I’ve always been hip, but now I’ll be double hip

So what are you doing with the rest of your year? Me, I’m having two hip replacements.

A quick primer for those who don’t know: When I was 12, I was struck with some kind of immune system disorder, and after 3 months of sickness, it was diagnosed as systemic arthritis. We got that under control, and then when I was almost 17, my right hip got really bad really fast. So they replaced that with an artificial joint – three days before my 17th birthday.

All was well, more or less, until a couple of years ago, when I started to notice some deterioration in my flexibility, mobility and stamina. My legs just don’t move very well, and things got steadily worse. I have trouble climbing stairs, reaching the floor, walking for long periods. I’ve had lower back pain as a result of my legs not being the same length because of the deterioration of the artificial joint. And I will stipulate that I’ve been overweight for my whole adult life, so that doesn’t help (although I’ve lost 30 pounds this year, much of it recently). I will also acknowledge that I put off addressing this problem for far too long. The changes were gradual, and I learned to live with them, until things were dire – a fact that I had some help realizing.

So this week, I saw an orthopedic surgeon for the first time in years. He recommends replacement of both joints, the first one almost immediately. Several things are happening. In the right leg, the one that was repaired 17 years ago, the plastic cup that they insert into the socket of the hip joint has been moving around. Thankfully, the femur has been moving with it, so it hasn’t caused me great problems that I’ve noticed. But the movement in the socket has caused the bone to deteriorate, and as a result, the surgeon will need to do a bone graft with some synthetic material that (we hope) the bone will then regrow around, and attach a new cup.

The other part of the implant – the rod in the femur and the ball attached to it – are in good shape, so a total replacement isn’t necessary. But this is a complicated surgery, and a full recovery will take about two months.

Once that’s done, it’s time to do the left hip for the first time. I knew it would need something, but I had hoped that physical therapy, weight loss and maybe even the “hip resurfacing” that is relatively new would do the trick. But this surgeon says no; the joint is simply too far gone. So once the right leg is healed enough that I can depend on it, it’s time to do the left. There’s good news – he’ll be able to do a minimally invasive version of the surgery, and recovery time is just a few weeks.

So that will occupy the rest of the year. It’s not the best way to spend the fall, but I’m thoroughly convinced that my life will be so much better off when it’s done. The surgeon said I would have “significant improvement” in my quality of life, especially in the leg that hasn’t been done before. My back will quit hurting, my “duck walk” will go away, and I’ll have range of motion in my legs like I haven’t had in years.

All of this is daunting, especially with news like this suddenly popping up, but I’m ready to get on with it. I’ve been accepting too many limitations in my life for far too long, and it has cost me dearly. I’ve made some tremendous strides in the last few years, especially in developing a spiritual life and dealing with some problems I’ve had for a long time. But I’m 34, and there’s a lot more I want to do yet. I want to travel more, be more active in general, and have children that I can play with without holding back. To get there, I have to go through this.

There is a long road ahead. So I decided to start blogging about this so I could wrap my head around it and deal with the emotions and the ups and downs. And, I hope, pass along some inspiration, or at least some laughs, along the way.

The next step is to get all this confirmed with a second opinion by another surgeon. I will be shocked if he has much different to say, particularly about the right hip. I know my body, and now that I've admitted to myself how bad things had gotten, it makes sense to me that major work is necessary.

So here we go.