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