Bi-Lateral Hip Resurfacing Accomplished

So here are my new hips courtesy of Dr. Edwin Su, his great staff including Blair who sewed me up with stitches as tight as a seamstress working in an atelier in Paris. Special Kudos to The Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC, (#1 in the USA for orthopedics), and Smith & Nephew manufacturing, (cause good parts are key). Now as you can see, (because you know how to read x-rays), this picture taken 4 weeks after surgery show all is well in hip-land and now we wait for bone to grow around the socket.Except fornot lifting or walking with over 20 lbs. while standing, no jumping up and down, and definitely no bungee jumping), I have no restrictions in terms of movement. At almost seven weeks out I am on spin bike with resistance and working up a sweat. I am walking on treadmill and lifting weights seated or lying down. I do physical therapy 3 times a week and scar massage at least once a week. I feel really good and I am super happy I found this procedure and could have it done before my hips were too messed up for this operation. In fact when I came out of surgery my friend Robert told me the doctor said that had a waited even a little longer I would not have been able to have this procedure. When it comes to elective surgery you want to know you had it done at the right time because I was thinking, if I waited a just a little longer they would come up with artificial cartilage or some solution that didn’t involve cutting or drilling. And yes, I had a lot of fear about this operation and it did involve major cutting and drilling from just cutting me open to get at the hips to reaming the femoral head to make it a little smaller to wacking the new hip hemishpere into place! I did get fearful at times yes I was on the phone with my surgeon on the way to NYC requiring a pep talk to keep driving torwards the hospital instead of away!!


And even after the operation I feel that it doesn’t matter how many medical shows you watch on TV with the competent caring staff. When they were wheeling me down the back hallway to the operating room which without my glasses looks like the back of a kitchen at a large hotel I start thinking that something is definitely wrong and that I have arrived at the “Hospital of Horrors” and that soon my body parts will be dispersed all over the world for the best possible price,
And while I know I am supposed to be wheeled into Operating Room #1 I have no way of knowing if I am actually going to arrive in Operating Room #1. But I comfort myself by knowing that I will recognize my doctor and his assistant realizing much to my dismay as I am wheeled into the room that everyone is in surgical masks, shower caps, and other means of concealment. Luckily, the anesthesiologist was from New Zealand so I recognized his voice as he proceeded to very efficiently knock me out!
But let me backup. I showed up at the hospital Tuesday morning in good if somewhat tense mood. But hanging in the patient waiting room with other people was distracting and it was only when I walked through the doors into the pre-op area and put on the gown with the mandatory ass reveal did I start to get nervous. Well luckily my friend Robert was with me as my hips and upper legs were shaved and labeled and signed by the doctor. ES are my surgeons initials and #1 means cut here first! It didn’t even matter that I was doing both as I had to select an order in case they had to stop halfway through to get home in time to watch “House”. So after I was prepped I waited in bed making "My Name is Earl" phone calls to make sure that I had made all needed ammends and went into surgery with a clear conscience. But they came to get me pretty quickly so I didn't get to everyone which is why you probably didn't hear from me.
So I am excited to be healing and looking forward to cycling with my new resurfacing buddy
who doesn't know he is my new re-surfacing buddy. (I shot these photos of Floyd Landis at the 2005 Tour de France final time trial!) But his parts were also manufactured by Smith & Newphew and they sponsor him as a cyclist and I am asking them to sponsor me on my MS ride this spring so you never know. I'll update the blog in the coming months and start asking you for donations to my MS ride!!!

Zipper Project Party #1

The 1st ever Zipper Project© Photo Shoot Dance Party took place on September 29th at the Pierre Menard Gallery in Cambridge. It was 1/2 photo shoot and 5/8 dance party. DJ Jesse Allen of Beat Connection spun the tunes, really spun, not some laptop digi-thing. Vinyl baby. We got some really good press in the Daily Candy and in the print and on-line version of the Metro.http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/article/2007/09/28/01/5311-72/index.xml I set up a backdrop and lights
and when people were in the mood I photographed them in the spirit of revealations. There were wonderful moments during the evening and while the project is ultimately about intimacy and requires a quieter and more collaborative shooting environment people did get into the spirit of unzipping

unbuttoningunhookingunwindingwindingfindingrevealingalmostand just plain having funIt was a long night and I heard rumour that gallery people were seen discussing the hey dey of Studio 54 in NYC at 6 in the morning. I will be continuing now to work on images for the Zipper Project© over the next 6 months so if you know people who are interested in revealing the smallest, or biggest, part of their inner or outerselves please have them contact me at jonathan@starkview.com. And a special thanks to John and Nathan of the Pierre Menard Gallery - www.pierremenardgallery.com - for hosting a unique and wonderful time.

