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!
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