Beltane Waning Flower Moon
Kate and I went into see Dr. Heller this morning in his offices at 7o1 25th St. next to the old St. Mary’s Hospital. His P.A. came in with a small bag, about the size of a medium woman’s purse. It was rectangular, had a zipper and was black. He unzipped it and took out various pieces of metal and plastic. In the correct combination these round and angular components will constitute a new hip for Kate on the right side. He fitted them together explaining how they worked and the benefits of minimally invasive hip surgery.
Kate’s a candidate and has a procedure scheduled for June 30th. We are both very happy. In the traditional hip replacement surgery, about 98% of all of them, a the surgeon cuts a long slice along the hip down the thigh. This goes through muscle. It is the healing process for this injured muscle that creates a lot of the hassle post-op for hip replacements. In minimally invasive they make two small incisions, 2 inches and 1.5 inches, and do the whole procedure through them, guided by x-ray.
These incisions go between muscles so there is no muscle healing required. This means there are no restrictions–NO RESTRICTIONS–after going home. The procedure takes an hour, two-three days in the hospital, then you walk out like the lame guy they lowered through the hole in the roof in the New Testament. Only this procedure costs a lot more.
Dr. Heller looks to be late 40’s, early 50’s. He’s fit, shaves his head and has a confident, upbeat manner. He should. He’s done 1020 of these operations and his recovery numbers in terms of negative sequelae are better than the national average.
This has a strangely ironic undertone for me since I spent the 80’s working with the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, the very one on which Heller’s office sits, first trying to stop Keith Heller from building 25,000 housing units there, then building neighborhood scale ones instead.
