Orthopaedic news

I managed to find my way to the orthopaedic at the Royal Bournemouth General Hospital on Thursday.  Was called in to see the surgeon about 20 mins late and after a brief chat I was sent off for another x-ray of my left hip as the scans and x-ray that I had done a couple of months ago had not been sent through.  I had written copies of the reports, but he wanted to assess the state of my hip and make sure that the problem is only caused by osteoarthritis and not bone mets.  Evidently that dictates which technique they will be using for the hip replacement, whether they can use ceramic or have to use a kind of cement to hold it together, as they did when my right hip was replaced.

The wait for the x-ray was about 30 mins, then I booked back in to the orthopaedics out-patients and was called in to see the surgeon again.  He said that they could offer me an injection but that would only last a few weeks or months and then I would be back to my present state.  If it wasn't for my Stage IV diagnosis I would probably go for this option as it would delay the need for a hip replacement.  However, I don't potentially have a long life expectancy so I won't have to worry about the need for a replacement of the replacement, so I am just going to go for the other option of a hip replacement.  I am down to have it anytime, and I am prepared to be called in at short notice so I will be packing a bag so I will be ready to go.  I was able to have part of the pre-op procedure done while I was there, with a form to fill in and a "beautiful" ECG which is good to hear.  I gave them a copy of my print out of the blood test results that I had done on Monday 17th to save my poor little veins.  I will have to go back for more pre-op but at least I am on the way.

I got home today after spending the weekend at Eastbourne and I have been doing way too much walking.  I didn't get much sleep last night because of the pain in my hip and sleeping on a harder mattress; and that despite taking some co-codamol.  I have thrown caution to the wind today at did some walking near Beachy Head, and stopped at Chichester on the way home and had a look around the cathedral.