The Real Beginning

OK, I lied. This post goes back a little earlier than 2 years, in fact it goes back a little over 58 years.

If I had to guess I would say that being born had a lot to do with what is happening in my life today. "Of course!" you say, what an idiotic thing to mention. I only mention it because I'm pretty certain that genetics are responsible, at least in part, for the spinal stenosis predicament I'm currently in.

From an obscure gene on my mother's side, which seems to skip every other generation and affects mostly boys, I came down with Legg-Perthes syndrome at age 7. You can look it up but, in a nutshell the head of the femur (that's the big ball that fits in your hip socket) loses its blood supply so it gets very soft and wears down and deforms the ball. Yup - it no longer articulates smoothly in the socket, causing lots of pain, future arthritis blah, blah, blah. Three months in a hospital in traction seemed to get the blood supply flowing again, but the damage was done. That's what they did back in the 60's, so I'm not sure how they treat it now.

As an adult, my left leg ended up being about 3/4" shorter than the right, I walked with a natural limp, pretty much constant pain and chewing up to 10 regular aspirins a day. Thank God I have a cast iron stomach. I found I could relieve some of the discomfort by walking and standing with a slight forward stoop Spending 40 years or so with my pelvis 3/4" off level and stooped over forward naturally put a some stress on the lower spine, and I always had a little resulting lower back ache.

I eventually had the left hip replaced at about age 45 or 46, and the doctor was kind enough to put the 3/4" back on my leg. Hip pain and limp was cured instantly. My theory is that as a result of the new hip, straightening up the pelvis and stoop added a new stress to the lower back. kind of like flexing a piece of aluminum back and forth.

I'll toss in the fact that around age 10 I had another bone disease, Osgood-Schlatter in both knees at different times.

Hmmm! The plot thickens.