What do you do on your way to a hip replacement?

For those readers who have said, "Hey, I haven't heard from John for the last few days" (yes, both of you) or those of you wandering around Herndon, VA wondering "Who is that limping person along the side of the road?" let me offer an explanation.  I decided to have a hip replacement!  On Tuesday the 8th, to be exact.

In terms of the surgery itself, knock wood, things went well. I have a 9 inch incision and 32 staples. While my wife banned social media for the most part during the surgery, there is a fine picture of the wound socializing around my family on Facebook private messenging. I expect it to ultimately go viral. I truly wish I had had the foresight to get them to spell "AIIM.org" with the staples to cover the viral contingency.

I found the surgery itself amazing, despite the fact that I am a total whimp when it comes to medical things. When my daughter Erin turns on Grey’s Anatomy, I usually leave the room, not so much because of the sex scenes (although that would probably be enough) but for the medical scenes. During the surgery, they replace the top part of the femur and also the socket on the pelvis to which it connects with a combination of metal and ceramic components. In technical terms, where the hip bone connects to the leg bone. Pretty amazing,

Of course, I paid particular attention to the back-end records processes associated with this adventure. The admin process at the hospital was for the most part encouragingly light on paper (YES!, we're all making progress!)  The bracelet was the universal identifier. Without the bracelet, you couldn't do anything.  For everything they did (BP, pulse, etc., etc.) they first scanned the bar code on the bracelet. Every single piece of medicine was bar coded and also paired against the bracelet identifier.

As usual for American medicine – or for that matter, anything American – the most humorous aspect was the wide variety of CYA documents that I needed to sign to protect the various service providers from the vagaries of the US legal system. The paper was certainly down since my last surgical adventure 30 years ago, but the number of blanket document absolutions for negligence intentional or imagined was way up.  

I believe that at various stages of consciousness, I agreed that I understood ALL of the risks, and YES, agreed to them (nee, I WELCOMED them), related to the services provided by these providers:

• The anesthesiologist
• The surgeon
• My dentist
• My regular doctor
• The hospital
• The flower shop in the hospital
• The Chipotle down the street from the hospital
• Any manufacturer of any drug any time ever
• The guy who delivers the Washington Post to our house

So anyway, that's where we are.  All is well with the world.  Feeling fabulous and looking forward to a dance contest at AIIM13.  Spots are going fast; register now!

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