The Joy of Movement

GEORGINA HAYES LOVES taking her 5-year-old granddaughter, Sadie, to The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens in Palm Desert or on hikes where they can spot desert tortoises. Even playing Pick-Up Sticks on the floor is a great time.

All normal activities for a besotted grandmother, but impossible for Hayes a year ago due to unending pain in her hips, shoulders and back.

Thanks to quadruple joint replacements - two hip implants and two shoulder implants - at Eisenhower Desert Orthopedic Center (EDOC), Hayes is living a whole new life.

“I am so grateful,” she says.

Hayes wants other people to know, “how important it is to get the right diagnosis.”

It took her awhile to arrive at hers. First, Hayes sought help from a string of doctors. One said she might have dislocated discs. Another diagnosed sciatica (pain from the sciatic nerve). Still another labeled her problem as rheumatoid arthritis.

“Everyone kept telling me I couldn’t possibly be in this much pain and still be so active, that it was just in my head,” she says. “But I have to be active. That’s who I am.”

For a few years, she kept going with epidural steroid injections, opioid pain pills and chiropractic adjustments. By the time Hayes met Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon Ghassan Boghosian, DO, in January 2023, she used a walker. She was only 58.

Dr. Boghosian studied Hayes’ X-rays and said, “You need a hip replacement.”

In fact, she needed two. What he saw was osteoarthritis, which impacts more than 500 million people worldwide and is a leading cause of disability among older adults.

Aiming for Excellence

Fortunately, Hayes had landed at EDOC, a leader in orthopedic care, with a team of board certified, fellowshiptrained specialists and a commitment to technology that improves patient outcomes.

Hip and knee replacements have evolved over the last decade to a robotic and computerized approach.

“The tools we have in today’s operating room allow us to be even more precise,” says Dr. Boghosian. Eisenhower Desert Orthopedic Center is home to nine Mako SmartRobotics™ systems.

“Our patient population is incredibly active,” says Dr. Boghosian. “They don’t just want to walk with less pain. Their goal is to play tennis, play pickleball, golf, ski - to do all these activities they can’t do because of limitations from their joints.”

Hayes’ X-rays showed her shoulders also needed serious repair, a task for Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon David Savin, MD. The surgeons agreed her hip surgeries would come first, giving the shoulders a stable base for healing.

For Hayes’ first replacement in her right hip in March 2023, Dr. Boghosian used a “mini-posterior approach.” This enabled him to make a small incision at the back of the hip, minimizing tissue damage. Hayes was walking the same day.

In July 2023, Dr. Boghosian completed Hayes’ second hip replacement. Not only was the hip pain gone, so was the lower back pain she had suffered for several years.

“I asked myself, ‘Was this all I needed to do all along?’” she says.

In November 2023, Dr. Savin performed an arthroscopic procedure on Hayes’ right shoulder, cleaning up damaged tissue and repairing the bicep. When it didn’t fully relieve Hayes’ pain, he performed a standard shoulder replacement in September 2024.

Three months later, Dr. Savin scheduled a reverse shoulder surgery on Hayes’ left shoulder, which had a damaged rotator cuff. In this procedure, the joint’s ball and socket are swapped, the socket is attached to the upper arm bone and the ball attached to the shoulder blade. Then, the deltoid muscle takes over the rotator cuff’s job.

Shoulder replacements once were essentially one-size-fits-all.

“Today, we have a whole cohort of sizes of implants to match a patient’s anatomy,” says Dr. Savin. “Implants have become smaller and smaller, less invasive, with better biologic support, meaning the bone will grow into the implant.”

A New Life Unfolds

Hayes has nothing but praise for her entire EDOC medical team.

“Every step of the way I received kindness and support,” she recalls.

Best of all, she can push Sadie in a swing without a twinge of pain.

“I tear up when I think about what I went through to where I am now,” says Hayes. “I see so many people who don’t get joint replacements because they are afraid of surgery, afraid of the word, ‘replacement.’ I just tell them, ‘Go see a good doctor.’”

“Everything we do is aimed at helping to manage our patients’ pain and symptoms,” says Dr. Savin. “Georgina had a complete turnaround. That’s the most beautiful thing about what we are able to do - to give people back their quality of life.”

To learn more about Eisenhower Desert Orthopedic Center, visit EisenhowerHealth.org/DesertOrtho. 
For an appointment, call 760.773.4545.