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Getting Hip: Recovery from a Total Hip Replacement by Sigrid Macdonald
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 What’s Involved in a Joint Replacement?
D-Day had arrived. It was April 15th, 2003. I woke up with an overwhelming sense of dread and a strong desire to run off to Mexico. But as Fritz Perls said, "The only way out is through," so I made my way to the hospital with the help of my wonderful neighbors. Oddly, I was more worried about my low blood sugar and fibromyalgia than I was about the orthopedic end of things. I was not afraid of developing a blood clot or infection postoperatively, but I did expect to have a delayed recovery. I knew that the anesthesia, the pain medications, and the long period of fasting would destabilize my blood sugar.
Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist insisted on giving me a glucose IV since he was afraid that my blood sugar would fall too low during surgery. He was trying to act in my best interest because I would have been in trouble if I had a severe hypoglycemic episode in the middle of the operation. However, administering glucose to someone with my type of hypoglycemia was a mistake. I should have had the anesthesiologist call my endocrinologist to discuss this matter before surgery. If I had done that, I could have saved myself days of misery since the only type of IV that I should have received was a saline IV. At any rate, the inevitable hour finally arrived and I was wheeled off to the operating room.
HISTORY OF JOINT REPLACEMENTS
According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Anthony White performed the first hip replacement at the Westminster Hospital in London, England in 1822. A number of different materials were used in early hip replacements including gold, ivory and glass. Artificial joints were secured with rudimentary compounds, such as plaster of Paris and glue. These replacements had a high failure rate due to infection, loosening, and the incompatibility of materials.
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