I know Rachel dropped you all a short line to let you know I came through the
surgery but I'm sure you'd like some details.
First the hip WAS NOT INFECTED: praise God.  All of your prayers were
certainly heard.
What the doctor found looked more like the work of a garbage disposal than
anything else. Apparently there were pieces of junk everywhere. And
everything was coated black from my body fighting the foreign bodies and
metal rubbing on metal. There was an excessive amount of joint fluid that
apparently accounted for the fevers. It was all cleaned out and the
reconstruction was done. The whole thing took only 6.5 hours. He did such a
good job that my legs are the same length again. Since the surgery in
January, the left leg was 2 1/4 inches shorter than then right one. I can't
wait to see the x-rays. What he described reminded me of a cantilever bridge.
The only bit of bad news we had was that one on the major muscles needed to
keep the hip in and to walk was previously removed (this was a revelation to
us). It is not known if it was removed deliberately because the muscle was
dying or for some other reason. I was given a new brace much more lightweight
than the previous one.  The doctor told me that the brace will be permanent
and doubted I would ever be able to walk unassisted again. This was something
we were emotionally prepared for
Right now I am only concerned with the bone grafts healing in. This is the
first time I looked better coming out of surgery than I did going in.
Now I must concentrate on healing.
Love to all
Marie Davis, RN, IBCLC

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html