In the section entitled, "Know Your Illness," I spoke about Avascular Necrosis and how it affects the back and hips. Quoting myself I stated, "Though I do have some deterioration in my hip joints, it currently hasn't interfered with my life at all." I wrote that some time ago, and things have changed.
Over a year ago, I began having significant pain in my right hip. An x-ray was taken and my hips appeared as they did in my last hip x-ray taken two years prior. Over the past many months, pain in both hips have significantly increased and my ability to move around has been severely diminished.
About two weeks ago I saw an orthopedic surgeon about my hip pain. Looking at my newest x-ray, it became very clear that the condition of the bones in my hip is...not what it once was. The ball part of my hip (the femoral head), on both sides, have totally collapsed. Those two parts of my bones are basically dead and at some point, collapsed upon themselves.
The doctor told me I have two options. Option #1) Live with the pain, which will eventually get worse, and wind up in a wheelchair; or option #2) have a double hip replacement surgery. It wasn't the news I wanted to hear, but it was the news I expected to hear. The joys of Avascular Necrosis.
Clearly, my only option is to have the surgeries. They will of course do one hip at a time, about six months apart. With as much pain as I'm in, I'd like to do it as soon as possible and get half of it over with. Unfortunately, to reduce the chance of infection from the surgery, I have to wait until the wounds on my feet heal. I'm hoping, with the mist therapy I'm receiving, that will happen in the next couple months. In the mean time, I need to get my heart, kidney, and Sickle Cell doctors to all okay me for the surgery.
I have always tried to see the positive in things. I know many Sickle Cell patients need hip replacement surgeries when in their twenties. My doctor told about a patient of his who is seven years old and already needs a replacement surgery. However, because the patient is still growing, they can't do the surgery until he/she has finished growing. So what they'll do is remove portions of the hip bone; this will cause new blood vessels to form inside that area, and will help to regenerate the bone until the patient is done growing.
I'm soon to be forty years old. I count myself blessed that I've gone as long as I have without having the hip problems I currently am. Things could always be worse.
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