A Total Hip Replacement at Age 45? You Bet!
Right after Thanksgiving I was admitted to the hospital for treatment of a rare genetic disease called Porphyria that I suffer from. About once a year, I will have a really bad “flare up” of the disease and have to go into the hospital for medical treatment.
Before I get into what happened this time around, I need to back up to late July of 2012 when I woke up with terrible groin pain, hip pain and thigh pain. After a few days of the pain, I went into the doctor and had some tests done. I was told that I had a “groin pull” from all of the house remodeling projects we were doing and to “rest” my hip and leg to let them heal.
Well, I tried to do that and over the next couple of months it would get somewhat better and then flare up again.
While in the hospital getting treatment for the Porphyria, the hip and leg pain flared up again so my doctors ordered some new X-rays, a CT Scan and a few MRI’s. Once the tests were done and I was wheeled back into my room for an afternoon nap….3 hot looking orthopedic doctors walked into my room. Guess what? They weren’t there to ask me out on a date…nope, not for that! Shucks!
The three nice looking docs came into my room to tell me that they had an answer for my hip and leg pain. The CT and MRI Scan showed that I have a necrotic hip. Huh? What the hell is that? Well, they told me that the blood flow to my hip and femur head was…well, not right and that my hip and femur head were dying from lack of blood. Huh? Come again?
Oh my gosh….I was in shock…utterly…IN SHOCK! After speaking with the 3 doctors for about 40 minutes, I learned that the ONLY treatment for this problem is a Total Hip Replacement and that I would need the hip replaced sooner than later. Okay, how soon? By the end of the month? Huh? Come again?
Geesh! Anyway, after consulting with my specialists, they all agreed that I had already been put through the ringer and was medically depleted at this time. They decided to let me go home, recover and rest up for a few months.
With that said, I do need to have a total hip replacement and I have to get it done sometime this Spring or early Summer. Golly Gee, there goes my summer plans for sure!
I learned of this frightening news about 2 1/2 weeks ago and it is still “sinking” in and I am still trying to digest it all. It is hard to believe that I will be undergoing a total hip replacement at the ripe age of 45 years old. Ugh!
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