled around for a few months and, eventually, the pain started to dissipate. Years later, Steven Smith, MD, a local orthopedic surgeon, discovered that Johnson had actually broken her hip in that fall. But Johnson pushed on. Then, last year, she be- gan experiencing consistent pain. “Slowly the pain got worse and worse, until it became unbearable,” she says. Desperate for help In July, she went to the doctor again. “The pain was too much,” she says. Johnson consulted with all the orthopedic surgeons in Norfolk, but her situation was very complex. She’d had both of her hips replaced in 2001. When she fell and frac- tured her pelvis, a fibrous scar tissue formed, which initially provided her stability, but, over time, failed THE EXPERTISE OF A NEW LOCAL DOCTOR WAS L IKE DI V INE INTERVENT ION to fully heal. The cup of her hip re- placement moved past the bony stop inside her pelvis because of signifi- cant bone loss, putting it near her bladder and other vital structures. For a case like hers, Johnson would need a surgeon trained in advanced hip revisions with experi- ence in dealing with bone loss and achieving stability, if needed. The final consensus was that Johnson would need to go out of the area for this type of operation. Her orthopedic team first tried Nebraska Medicine, but Johnson wasn’t going to be able to get in, even for a con- sultation, until Sept. 18. It was only the second week in July. SMY HE