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.

[Zorro]

It's been over a year since I posted about the agony of pain in my hip.

The VA likes to play games still, with going back and forth between my clinic Dr., the Orthopedic Dr. the blood thinner Dr. and the Dentist.

It only took 8 months to get a bad tooth pulled! This happened Friday (August 31st). The hip surgery would not be done until the tooth was gone. Because I am on cumadin (warfarin), they expected me to bleed for a long time and gave me a lot of gauze to stuff in my mouth when I left the VA.

What actually happened was it bled a bit for about 2 hours and by 6 pm I was able to eat dinner and there was little pain.

I am guessing that the hip surgery will be done within the next 3 months.

On a different note I received a phone call from my youngest son about my daughter. She is in serious trouble with the law. I am not going in to specifics, but the crime she committed is a felony.

I am disappointed and saddened by this news, but since she is in GA and I am here in VA without any transportation or money for a trip at this time.

I hope things work out for her and get's the therapy she needs.

[Zorro]

If you go back to the beginning of this thread you can see how long this thread has been going on.

I finally was able to see the doctor who does the hip surgery and this coming Friday (May 17) I will begin the first part of my hip replacement.

What they are going to do is give me a cortisone shot.
There are a few other chemicals that will be mixed with the cortisone and this will give me temporary relief of the pain I have been going through.
 
The way it was explained to me is that this shot will fill in the areas where there isn't any cartilage or very little cartilage left.

I won't be a hospital patient and will be able to go home that day.

The actual surgery won't be done until late June to sometime in the fall.

[Zorro]

Some weeks ago I had bumped my left ankle with my home shopping cart and even though it hurt at the time, I mostly ignored it.

Last week it was very painful to the touch and I went to my Dr. so he could check it out.

According to him it was badly infected and had an (ulcer).

I was put on a heavy load of antibiotics and it is slowly healing up.

I had to cancel the cortisone shot as it was on the same day as my clinic appointment.

I am a type 2 diabetic as well and I should have paid more attention to that injury.

I have a follow up appointment tomorrow (May 23).

[Zorro]

I went to the followup appointment yesterday.

My Dr. was not very satisfied on the progress of my healing and I am getting wound care at home.

The nurse did a real good job bandaging me up and said that my injury is healing at a good rate.

This will happen every day until I get all healed.

Then I can get back to my hip issues.

[pedonbio]

Type 2 diabetes is a real fucker. I had a bruise in my ankle for about four months. Healing is so damn slow!

[Zorro]

I actually heal pretty fast considering.

This wound on my ankle was because of my own fault for not checking the scrape and it being untreated before it got so bad.

The area where it is can feel pain, but I thought that it was okay.

Normally diabetics have wounds on the bottom of their feet that they have no feeling or limited feeling in my case.