Hip Surgery

[Zorro]

For over the past 15 years my left hip has been bothering me. At first it started out as a "twing" of pain now and then.

Over time the symptoms have gradually gotten worse. Last Sunday I was working on my morphs and when I finished I could barely hobble. The pain was agonizing and stiffened up all the muscles in my thigh, groin and lower back. It took me 30 minutes to get to my bedroom which is about 30 feet away. I crawled in to my bed, but I could not roll over on to my back without having the agony and pain starting all over again. By this time it was in spasms.

Fortunately I was able to move about some in a few hours and got up to take some meds to help.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to the V.A. Medical Center and was able to seem my doctor. After describing the above scenario to him, he had me get another xray of my hip and pick up some stronger meds, one of which is a muscle relaxer.

This morning there were no spasms and my pain was minimal.

The doctor told me that he would be sending my xrays to the orthopedic surgeon to see if I need a hip replacement.


This is the scary part for me. For a VA doctor to be cutting in to me and replacing my hip makes me very frightened.

The V.A. is like the Cosa Nostra.

You go in alive and come out dead and it's your doctor that did it.

Here's the morph I was working on Sunday night. Maybe the agony was worth it.

[bignatslover]

Oh man, that sounds immensely helpful.  Probably makes you long to just have a 'normal' day, and reminds me of how we take for granted when our body is functioning fine.

The pain sounds very difficult to deal with.  I am still hoping that maybe something is just shifting/healing and that you won't need any kind of surgery.  What if you slept in a recliner, or just a totally different angle than how you usually sleep?

[pedonbio]

Zorro, it is serious surgery, and it may not come to that. But there is something worse then hip surgery: There is aging and having to listen to your friends tell you all about their hip surgery.

If you need it, you have all of our best wishes. It is one of those things that was unknown a couple of generations ago.