Time to Fix the Femur

During my month long stay at Rex Hospital last April, a CT Scan showed a one inch hole in the neck of my left femur. The decision at the time was to focus on treating the multiple myeloma, and once we had that under control, we would address the femur.

The neck of the femur is where most hip fractures occur. The blood supply to the “ball” of the femur is via the blood vessels on the outside of the neck area and a fracture here severs those vessels. Without a blood supply, the ball of the femur dies and the only remedy is to do a hip replacement operation, where they  remove the old ball and put in an artificial one.

The hole in the neck of my femur will take years for the body to naturally rebuild, and may never get to the point of being as strong as before the lesion. As such, I am at risk for a femur fracture and hip replacement!

We consulted two orthopedic doctors and the consensus was that we should be pro-active and have the femur ‘pinned’. This procedure will install two interlocking screws/nails: one down the shank from the top and the other transverse through that rod and up through the femoral neck into the ball:

This ‘pinning’ actually makes the femoral neck stronger than before the lesion and will hopefully prevent a fracture in this area.

I am scheduled to have the procedure a week from today on Monday, February 14th, at about 5:15pm. Linda and I check into Duke Raleigh Hospital at 3:15pm that afternoon and expect to be in the hospital for 1-3 days depending on how good the hospital food is. (HA!) Not exactly how we would like to be spending Valentine's Day...I mean a nice steak/lobster dinner is much more appealing! However, this was the surgeon's first available day, so we took it. The sooner the better...get it fixed and keep on moving forward. We would deeply appreciate your prayers, that all would go well.