A SERIOUSLY HIP DUDE

AND HIS HIP SEND-OFF 

 By Heidi Johnson-Wright

Thirty-five years ago, I had both of my hips replaced. It was a couple months before my 16th birthday. While my friends were getting their drivers’ licenses, I got new hips.

It wasn't exactly a fun way to spend a summer, but my arthritis left me no choice. My hips had completely disintegrated. The bones were grinding against each other, sounding like my mom's 1968 Mustang when my sister first learned to drive stick shift. The pain that went with it stopped me dead in my tracks. Life was put on hold until my surgeon readied his bone saw -- along with other nasty implements -- and replaced what Mother Nature gave me with stainless steel and Teflon.

I don't know precisely what happened to my natural hip joints. But I'm guessing their fate and Jimmy Hoffa's were substantially similar. Ashes to ashes, and all that stuff.

I never got a chance to say goodbye to my hips. Not sure what I would have said, exactly. Perhaps "it's not you, it's me" or "let’s try again after I get my head together" or "don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you."

Because of my experience, I've always been curious how other folks deal with having parts of them torn asunder. Recently I stumbled upon an online article about Norwegian artist Alexander Selvik Wengshoel, who gave his own hip an interesting send-off.

A wheelchair user since childhood, Wengshoel had his hip replaced when he was 21. The performance artist wanted to take home the detached joint as a souvenir. He woke up after the procedure to find a vacuum plastic bag containing the hip, and a good-luck note from his surgeon attached to it.

But Wengshoel’s story doesn’t end there. He cooked the hip and dined on the meat, along with a side dish of potatoes au gratin and a glass of wine.

When I read this, I was stunned. The first thing that came to mind was "white or red?"

But then I saw Wengshoel's comment:

"It had this flavor of wild sheep, if you take a sheep that goes in the mountains and eats mushrooms."

That answered my question. Had to be a robust red. Perhaps Rocca Delle Macìe Riserva Chianti Classico 2008, from Tuscany, or Beronia Reserva 2008 from Rioja, Spain. Gotta love the way those aromas of succulent black fruit, earth, violets and spice complement meat.

Since I've already told you Wengshoel is a performance artist, you probably know what's next, and you would be right. He documented the entire cannibalistic feast in an exhibition that was featured at the Tromso Academy of Contemporary Art in Norway.

I was inclined to dismiss Wengshoel as a nut job, a kook driven mad by Scandinavian seasonal affect disorder.

But then he elaborated further.

"It had been so hard to have it in my body, and when I took it out, it turned into something else, something romantic. It was a natural process I felt I had to do to move on. I just work with my own body, that is my canvas.”

I sort of envy Wengshoel. At least he got the chance to emotionally work through such an experience.

As for me, I would like to have taken my hips home in a Big Lots bag, but I would have stopped short of ingesting them.

Perhaps I would have turned them into a flower vase.

To display rose hips in bone meal, of course.

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THE RECOVERY -- PART 13

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

I was referred to Dr. P, an anesthesiologist, in yet another attempt to find a solution.

A pleasant, unassuming man, he made no guarantees but promised to do his very best to help. 

In a three week period, I went to him twice.

Both times, I lie prone in an out-patient O.R. suite, while Dr. P. and his team looked into my pelvis and groin with a fluoroscope.

Using a nerve stimulator, he located the place to inject me. 

The whole process took less than 30 minutes and hurt less than a flu shot.

Within two weeks of the second injection, I returned to swimming twice a week.

I was able to increase my walking to multiple 100 feet treks each day. 

And the worst of the blasted pain was gone.

It’s been nearly 18 months since my surgery.

I have very nearly reached my goal to return to the same level of activity I was capable of prior to getting a new hip and femur.

Make no mistake: my sciatic nerve still occasionally lets me know that it can be a very nasty SOB.

But I have gotten my life back. 

And there are still so many bullrings to explore.     

Heidi Johnson-Wright is an attorney and ADA professional. She lives with her husband in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, FL.

THE RECOVERY -- PART 12

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

I tried everything possible: PT, rest, electrical stimulation, massage, heat, ice, and meditation.

I took Vicodin round the clock.

Nothing worked and nothing mattered, as I grew more morose. 

Each successive pain management doc had a different theory.

I heard: “This was a big surgery; it will take a year to come back from it.” 

Or “It’s only been three (four, five, six, seven) months since the surgery. Be patient.”

On my office wall, I had a photo that my husband had taken of me in the bullring in Ronda, Spain on a trip four years before. 

