For Goodness' Sake!

I got the hippy-hippy shake!
I got the shake!
The hippy-hippy shake!

You shake it at the bride
You shake it at the groom
Watch your newly severed leg
Go skitter 'cross the room!

Yes, well.

You remember all that bitching I was doing a few weeks ago about the bursitis in my hip?

Well!

It, er, wasn't bursitis.

The Gods of Comedy have decided in their infinite wisdom that Your Humble and Ob't wasn't saddled with quite the requisite amount of Uninvited Irony, and with that quiet insouciance that is their stock in trade have been squeezing the blood supply to the ball of my left femur, resulting in what the orthopedic surgeon I have just consulted calls Stage Two Avascular Necrosis. I prefer to think of it as Bo Jackson's Disease, and will henceforth refer to it thus, in an effort to rehabilitate an otherwise pretty fuckin' dreary little syndrome.

I have spent the last two weeks under the decidedly uncheerful prospect of total hip replacement, but now Doctor Subtilis thinks the joint can be saved. There has as yet been no collapse of the surface of the ball of the femur, and in this early stage the accepted practice, which has about a 70% success rate, is to drill about four inches into the bone starting at the hip pointer and going up into the ball, cleaning out the edema that is squeezing my veins, relieving pressure on the ball and (it is hoped) restoring blood supply to the joint. You can see an example of what I'm talking about in the x-ray image at the top of this post -- see the straight line through that poor bastard's hip-joint? That's gonna be me.

The drilled hole will be filled with a bone graft, which led to the following knee-slapping interchange:

Me: So where does the bone for the graft come from? [Thinking, maybe it's taken from my tibia or something)

Doctor Subtilis: Dead guy.

Me: Ah.

See how the Gods of Comedy work? I'll be carrying a piece of John Allen Muhammad's flippin' anklebone around in my hip for the rest of my life -- or less, if I fall into the unlucky 30% for whom this procedure doesn't work, in which case I will insist that the old dead hip come home with me in a jar of formaldehyde for proud display on my mantelpiece. A capital conversation-piece.

I don't know yet when this thing is going to happen -- I'd rather it be sooner than later -- but I'll be certain sure to live-blog it for you. I'll be on my back, making a pest of myself to Wonder Woman and abusing my post-op painkillers for a week or so, then on crutches for six weeks.

Oh, I'm gonna milk for all it's worth. Dahhhling, be a love and fetch me the TV remote -- it's there, on the floor at my feet... I'd lean over and reach for it myself, but I do ache so!

Doctor Subtilis, by the way, is Orthopedic Surgeon to the Washington Redskins. He's already had his hooks in me twice -- once for a broken collarbone and once for a torn rotator cuff, so I know and trust the guy. What I don't trust any more is my own worthless body.