Local Preacher Returns to the Pulpit Days After Hip Surgery

It was the second day of the January 2024 ice storm that crippled the mid-Willamette Valley.

The roads were so slick that John Stackhouse and elders of Lacomb Bible Church made the rare decision to cancel church. Stackhouse and his wife hunkered down on their farm, only venturing out for daily chores of feeding livestock, breaking up ice in water troughs and bringing in firewood.

“It was about my fourth trip to my barn for firewood, only this time I didn’t bring the wheelbarrow,” said Stackhouse, who is the church’s preacher.

“I was about 15 feet from the house, and it was so slick I couldn’t get traction. My feet went out from underneath me, and I went down on my hip and cracked the bone,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve hurt myself enough and figured this pain would go away. Monday morning, I walked around, and it was extremely painful. I couldn’t walk anymore.”

Stackhouse’s daughter came to the rescue with her four-wheel drive vehicle to take him to Samaritan Albany General Hospital.

“They got me in an ER bed almost immediately, and an X-ray revealed my hip was broken,” Stackhouse said. “The ice storm had affected this whole valley and around the state and there were no beds anywhere.”

With Samaritan trauma teams taking care of multiple fractures that day, one option was to transfer him to a hospital in Spokane, Washington.

Hoping for a closer option, Stackhouse talked to the charge nurse. Several hours later he learned an orthopedic surgeon was on her way.

The surgeon, Kelli Baum, DO, gave Stackhouse the good news — an operating room was reserved for his procedure that afternoon. She explained his two options: either implant screws in his current hip or have a total hip replacement, a procedure that she specializes in.

“I said, ‘your main thing is replacing hips. I guess there is a good reason the Lord brought you in today,’” Stackhouse recalled. “She was amazing and so personable. She explained everything start to finish before it happened. Then she walked me through the recovery process.”

The surgery and recovery lasted nearly five hours. Stackhouse remembers asking to get up and walk as soon as he recovered from the anesthesia.

“The nurses on the floor walked along side me,” Stackhouse said.

Walking as soon as possible after hip surgery is the healthiest recipe for a full recovery.

A Samaritan-based study on recovery from hip injury earned surgeon Robert Wood, DO, a national first place award at the American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics. The research showed patients with a hip fracture treated with surgery who did not take steps in the first three days after surgery had an 18 times higher risk of dying within the first 90 days after surgery.

“If we are aggressive about getting patients up and moving in those first days after surgery, we significantly reduce their risk of mortality,” Dr. Wood said. When Stackhouse arrived back home, he took the recommendation to heart.

“I walked every hour or hour and half,” Stackhouse said. “The first few days were inside the house and the hip never hurt. Then I started walking from the house to the gate on my driveway, which is about 500 feet, walking there and back.” Stackhouse credits Dr. Baum’s thoroughness at discharge for his rapid healing success.

Five days after his surgery, he was back teaching Sunday School, but decided to pass on delivering the sermon. By the following Sunday, just two weeks after the break, he was walking around the pulpit preaching.

“Several people have talked to me about needing a hip replacement or a knee done. I tell them get ahold of Dr. Baum; she is phenomenal.”

Are you considering a joint replacement? Ask your doctor about options available at the Samaritan hospitals in the valley and at the coast, or visit samhealth.org/JointReplacement to learn more.