Florida in August

So I headed down to Florida to visit my Mom and to have a little R&R with my friend Andy.
One of the things I love about Florida is the amazing juxtaposition of people and stores that don’t co-exist anywhere else that I know of. You have retirees from the North driving around in BMWs while the local workers that thrive on the retirees drive around in pick-up trucks till they retire and then they drive around in BMWs while the immigrant work force still bicycles to work, which in Florida is no small feat.
And then you have the juxtaposition of stores.
One of our favorite places to eat is Skorpios, a Greek restaurant
sandwiched in-between a Pet Grooming place and a Tanning Salon that sells Smoothies. Even that combination, first, expose yourself to intense un-healthy uv rays and then have a nice anti-oxidant drink to prevent cancer is so Floridian!

So this is me and my Mom tastefully photographed on the mural of the Greek Isles inside Skorpios. Yasoo!




This is another one of our favorite spots, Mom’s Kitchen. Food is great, prices are cheap, and with the Early Bird special you can eat as much as my friend Paul does on our Tuesday night dinners when he isn’t buying! And you can tell by the cop car that the food is really really good…or free.

Well after a few days with Mom I hooked up with Andy to take a ride down to South Beach.


Andy rented a red Mustang convertible. Oh yeh, you do get double takes from da ladies, (aka 16 year old Cuban girls), and yes, some of the guys in South Beach asked for a ride....

So our first stop was City Place in West Palm where we took a trolley ride to Clematis St. where there was restaurants and live music…Oooohh... High Octane….” Smoke on the Water…” Well both the street and the music had a VD like atmosphere so we actually told our waiter forger it after he brought our sodas and we left! The high point was the driver
and this great group of girls on the trolley!
We then cruised down to South Beach where I had to get my picture taken along with the other riff-raff in front of the Versace Mansion, now a hotel where you can pay $ 1000.00 a night for a room or $ 5000.00 a night for Gianni's old room, or they will pay you 10,000 lira a night if you will sleep with Donatella in her room.
Further along the beach there was this cool family of 3 generations of women from Costa Rica who sell necklaces made from dried Bananas and Coffee Beans.
And then as we walked down Ocean Drive we found all kinds of Disneyesque characters from the Cigar Girl
to the Mermaid
and of course, the Life Guard.
Don't ask me, she said she saves lives.
So all in all, a pretty fun trip. Now the flight back was a bit awkward. Let me just say that I sat next to someone who asked the flight attendant for the extender. It wouldn't have been so bad but she brought a meal on the plane, (go figure), and when we hit turbulence her tray and beverage went flying because the tray couldn't go all the way down because of the girth of her...well you get the idea. But I caught the soda mid-air, switched seats, and besides my attitude about flying these days: Arrive alive, the rest is details.
J

Off to New York City

So I head off to NYC to meet the surgeon who is going to re-surface my hips and guarantee that I can ride like Floyd Landis. (Keep your doping comments to yourself) The meeting was great and I feel confident in the doctor and the process. I celebrated the news by riding from the upper west side of Manhattan to Astroland at Coney Island.The best parts of the ride were getting to the tip of Manhattan and seeing the Statue of Liberty
and then riding over the Brooklyn Bridge. It has a big lane dedicated to bikes and you just have to remember that it is shared in two directions or you could be in a bit of trouble. Coney Island was a trip though and the people on the boardwalk and the beach were out of central casting: "What da f_ck are you lookin at bike boy..." So after eating a few hotdogs I pedalled back to Manhattan where it's safe and walked around SOHO with my cheerful friend Andy. Luckily there were people as nice as Andy and we made lots of friends.
So after running around lower Manhattan for a while we headed uptown where I had left my car as I had to drive in with my bike. I was a little worried about it getting a custom paint job after seeing this truck. But I ended up meeting a Graffitti Artist and he said I had nothing to worry about as my car was too small and too black to bother painting on, unless I was from out of state!
Then he laughed and said.."just kiddin..really". Anyway is this guy ready for the urban graffitti wars or what.A special thanks to my friend Heather who expertly guided me through Manhattan and Brooklyn except when she was kind of lost or nearly getting creamed by someone making an in-attentive right turn. Following behind I saw it all happening and I was already wondering if they take bikes in an ambulance but she managed to break and avoid the crash without falling over, the benefit of riding without being clipped in!
So I thought I'd end this blog where I began with my hip-resurfacing. I will have the operation on October 26th, two hips at once and this is what they will look like individually. Yes, I will need a special letter to go through the airport security but once these metal parts are working I will be able to ride pain free, except the pain of keeping up with Brendon, Amanda, and the other fasties. See you all on the 11th in Manchester.