There I stood in my best cocky matador’s pose, full of life. 

Superimposed over the photo were lyrics from a song by David Sylvian:   

“Life is a bullring for taking risks and flouting rules.”

Now each time I looked at the photo, I fought back tears. 

The woman in the photo seemed like a stranger. I simply could not imagine ever feeling so joyful again. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 13

THE RECOVERY -- PART 11

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

My leg was still very weak, but I knew this would improve. 

At last, it seemed that my life was on the road back to normal.

Then Thanksgiving came, and it was as if a trap door had opened and I fell straight into hell.

The next four months were a blurry nightmare of unrelenting pain. 

Some days it felt like battery acid on the back of my thigh, or I was being Tasered in the groin.

Other days a sickening achy, pulling sensation took center stage.

What never varied was the intense pain every time I stood or attempted to walk. 

Prolonged sitting brought on more pain.

I was only comfortable lying flat on my back with my legs elevated on a pillow.

My life was reduced to a miserable slog of trying to get through each day.

I constantly strategized so I could minimize any amount of weight bearing.

Months before at the rehab center, I could walk over 100 feet at a time.

Now I could barely manage 10 feet. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 12 

THE RECOVERY -- PART 10

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

By my second full day, I walked about 30 feet. 

By discharge day, I could walk 130 feet at a stretch.

I was sent home with a customized platform walker, PT orders and prescriptions. 

My husband took me out for Chinese food on the ride home to celebrate.

For the next couple weeks, I worked like a dog each day on exercises.

My hope was to return to work in five or six weeks.

All was going well until about a month after the surgery, when excruciating muscle spasms and nerve pain came out of the blue.

I had suffered with musculoskeletal pain for 30 years, but nothing could have prepared me for this load of bricks.

My surgeon confirmed that the bones were healing very well, but the pain was likely the result of his lengthening my leg about a half inch. 

The muscles and nerves were being required to serve a longer leg, and were temporarily rebelling.

He gave me muscle relaxants and a nerve med.

I was much better in a couple weeks, and eased back into a full-time work schedule.  

SAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 11

THE RECOVERY -- PART 9

 ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

That first evening in my private (!) room was heavenly. 

I took my first shower in eight days. I used a toilet instead of a bedpan.

I sat up in a chair while I ate a decent meal. I lay down on soft, clean sheets and watched Animal Planet.

I worked harder than I ever had over the next week. 

My day was rigidly scheduled from 6:30 am until 5 pm every day but Sunday.

I quickly learned that treatment protocols for joint replacements had changed considerably over 30 years.

As a teenager, I had to lie flat on my back for an hour after each hour I sat up because of concerns about swelling at the surgical site. 

For the first month after surgery, it was one hour up, then one hour down, over and over again. 

But now, the rehab staff had me sitting up all day long, regardless of how much my leg ballooned up by day’s end. 

One thing that hadn’t changed: I could sleep only on my back for six weeks, a miserable situation for a side sleeper. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 10

THE RECOVERY -- PART 8

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

I was expected to start weight bearing just a couple days after surgery. 

The hospital’s PT staff was unable to bring me the type of walker I needed to attempt to stand, despite my daily entreaties. 

Three days after surgery, a PT somehow persuaded me to walk a couple steps with nothing to take the weight off my legs but holding his hand. I’m not a bragger, but I guarantee even Dick Butkus would have wept like a baby from the amount of pain it brought me.

I knew it was hospital discharge day because that’s when the maintenance staff fixed the A/C in my room. 

The rehab facility had everything the hospital did not: highly skilled PTs, OTs, and nurses who knew how to care for hip patients, quality cable TV and functioning A/C with a thermostat I could control! 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 9

THE RECOVERY -- PART 7

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

Those seven days in the hospital were perhaps the longest of my life.

As the senior orthopedic resident said to me: “Consider this surgery a hip replacement, times two.” 

Twice the pain, twice the rehab effort, twice the recovery time. 

To even sit up on the side of the bed filled me with horrific, nauseating waves of pain.

It took one person to lift my torso into a sitting position while another held my leg and little by little, lowered it to the floor.  

Compounding the misery was the hospital’s -- how can I put this? – less-than-stellar quality of care. 

The A/C in my room barely functioned during sweltering August Miami days.

 Nurses repeatedly failed to support my leg while getting me off the bedpan, allowing it to slam back down onto the mattress.

I needed a special chair to sit in when I got out of bed. 

