大咖福利影院

Good luck, I hope all goes well, I will look forward to your report .

@JimJ

Good luck Jim. Hope you mend quickly!

I shall need a new hip replacement in around four years time, to replace the exist one.

@JimJ

Wishing you all the very best for your operation and a speedy recovery. Are you getting a titanium knee? I've heard they can produce remarkable results. I'm sure you'll be back on your feet before long, tackling the stairs with ease and getting back to your normal routine sooner than you think. Best of luck, and take care.

First hurdle cleared: I've found a blood donor for the single unit I'll need during the op. It's a crazy system here...

@JimJ

Good luck with the op. I may be heading on the same road in a few years time. Which hospital are you going to?

@grshaw30

It was a toss-up between SofiaMed and Vita 2. My main criterion was which surgeon was going to do it rather than where; I did a lot of research before choosing. It was originally going to be SofiaMed and I'd have no reluctance in using the surgeon there, who has an excellent reputation. However, after more research I went to Vita for a second opinion; the surgeon there was somewhat older (in his 50s) abd again with an excellent reputation.

Of course, one always has to bear in mind that while "the best in the country" is always an accolade, the country in question is only half the size of London... 馃槑

Anyway, I'm always a little chary of younger doctors who can be a bit full of themselves - and also of over-the-hill ones with bleary eyes and shaky hands, of course. The chap at Vita was very business-like and offered to juggle his list to fit me in before a long absence operating in Germany. TBH, I still don't know how the cost will compare to the quote from Sofia Med but I guess it's only money and hopefully it'll be in the same ball park (so much for all the careful research!) How it goes will determine who does the other one, assuming that the Young Gun doesn't take umbrage..but I already have a cover story if needed! In the final analysis, I'd be okay with either of them doing the procedure. But I'm certainly hoping it's not going to be the start of the same kind of saga that my poor wife is still going through.

@JimJ

77 steps!?. Do you live in a 6 story mansion?

@Zooldrool

Nope - but we do live in a house in a "Villa Zone" on the side of a mountain. Our garden is terraced and slopes up to the house from street level at roughly 45掳 and our garages are essentially built into the side of the mountain, ie under the garden and about 20 metres below the house.

@JimJ

Sounds like you've done all the background checks. The sort of things we were doing when my better half's father was going into hospital.聽 On the whole we've found that f you shop around you can receive excellent medical care here. Having said that we have seen the other side of the coin with our first GP who wouldn't even get out of his chair to assess an injury and a specialist that ignored test results, "because he knew better".

I hope all goes well and you make a fast and full recovery.

@grshaw30

I've been here a pretty long time now, over 20 years, and of course my wife's lived in BG all her life (so far 馃槑) We've both found the health system here to be something of a curate's egg, and on several occasions we've been frankly horrified - and that goes for both the public and private sectors!

Judging by my wife's current travails, I'd be loath to trust most doctors here with any really serious ailments unless I really had no other option..聽 Fortunately, knee replacements are fairly routine nowadays, so I'm hoping that "BG's Finest" won't leave me in a wheelchair.聽 I will be wearing one of those t-shirts featuring a menacing black cat brandishing a large kitchen knife dripping with blood with the slogan "You saw NOTHING.." All the surgeons I've ever met shared a pretty morbid sense of humour, so I'm hoping it will go down okay! 馃槄