May 12, 2009

• Don't Have a Leg To Stand On Department

  

  May is a benchmark month for me this year. On the first, I celebrated my 56th birthday. It was also the tenth anniversary of the creation of my personal website, www.allthingsmike.com. This coming Memorial Day is my FIFTH Xangaversary. Five years on Xanga. Ten years on the internet. Fifty six years on the planet.

  But I'm not thinking of these benchmarks right now. I'm thinking of the day when I'll finally be able to shed these crutches which have been so much a part of me for the past eight or nine months.

  My operation is less than three weeks away.

  On June 3rd, (actual time still undetermined), my ex girlfriend Liz will be driving me up to the USC University Hospital, where I will undergo hip replacement replacement surgery, to fix the broken hip replacement which has been bothering me for most of the past four years. Right now all thoughts of birthdays and anniversaries fade in comparison to this benchmark. The day I knew would someday come even when I had the original operation back in 1993 is finally arriving, and it's less than three weeks away.

  "How long will this thing last?", I'd questioned Dr.Young, my orthopedist, at the time. I was only 40 years old,

  "Well, our patients are usually much older." she replied. "You'll probably have to have another replacement in twenty or thirty years."

  "Twenty or Thirty years" seemed like a looooonnnnngggg time back then.

  Well, it hasn't even been twenty years. According to the website Total Joints Info age 50 is considered "young" for a total hip replacement. Dr. Young told me she believed I was the youngest person (in California anyway) to have the surgery. Back in 1993, modern hip replacements were only 30 years old anyway, since the first modern operations were performed in 1960. My replacement didn't last because one of the three screws worked itself out of the rotator cup which is attached to my hip bone. There are supposed to be three screws holding the leg to my hip, and for the past four years or so, only two of these screws are actually holding the leg in place. My current orthopedist immediately prescribed crutches when he saw the x-rays.

  As I've written many times on this blog, pain has been a part of my life for most of it. Head crushed at birth. Dislocated eardrum in 2nd grade. Car accident breaking my jaw at 14. Hip and leg pain as far back as I can remember. The pain after the surgery will be intense. (I used up all the morphine pretty quickly right after the first hip replacement.) But as I heal, using a walker and participating in physical therapy, the pain will slowly fade, and I certainly hope that within three weeks to a month after the operation, I will be walking stronger, and in less pain than I have been in years. I'm really looking forward to this. (Not necessarily the operation itself, but the healing afterward!)

  Since I'm now living alone, it's going to be interesting how I'll manage without help around the house. Liz will drive me back home following the operation. Although I was out of the hospital within 48 hours after the first operation, I will probably stay longer this time. I was with Pat in the early 90s, and she visited me in the hospital, and helped me home, then was my "caregiver" when I needed help during the recovery.

  I will have a physical therapist come to the house for the first week or so after the surgery, and then I'll probably have to go to physical therapy at USC University, which is a much farther drive than the medical center in Long Beach where I had P.T. in 93. My medical center doesn't have an orthopedics department anymore, and this is the main reason why there have been long delays during the scheduling of the current surgery.

  My HMO plan is changing on the 1st of June, so I had to make sure I'm still covered under the new plan. I really am not communicating with anyone I 'know" since the procedure is not being done through my own medical group, and each time I make any calls, I have to wait again and again before I get answers. I've seen my current orthopedist exactly three times. The first was about last year at this time, and that was a referral from ANOTHER orthopedist who had told me he couldn't perform the surgery, since only two specialists in SoCal wold be able to do the work. I'll have a pre op appointment with an internist (but not my regular doctor, who doesn't work for University Hospital) on the 25th. Then another pre op with Dr. Longjohn (my orthopedist) on the 27th. I have to begin taking iron pills a week and a half prior to surgery. On the 27th, I'll be given the time to show up at the hospital on the 3rd, and after the operation, I'll be off work for at least three weeks.

  I'll have to stock up on food at home. Usually I eat out at restaurants, except on weekends. I know I won't be able to drive for at least a couple of weeks. And when I do drive, it'll be difficult to get into the car, since I drive a small convertible sports car. Last time, Pat was able to drive me around. This time I'm on my own. At least one of my neighbors at the mobile home park have volunteered to help me if I need it.

  I might have to get a new couch or lazyboy chair. My lazyboy chair is the center of my entertainment universe, so I'm sure I'll be spending a lot of time laid out in front of my bigscreen HDTV, but the chair has a broken spring, and sometimes doesn't recline fully, but "rocks" forward again. While I am able to disregard this anomaly normally, after the surgery, I won't want to be rocking back and forth in the chair. I didn't get a sofa when I moved, and the loveseat is too short for me to lay down. I made a place for a sofa, but money got tight after the move, and I never purchased one. I have to make up my mind in less than three weeks if I want to get new furniture.

  My yard work will not be finished either. I've pretty much finished the first rock bed, and I've trimmed a lot of the overgrown plants around the yard, but I won't be planting anything new. There are three more weekends with which I can perform tasks prior to the surgery. I trimmed back the large bird of paradise last weekend, and hope to get the planter in the front of the house cleaned up and filled with washed limestone rocks this coming weekend. The weekend after that I'm going to Disney's California Adventure park with Liz, using up my free "2fer" pass I got when I visited Disneyland on my birthday.

  Anal retentive person that I am, I have pretty much everything planned and scheduled. I won't be on the internet while in the hospital, but after I get home, I will have lots of time to "catch up" on my blogging, and will probably be able to construct some new webpages for AllThingsMike.

  The clock is ticking.

  22 more days...

  At some point in the near future I'll be able to dance again.

  ---

  LINKS:

  Information regarding total hip replacement from the American Academy of Orthopeadic Surgeons.

  Previous Entries in the Leg to Stand On series of blog articles.

  "My Left Hip", the story of my first hip replacement.

  • 10:08 am
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