What they brought me was a glorified bar stool that 4 foot, 10 inch me would have needed a ladder to reach. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 8

THE RECOVERY -- PART 6

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

When I began to awake some six hours later, I was preparing myself for the worst: that the doc would tell me my femur had completely shattered in the process of him removing the old prosthesis. 

Perhaps he had simply shored me up best he could, but that further surgeries were needed, and I may never have a functioning hip joint again.

But the news was good. While my femur was as thin as a sheet of paper in places, Dr. T had gotten out the old prosthesis, implanted the new one, reconstructed half of my femur and part of my pelvis, and carried out the necessary bone grafting.

Now it was a matter of healing up enough in the hospital so I could then go to an in-patient rehab facility.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 7

THE RECOVERY -- PART 5

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

After a few X-rays, Dr. T announced the verdict: the left hip prosthesis was pushing outwards from my femur to the point where it would inevitably fracture the bone. 

Maybe not today or tomorrow or next week, but it would most certainly happen.

And if it did, it would make a hip revision much harder to do. In short, if I didn’t have the surgery soon, I would be in a much bigger world of hurt than I had ever bargained for.

Six weeks later I found myself sitting on the edge of an operating table, dopey and propped against the shoulder of an O.R. nurse, while someone from the anesthesia team attempted to insert a needle through the calcified ligaments of my lower lumbar region.

 RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 6

THE RECOVERY -- PART 4

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

This appointment, however, was different.

In his most fatherly, reassuring voice he made it clear that it was time to consider a revision of the prosthesis in the left hip. 

Since I had chosen my doc because of his reputation as an experienced “revisionist,” I figured I was in good hands. 

That was until he told me that my arthritis-ravaged anatomy and thin, decalcified bones were too big a challenge, even for him. 

Which is how I soon found myself in the waiting room of Dr. T.

Doctor J. had spoken of Dr. T. in hushed tones of reverence, a pioneer in the reconstruction of joints ravaged by cancer or severe arthritis.

He pioneered a procedure in which he handcrafts a customized joint to each patient.

I figured that, when I finally met him, there would be cherubim and seraphim fluttering around him, shielding his face from the gaze of mere mortals. 

But he was just another guy, although a very tall and large-framed one, built like a college football linebacker, as so many of the best human carpenters are.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 5

THE RECOVERY -- PART 3

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

What I kept pushing out of my consciousness was the reality that the hips weren’t going to last forever. 

Because even though I use a wheelchair most of the time and only walk short distances, the man-made appliances that had been driven with surgical power tools into the shafts of my femurs before I was old enough to drive were not made to last forever.

I made an appointment with my orthopod, Dr. J., and hoped upon hope it would proceed as usual. 

Which is to say, twice a year I would go to his office, and have X-rays taken of my hips.

He would say the same thing each time: that the prostheses had, over time, moved a bit out of their original positions – not uncommon for these types of old style implants. 

Yet as long as I was functioning without pain, I could go along my merry way and return in six months.      

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 4

THE RECOVERY -- PART 2

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

Fast forward 30 years: I am now 45 years old, an attorney, a disability compliance professional and a wife of 22 years.

My metal and plastic hips have served me well.

They have seen me through college, law school, and two decades of employment as a public servant. 

They were with me when I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, when I first rode in an all-terrain wheelchair down the sands of South Beach, when I ascended into the air on the London Eye, when I ventured across the floor of Monument Valley, and when I explored the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra.

But in spring 2010, I noticed a problem that just wouldn’t go away: when I would lie on my right side in bed, I felt a troubling ache in my left groin.

I tried every trick I knew: heat, ice, rest, stretching. 

You name it, I tried it. 

And all the while I prayed it was a temporary soft tissue thing and not a permanent joint problem.

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 3

THE RECOVERY -- PART 1

ESSAY BY HEIDI JOHNSON-WRIGHT

At age nine, I was diagnosed with severe rheumatoid arthritis.

It raged out of control for years.

Nearly every Christmas break, summer vacation and lengthy stretches during the school year meant ghastly orthopedic surgeries.

Surgeons would saw entire joints out of my body, then hammer in pieces of metal attached with screws. 

In between surgeries and the prolonged recoveries, I made the best of the life I had with all its limitations and chronic pain.

And yet I had friends and loved learning foreign languages and dreamed about traveling to exotic places someday.

I was 15 when I spent the month of June 1980 in the hospital, having both of my hips replaced, then the remainder of the summer recouping. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the breadth and depth of it, nor for the depression and anxiety I suffered, but kept hidden from my family and friends. 

RECOVERY ESSAY CONTINUES TOMORROW -- FEBRUARY 2