Raenah Gehm

Growing up in Dallas, Texas, I was always very active. I played competitive soccer, tennis, and basketball. After my family moved to Bend, I discovered hiking and biking, and also played water polo. When I was 15, I was just walking down the stairs, and tripped and fell. I felt a pinch and my hip jammed. When I sat up, I felt an immediate sharp pain. I found out later that my labrum tore and my hip was impinged on both my pelvis and hip bone. The fall had completely destroyed my hip joint so it was rubbing bone on bone. I went from playing sports to being completely bedridden. The first doctor we saw said it was something that Bend just couldn’t handle. My family traveled all over the Northwest seeing hip specialists trying to find a solution, we were back and forth at Shriners, OHSU, and even went to Boise. I couldn’t do anything and was on crutches for nine months while we tried to figure this out. All of the doctors said I needed to get my hip replaced, but wouldn’t do the procedure because of my age. It was terrifying.

I planned to graduate early from high school at the end of this year, but had to miss an entire year of school. It was really tough to be home that whole time and really hard for me to see how difficult this was for my siblings and parents to watch me go through this.

One day my local pediatrician called my mom and told her she had heard of a new pediatric orthopedic specialist coming to Bend. I was pretty skeptical at that point, but we went to see Dr. Roth. His first reaction was actually very positive. After some tests he felt confident that he could help me with a hip preservation surgery and I was scheduled for surgery within three months. I was so relieved I didn’t have to do a full hip replacement. My family put all of our trust in him.  I didn’t know it was a procedure that they had never done before at St. Charles until the day of my surgery, but I wasn’t worried and I received the best care. I feel so fortunate. Dr. Roth and my entire care team was amazing. It was a long recovery. The first few weeks were really hard, especially since we wouldn’t know if it really worked until my four-week appointment. When we got the x-rays back, it was such a huge relief. I am so grateful and now I am getting back to everything I can — swimming, biking, walking, and playing with my siblings. I haven’t been able to get back to sports yet, but I will figure out a way to get back to it!