Friday 7 September 2018

Hip Op


Hip Op

So you want an hip operation”? Said the orthopaedic surgeon.
No, not really” I said “but I don't think I can avoid it” !
He smiled absently, he was already scribbling down an estimate of my hip prosthesis dimensions..

Yes, I´m back on the medical merry-go-round..
The next step was the 'Preparation Pathway' : during one hospital visit a blood sample is taken, a cardiograph is made, you meet, in strict order, the chemist, the anaesthetist, the specialist nurse and the OR planner. At each stage you are expected to shake hands and reveal your date of birth before being shunted down the corridor to the next stop.
Some of you may know that three years ago I had a hip replacement operation. It was clear then that another would, at some time, have to follow..... but don´t worry I´m not going to bore you with my medical details or the upcoming operation.
All too often when people of my age get together the conversation turns to physical defects, illness or medication so I know how tedious it can be. Now, don´t get me wrong,  it's normal that we talk about our ailments or afflictions , after all at our ages we´ve all got some, but like tales concerning grandchildren and kitchen conversions, it can go on for far too long. And it often does. At some point during a social function I will snap back from a daydream to find that we are no longer discussing the medical dossiers of our circle of close friends or family but that we've moved on to the brother of a distant neighbour´s far relative...........
If the conversation involves operations an element of competition creeps in. Usually starting with “....but in my case.....” one of the company will go on to tell how their condition was rare, different and/or particularly complicated. Inevitably the next speaker will top that “...but in MY case.....” their condition was at least as rare, probably more complicated and involved a lot more drama. The next person may well add a late night ambulance dash and a near death experience. And so it goes on. The amount of pride some people have in their unusual or complicated surgery has always puzzled me. Now, I don´t know about you, but I want my operation to be as dull, ordinary and as free from drama as possible!
Oh and there are plenty of anecdotes. If you happen to mention that you are on the waiting list for an operation they  will come, thick and fast. They fall into two categories: firstly the horror stories: `I knew somebody who had that operation and he died two weeks later´ or, secondly, the wonder cures,  `You don´t want to bother with surgery I know somebody who knows somebody who was cured just by applying Mongolian cream cheese to the affected area and a change of diet'.

For the last three years despite some pain and discomfort and with the help of physiotherapy and medication I´ve pretty much been able to do everything I wanted to. However, earlier this year I noticed that people half as fit as I am were walking twice as fast as me. The time had come!  Any doubts were removed during a very enjoyable but often painful summer.
Some friends and acquaintances will be thinking ´...and about time too`!
During the last three years there was no shortage of well meaning but totally unasked for advice. The majority, excluding the professionals, thought that I should have the second hip replacement sooner rather that later. People who are afraid of spiders, mice, dentists, heights and so on seemed to think that having a bit of ones leg sawn off and replaced by a piece of metal was no big deal. No worse than, say, a visit to the hairdressers but with a bit more recovery time. They almost always backed their argument up by stating that EVERYBODY they had ever met who'd had an hip replacement wished they´d had it done earlier. That may well be true, but, if you really think about it,  this statement does mean that, although they may all have wished they'd had it done earlier, NONE of them actually did!