Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Hips Schmips

I'm over the trepidation now.
Whatever will be will be.
The MRI was cool and freaky. I managed not to lose it in the tube (after a few minutes of very deep breathing and trying not to look at the confinement) and not to show my surprise when I saw the spinal needle (read: very very LARGE. very very long) stuck in my groin. The bad dye they inject into you was cause for me to try to wean the boy once and for all this morning. A McDonald's (yes, yes, evil empire) hash brown seem to take his mind off "nursies" completely.

The Flaming Lips and Cat Power on New Year's Eve were gorgeous, touching. Gnarls Barkley made me want to have a poo (blame the bad sound at the USC Galen Center - a basketball arena normally).

I am working on finding local venues/gigs for The Phoenix Foundation to play on their way from LA to SF. Going to put a wee bit of our home equity line of credit where my mouth is. Scary, exhilarating.

Rodney, my best friend from uni, and Carla, his firey Mexican dentist wife, are emigrating to Wellington this weekend. Whoa. They'll be hand delivering a large bottle of Rogue Brutal Bitter to Fraser, our favorite kindred spirit ale head, for me.

Found lovely renters for Matt's Mom's house. The proletariat joins the darkside. At least we aren't slumlords.

My husband Matty is a Goddess and I mean that in the most admiring way.

Ok, time for Wyatt to go bother all the girls at gymnastics. The hugging bandit will strike again.

"Basically, you're like a German Shepard with hip dysplasia."

That's what the first doctor said to me before Christmas.

I am scheduled for a MRI and consultation with Dr. Mast up in Mammoth. His specialty (he brought the technique to the States over 20 years ago) is periacetabular osteotomy. They go in and dislocate the femur from the pelvis and cut up the socket part of the hip to better fit/cover the ball part of the femur. The cut up pieces are pinned together and you grow bone. That's at least what I think the procedure is and what I've been told I need. I have insufficient coverage of the remoral ball and that's what's been giving me that burning pain in the groin the last year and a half and ended my career as a wanna be Rockette. It's a congenital thing. My friend had the same problem and waited too long. That's why she has artificial hips now.

The second and last guy I saw said I was a very good candidate for this surgery, that I needed to work hard to keep my "native" hip because it would last 30 years as opposed to 10 on artificial, and that I needed to consider doing this soon. He's the one referring me to Mast.

Mast will be the one to say, "Get out of here, you are wasting my time" (he only does younger patients and athletes and I am at the old end of the scale he'll consider) or "When are we scheduling you?"

Recovery is 6 months per hip. 3 months with no more weight bearing than 30lbs of pressure on the operated hip. I will become good friends with pain killers and lie on my back for days. There will be days I won't be able to do more than lie there while Wyatt watches his Wiggles or Barney (the horror, the horror, Wyatt really likes this one Barney video that Auntie Gerrie gave us) next to me.

I did a very good job, I think, of not crying like a baby at the doctor's office when they told me some of this. The second doctor I saw said that Wyatt will learn to know me by my voice commands. Both he and the nurse reiterated that I would get well some day and it wasn't like I had cancer.

It's true.

But I am a control freak. I have a boy who is like a monkey on speed. I love him sooooo very much and I will miss out on a lot of being there for him. He is particularly clingy right now. We're not sure why. I have a supportive husband who will have to do double duty and lose spousal use of me for a long, long time. There is fear. There is guilt. We will spend a pretty penny just so I don't grimace when I walk. We just closed escrow on the rental property a few days ago. I booked some frequent flier tickets to Europe for September the day before I got the hip news. I would very much like to still go.