I posted earlier about how great my recovery was from my left hip resurfacing on Sept.11 I was walking great, hiking and was pain free. At approximately 7 weeks post op I developed flu like smptoms. I had a fever, chills and muscle soreness. My operated leg muscles hurt more than the other leg but I attributed this to them not being built back up completely.
This went on for 3 days and Saturday night I felt my incision and it was hot and my leg was swollen and red. I went straight to the emerency room and they admitted me to the hospital in Scottsdale AZ. On Sunday the hospital ortho came in and told me I had a large infection and would require immmediate surgery to drain and clean the infectioon and remove the resurfacing and convert to a total hip replacement. Another ortho surgeon who happened to be in the hospital came in that day and agreed with his assessment. She knew me because I consulted with her before my initial surgery. Dr. Ball in San Diego did my hip resurfacing surgery so they recommended I go back to San Diego to have my infection handled. I was feeling pretty low at his point. I called Dr Ball and he said to get over to San Diego right away and they would handle it. And everything was going to be OK. That made me feel better since I specifically selected a resurfacing procedure and it was going great until the infection set in.
I arrived at Thorton Hospital in San Diego Monday morning and went straight to Emergency. I had the usual tests and saw Dr Ball in the afternoon. He told me that there were a couple of ways to go. The first and most conservative was to open me up, clean the infection, remove the resurfacing and do a total hip. He felt this would yield a 90% chance at success. The second path was more risky. It involved two operations to clean the hip area of infection but retain the hip resurfacing. He estimated an 80% success factor not knowing exactly what bacteria was causing the infection.
I told him I wanted to keep the resurfacing in place and he agreed to try to do this.
So, Monday evening at 8 pm I was opened up and the infection was throughly cleaned including dislocation of the hip and scrubbing the metal parts with brushes and disinfectant and water under pressure (like a Water Pik). The infection went into the joint so was communicated across the whole crosssection of the leg. They took cultures for bacteria identification and placed antibotic beads in the joint then closed me up. They also put in two drains.
One part I have omitted is that the whole time up to this point I was on wide spectrum antibotics through IV.
Now I waited in the hospital for the cultures to grow. Continuing the antibotic IVs. On Wednesday the cultures showed it was a staph infection but was a more treatable staph since it was gram positive. Now we move to phase two.
My IVs were chaged to antibotics that were best matched to kill this bacteria. They watched my inflamation markers to see how the infection was doing. They pointed in the right direction. Less inflamation. So, I was scheduled for Saturday morning sugery for final drainage cleanup. By Wed./Thursday one could see that the outward signs of infection were greatly reduced: no fever, minor leg swelling, minor redness.
On Saturday the surgery was only a couple hours. The leg was opened up and throughly cleaned as before. The antibiotic beads were removed. A couple drain lines were inserted. Everything looked good and the leg was closed up.
I spent three addition days in the hospital and was discharged. I wear a fanny pack with a pump that delivers 12 g of antibotic every 24 hours continuosly via a PICC line that was inserted in the hospital. What a great product for those who need constant and prolonged access to get medicine into a vein. And I take oral antibotics for the next 6 weeks.
I tell this story for information purposes but more so to say that great Doctors like Dr. Ball really shine in crisis. It would have been far easier and less risky to remove the resurfacing and covert to a total hip. But he knew I wanted to keep my hip as is. I have the uptmost respect for Dr. Ball and his staff at UCSD.
I have fingers crossed that his all works out. And the infection is in my past never to recur.
Topic: Great Recovery then Major Infection (Read 4129 times)
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