Living the Life Unhip

H minus 105

This blog is about my countdown to total hip arthroplasty (hip replacement surgery) and about my recovery afterwards. 

To explain a bit about why, I'll include a couple of details from my latest x-rays, Sept 7, 2026:

• Right hip - standing: Notice there's a pretty reasonable gap between the ball and the socket, meaning that the cartilage is in pretty good shape for a male of <age redacted for vanity>. 

• Left hip - standing: To quote my father when describing something missing: "There ain't no there there." Look at the remarkable lack of space for cartilage. That's because there isn't any.

Now why isn't there any cartilage in this joint? Honestly, I don't know. My body just doesn't like its own cartilage and dissolves it. I've already had one shoulder replaced, and the other one is bone on bone as well. As one orthopedist said, my joints "don't look so good - for a 97-year-old." 

Now for the shoulders, I had the left one replaced a little over 7 years ago by Dr. Hatzidakis of Western Orthopædics of Denver. He might be the preeminent shoulder surgeon on the planet. Yes I'm pretty damn lucky, and the technique he used was new-ish at the time (and standard today). He gave me a "semi-biological" shoulder replacement, meaning a titanium ball cap on the humerus and a socket lined with cadaver tissue. 

That was 7 years ago, and the shoulder is doing phenomenally well. Before my hip got too horrible, I was up to regularly deadlifting sets of 6 at 250+ lbs. Here's a photo of me two years ago in the middle of a set of 6 at 275 lbs:

HOWEVER, recovering from shoulder replacement is SERIOUSLY OBNOXIOUS! I would not wish that experience on anyone. So I'm trying to stabilize the remaining shoulder with exercise to strengthen the rotator cuff. It's working. 

On the other hand, that doesn't seem to work as well for the hip. I cannot walk without putting weight on it, and the general grinding of the femoral head into the socket is causing steady background pain and irritation. Nothing terrible--just a low-grade ache at all times. Low grade enough that I treat it with ibuprofen at night and ignore it the rest of the time. We still walk the dogs one to two miles every night, and I still hiked up the Aspen Alley and Lily Pad Lake trails a couple of weekends ago to look at the aspens. However, I now have to use a cane to do so. And it won't let me sleep more than 5 hours at night. This is getting old.

So. 

Surgery is scheduled January 26. H-minus-105.