Surgery #1: "surgical dislocation"

I'll be having two surgeries, scheduled for the 23^rd and the 25^th. The first surgery is called "surgical dislocation." Basically they'll dislocate my right hip so they can get a good look at the hip socket and the ball on the top of my femur and fix whatever damage they find. The surgeon will suture or remove torn cartilage, and possibly transplant plugs of bone and cartilage onto the ball if necessary. Also, he'll shave down the front neck of the femur near the ball because it impinges on the rim of the socket (see image to the right).

Gory details for the surgical dislocation: first they'll unzip the skin and separate some muscles to get to the juicy parts. Then they'll temporarily cut off a slice of bone where a bunch of muscles attach, along the bold line in Fig 1. The sliced-off part of the bone can then be pulled out of the way with the muscles still attached. The idea is to disturb as few muscles as possible; and since bone heals easier than muscle detachments, it's better to make this cut rather than detach and reattach all the muscles. This bone will get screwed back on at the end.




With those muscles out of the way, the leg can be rotated out of the socket for inspection and repair:




I'm grateful for bodies that heal, doctors and nurses that can do this stuff, and for the promise of a fully warranted replacement body in the future!

Update: watch a surgical dislocation narrated by Dr Ganz.