...and I'm back ...progress report..7 days!

June 17, 2004

Hi everyone,

Thank you to everyone for the posts and e mails before I went in for

my operation in Nottingham Nuffield Hospital England last week.

After 7 days I am home and all goes well! My surgeon who turns out

to teach others in the UK how to do the procedure was only 75%

confident that it could be done, but after a long operation , 2.5

hours it was! He said I had the most misshapen femur he had ever

worked on, and was delighted with his efforts! So much so that he

asked if he could present my scans and x rays at a conference today

of Birmingham Hip Resurfacing surgeons, in Birmingham of course. It

turns out that my relatively random choice of surgeon hit the

bullseye as he apparently teaches other surgeons how to do it!

Other than the long operation, I have recovered well. I have kept a

diary of my first 7 days, ( I am male age 48 for comparison) so if

anyone would like a copy send me an e mail, and I will gladly send

it to you. I am now semi mobile, have done about 200m today on my

two crutches, which I shall have for company for the next 6 weeks.

My surgeon is conservative about recovery because of the amount of

shaping he had to do and the risk of femoral fracture. My pain post

operatively has been very limited fortunately and today I am just

down to Paracetemol, 4 times each day. The only dreadful thing was

the post operative roll to prevent pressure sores, which they only

got to do on me twice....it's a great incentive to stand up!

So I don't think I will be like some of you walking miles in the

first month, but I am very happy with my progress, and delighted to

be rid of all that hip stiffness and some pain , substituted of

course by some muscle pain and stiffness but that should go in time.

Already I can see the difference and have absolutely no regrets at

all.

Thanks again for all the encouragement and let me know if you would

like to know more. I will also try to communicate to those

individuals who e mailed me in the next few days.

Best wishes,

RBHR 6/2004 Manktelow, Nottingham, England

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