How "hip" can I get?

Okay, so the title is corny...so am I. Here are the details of what has been going on for the last few weeks. For about a year and a half or two years I have gotten this sharp pain in my right hip every now and then that would hurt for a few days and go away only to return months later. In the last six months it has been doing this more and more until about three weeks ago it got worse and was not going away. It would hurt when I walked and made movements in certain directions. Then over fathers day weekend it got REALLY bad and by Monday it was hard to do any walking. I had them x ray this when I went to Winston Salem for my bi-annual checkup there. The radiologist said it looked like a condition called avascular necrosis of the hip. He said that I needed to get this looked at by an orthopedic doctor. I made an appointment for Thursday and they confirmed that this was avascular necrosis. They could see it in their x ray but also did an MRI to get a better picture.
Avascular necrosis of the hip is when the ball in the hip joint is not getting sufficient blood flow and the bone collapses over time. This is common in two groups of people, those that had a traumatic hip injury years ago and as a result do not have good blood flow there and those like me that have been on a steroid treatment for a long time. This ball has been breaking down a while and it has a layer of cartilage over it that has been making it manageable for me but most likely I have recently torn that now and this is why it has suddenly gotten worse.
The cure for this is a total hip replacement. Until that is done you can manage the pain with pain killers and get around with a cane, crutches, walker or in worse cases a scooter. I do not like any of these since I already have to tote oxygen with me. Hip replacement does not sound like a walk in the park but I wont be calling the scooter store anytime soon. However, if I did go that route, mine would have a V-Twin engine and be black with orange ghost flames. Hey, a young man in a scooter HAS to have fun somehow.
Anyway, this is something that is also in my left hip but is not near as far advanced and right now is no need to worry about. My surgery will be next Thursday July 8th so lets hope and pray for a speedy and successful recovery.