Saturday, February 21, 2009

When Will My Health Shit End?

I would really like to finish writing in the blog. You know. It's the end of cancer. I just have twice a year follow-ups which will all be good and I'll never have cancer again. The problem is that stuff keeps coming up.

The good news is that the port is out. Yay!! It kinda hurt but it was worth it.

The shitty news is that my hips are getting worse. Especially my right hip. I'm in pain most of the time. I say most of the time because....if I drink a few green apple martinis? The pain miraculously goes away. Also, I can make it go away with some left over narcotics from Kevin's broken femur adventure. Ahhh....percocet!! Gotta love it! But most of the time it feels like I have a knife sticking into my hip. Oh, the hip is not the outer part of the body but more the upper groin area. You know where your hip bone is? Well go in about 3 inches and that's where my pain is. All the fucking time. The left hip hurts too but not as bad. It seems to be about three months behind.

So...I was researching getting a double hip replacement. I mean, why do one and go through all that recovery and then do the other and repeat the recovery. I want to do both at the same time, go through recovery and get the fuck on with my life. So, I was researching it and came across this cool new technique. Well, it's new in the States but they've been doing it in Europe for a very long time. It's done on a special table called the Hana table and it enables the surgeon to go in from the front and not cut through major muscle groups and he can do both at the same time. I got all excited about it and looked up if there was a doctor in my area who works with that table.

I found one in Spring Hill which is about an hour north of here. Not too bad a drive for this. I made an appointment and went to see him yesterday. I really, truly thought he'd just say "yah, you need this done" and I'd get an appointment and, hooray!, no more pain. After all, the other ortho guy told me I could get it done anytime I want and when I don't want to live with the pain anymore, call him and we'll book it. Well, it didn't go that way. He wants me to get another MRI because mine is a year old. He also mentioned doing a different procedure first. It's where they drill a hole into the hip and hope that some blood flow goes in there and stops the fast spread of the necrosis (dying bone). It was weird to hear this because the other ortho guy said that that procedure never works. Anyway, I now have to go for the MRI and, if the necrosis isn't too bad, he would want to do this drilling thing and, if the necrosis is bad, he would do hip replacement.

This is very disappointing. I really just want the hip replacements and be done with it. I understand the reasoning behind doing the drilling but am confused because of what the other ortho guy said. Then I realized I've had three orthos. The first one I didn't like. The second I liked and now this third one. I've also had three oncologists. Am I too picky? Crazy? I dunno. All I know is that I'm soooo sick of being a patient and just want to move on.

Anyway, here's an article that describes all this better than I just did:

http://www.orthogate.org/patient-education/hip/avascular-necrosis-of-the-hip.html

So...that's the update on my health. I don't feel like writing anymore so you don't get an update on my life. All I'll say is everything's great.

ttfn