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November 13, 2008
Good news
My brother is recovering, as I write, from a partial hip replacement in hospital in Cape Town. As he has no medical insurance, this has been an expensive operation costing something like SARand30,000, but it is a very necessary one. For some time now he has been suffering a lot of pain in the joint as he tried to walk. Now, hopefully, the replacement will give him at least twenty years without the problem. As he is four years younger than myself, it is a reminder that I have been very lucky in this regard.
His problem arises from having had secondary polio when he was around six, something no one spotted, though he ran a high temperature and displayed some of the symptoms. It was not until his 'teens that anyone noticed that the right side of his pectoral muscles had attrified - a sign of polio damage - and that his spine was also kinked due to other muscle damage. That has meant that for years he has been putting more strain on one hip than on the other - and the damage to the joint is the result.
Now all I have to pray for is that he has a speedy and uncomplicated recovery.
Posted by The Gray Monk at November 13, 2008 08:27 AM
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