Hip Troll Sighting

So I just got back from seeing the superduper grand poo-bah of injured hips at Stanford. He immediately dismissed my vastly inferior x-rays and had me get a set of new ones. Much to his surprise he found a small troll crouched atop my femur gnawing irritably on the bone and making rude gestures at the technician. This explains the problem, of course.

The troll is in the shape of an impingement. That means that I was born with a little trolly knob on the head of my femur (see, it IS all my parent's fault) that, in most normal human beings, probably would sit unperturbed into my decrepitude. Alas, because I am crazy (that is definitely my fault) and insist on doing improbably things with my joints, my ligaments, particularly on the right side, have loosen up like overused bungee cords and now the femur is rattling around in the socket and the troll is gradually wearing away at my cartilage, labral tissue, nerves, and other important and tragically fragile bits. This is more pronounced on the right where the ligaments are sadder, but I also have the problem on my left hip, along with some calcification (baby trolls?).

While physical therapy may help by supporting the joint with muscle instead of the sad ligaments, if I want to resume my normal abnormal range of motion and avoid the long term risk of arthritis or (ack) hip replacement, the troll has got to go. This means surgery. The extent of the surgery will be determined after a really unpleasant MRI in which they inject dye into my hip using a needle that makes me flinch just imagining it. Recovery time is 4-8 months depending on how much troll has to be scraped off the bone.

I think I can still do handstands throughout. I'm going to start training handbalancing with Angelo next week. Hopefully the troll with not object overmuch and it will keep the tyger from gnawing at other delicate bits for the next... how many months?