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ONE DAY until R-Day!

Day -1

Off to the pathology lab to have a blood test for cross-matching my blood type – most likely will need a blood transfusion.

Tonight – wash with special soap – same tomorrow morning. Then  nothing to eat after 7 am – into the hospital at 11 am…

Day- 3

Well time flies when you are having fun! Or so my late Dad always used to say – I figured it passed whether it was fun or not!

I went and had my final meeting with my surgeon today and we had a good review of all the things that were most likely to happen on the day – 1 Sept 2011.

He has put the afternoon aside – no golf that day! will take about 3 – 4 hours.

So – the procedure will be something like this:

  • Open up the hip – have a nice handy road map (read scar) from the last operation.
  • Split the femur – effectively take the top off – like a convertible roof on a sports car!
  • Dig out the femoral prosthesis and all the excess glue from the last surgery as the original surgeon did not use a glue restriction cup.
  • Wire the femur back together again.
  • Then most likely press-fit the revision femoral stem which will be a little longer than the stem used first time round. And it will be flanged – a Zimmer implant.

Finished job with the wires should look a little like this:

Then the next step will be to dig out the acetabular cup – which is press fitted in – despite the original surgeon’s notes saying it was cemented!!!

Most likely there will be a need for a bone graft or some form of packing & screws for the new cup.

Then in goes the ceramic insert and femoral head – presto; a new man!Will probably be staples not sutures as it will be harder to hold together with the normal dissolving sutures – unless he uses non-dissolving sutures – but they hurt on removal as I recall from last time! LOL.

Will have 1 – 2 drains – the more the better from what I have read.

  • May need to have a transfusion – getting cross-match done on Wednesday.
  • Will have some of my own blood recycled too.
  • Cather up the old fella – won’t have to worry about passing urine for a few days!

Pain relief will be intrathecal morphine – and a pain pump once I am back in the ward.

Had a long discussion about opioid induced constipation and agreed that I would get lots of stuff to help along the bowel motions – and some medication to offset this effect. However, there won’t be much action for about 3 – 4 days I am certain!

Will be given Clexane (low molecular weight heparin) for about a month via injection – much better idea than Warfarin  I had last time – all those blood tests and calculating what dose to take!

The normal stay in hospital for a revision is around 7 – 10 days but I will be keen to make it shorter – but the extent of the operation and the need to get some stability back in the hip may slow things down a little.

A few weeks on crutches is likely.

So I will keep you all informed with my trusty camera and laptop!

Had some new X-rays done today – two months since the last ones – seems to me that there is more osteolysis and bone loss – possibly some fragments but I am not a medical doc and I haven’t discussed these with the surgeon yet. Will do on the day of the surgery.

What is interesting is 3 radio-opaque spots showing up in the pelvic area – not sure what those are.

Quality of the photo’s below – OK for an iPhone 4 shot of the X-Rays held up by my son against a white background!

Will be taking iPhone and laptop to hospital to send you all the holiday snaps!

And these X-rays are much more modest that the last ones!

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