My Right Total Hip Replacement-Anterior Muscle Sparing Approach operation was performed a week ago (I’ve only posted this now)

What a triumph of medical technology and surgical skill that has been. This is Mr Phong Tran’s demonstration ceramic and titanium hip joint – the stem and the socket. I like the grooves on the unpolished shaft (see the cutaway image) which encourage the new bone growth to attach to..

It’s a strange thought to think of that new inert shaft being inserted and cemented into my living femur. My femur is now truncated, neatly sawn off, and the slim, shiny titanium stem extends and holds the polished ceramic ball. I meant to ask if it really is pink. I try to imagine how my body’s muscles, blood vessels, tendons and  nerves, adjust to the different proportions, edges and angles.They must have to fold in and around the new structure. I’d like to see a real colour 3D image of that.

I can’t tell by feel. I don’t feel anything in my hip – it’s not numb- but there is no glute pain, no inner ache. Nothing. Is that what normal is like? I’ve forgotten. Of course, I don’t really know what I might be feeling in there because I’m on 12 hourly Targin tablets which I’m presuming are suppressing any pain. Do you have pain if you don’t feel it?

This new hip is working very well. The Anterior approach, a 10 cm incision on the thigh, starting from the crease between the body and the thigh, has eliminated most of the restrictons which follow Lateral or Posterior approaches. The only real restriction is to not lunge or step back too strongly with the new hip. This puts pressure on the incision and the weakened, settling muscles.

This move is actually alarmingly like the lady’s walking step backwards in tango. I’m going to have to be very careful with that for about 6 weeks.

In fact, my new hip is thinking Tango! Today I put some tango music on while I was doing my exercises. I was practising walking tall and evenly with my crutches and found myself walking in tango rhythm. What a happy unanticipated moment it was to feel the spontaneous movement after all the post-op careful, controlled  and on the edge of pain walking up.

Let’s see what happens next!