why you care about me

I’m Rachelle. You probably know me pretty well if you’re reading this, because, let’s face it, no stranger will find this remotely interesting. My blog is called It’s not a bomb, it’s just my hip replacement as a nod to airport security workers everywhere, who will soon be pulling me aside because I set off their metal detectors. While tempting, I’ll skip the TSA jokes. I don’t need to be put on the no fly list.

What got me into this mess:

I’m 28 (for one more week) and I was diagnosed with MS in August of 2006. The last year has been pretty rough, and I’ve experienced quite a few relapses of my illness that were serious enough to call for bursts of high-dose Prednisone.

Reasons why you don’t want to take Prednisone:

1. It makes you fat
2. It makes you angry/irrational
3. Forget about sleeping
4. It can have serious side effects, one of these side effects being a bone disease called osteonecrosis

Side effect #4 is what brings me here.

I have osteonecrosis (osteo = bone, necrosis = death, you do the math) in both of my hips. The left side is more severe than the right, so I’m going to be having a hip replacement on the left side.

Seems drastic, right?

There are 3 surgical fixes for osteonecrosis:

1) decompression
2) bone grafting
3) hip replacement

I am not eligible for options 1 & 2, because my problem was caused by Prednisone use, not age or chronic alcoholism. Which means, I should have just been a drunk. At least the path to now would have been a lot more interesting.

There is 1 non-surgical “fix”, which consists of letting the disease run its course (aka let the bone totally die, which let me tell you, doesn’t feel very nice) and live with arthritis, knowing I’d just need a hip replacement eventually anyway.

Decisions, decisions, right?

So, there we go. In t-minus 12 days I will have a cooler hip than you. Try to contain your jealousy, it’s just not a good look on anyone. Sort of like formal shorts. Or berets.