Hippy Gatherings

The 10th Annual official Hippy gathering will be on Saturday February 4, 2012, location will be at the Club House in Fremont like in the past, the next Guest of Honor/Speaker will be Derek McMinn!!!  The inventor of the BHR device and the Father of Modern Day Hip Resurfacing!   Please see evite for more details and if you would like to receive an evite click here or if that doesn't work contact me at vicky@ vmarlow.com just delete the space and place in the subject line Evite for Hippy Gatherig and request to be added to the invite list.  The dinner will be at Birk's restaurant in Santa Clara at around 6:15pm after and Derek McMinn will be joining us for drinks and dinner and to mingle.

The 9th official SF Bay Area Hippy gathering was held on May 14, 2011 and had as the special Guest of Honor Dr. Thomas Schmalzried from the Joint Replacement Institute in Los Angeles, CA.  It was another huge success with over 40 patients attending including our Guest of Honor who flew up from Los Angeles, Dr. Schmalzried.  We had about 18 people join us at Birk's for dinner or mingling afterwards. Here is a short video that captures some of the highlights of this gathering.

The official 8th SF Bay Area Hippy gathering was on Saturday, April 17th, 2010 with over 75 people attending including our guest of honor,  Dr. Edwin Su who flew out from NYC to attend this gathering that most have told me was absolutely the BEST one yet.

Photos are now posted here

Mini gatherings coming up in NYC, probably June 15th for happy hour, around 4:30 until maybe 7pm, TBD still, I might have dinner plans that night, if so, I will have to leave a bit early but I can at least show up to see everyone and meet new people and stay for a drink or two like we did last year.  We will also definitely have dinner on Saturday, June 18, time and place TBD.  Dr. Edwin Su will be joining us for dinner Saturday night, we will all just pay for our own bill, so it will be dutch for both evenings.  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to be included on the evite list and more details will follow.  These will not be detailed like what is described below, the NYC ones will be more casual and just get togethers.

Hippy Gathering Description.

These gatherings are very informative and great for those that are pre-surgery to get a ton of questions answered and be able to meet with many hippies face to face that are in all different stages of recovery as well as patients from many different doctors.

Here is an idea of the way these gatherings go.

First everyone begins to arrive around noon. Everyone mingles and I provide color coded name tags to each person so you will know who has had surgery, when, their doctor and device they have and the newbies will have Red tags that say NEW on them. Guests of those attending will have guest name tags. There will be food there and I ask for a $15 donation to help me with the costs of renting the place the food and just want to break even on the event. Otherwise I would not be able to hold these in the future.

About an hour or so into the gathering, I will call everyone's attention and introduce myself and give a brief background about my experience. Then I will go around the room to some of the long term hippies first, like Des Tuck who had his surgeries in 2001 and 2003 by Mr. Treacy in the U.K. He has since (2007) gotten his 6th degree black belt with bilateral BHR's! See him in action at the last hippy gathering in this video.

Below is a video of Des demonstrating his kicks, just outside during the Hippy Gathering in Fremont, on January 31, 2009. Thank you Des, I believe he has only missed attending one so far but has been to all of the others.

Desmond Tuck, Goju Ryu style karate from Paul Hamilton on Vimeo.

Hopefully he will be able to attend this gathering as well. Alan Ray who had incredible knowledge on learning to walk and regaining a natural gait, you can see his articles here.

Learning to Walk

Proper Use of a Cane

He taught me how to use my cane pre-op and helped me learn how to walk again the right way post-op. Also this time I hope my infamous PT Greg Booth will be attending, he has helped over 7 surface hippies now and every one of them raves about him.

Then I will go around and ask several other post op hippies to tell their stories and make sure we have patients that have gone to different doctors to get a variety of experiences.

Then around 3pm or so, Dr. Su will show up and be there to answer anyone's questions and review x-rays etc. The gathering usually last until 5pm but this time it will probably last until around 6pm with Dr. Su there.

I have a hip model which you can see in this video on THR vs BHR as well as a BHR, ASR and C+ device, so you will actually be able to hold them and see what they look like.

What an incredible opportunity for a newbie that is still looking into surgery.  If you are one of the many that need to wait due to too much cartilage left in your hip, CA is NOT a bad place to visit for a weekend. :-)

If anyone out there has family or friends that are skeptical and hard to convince, invite them to this gathering, it will definitely turn them into true believers of resurfacing. Also of course if you know anyone scheduled for a THR, bring them!

Finally, here is a short video clip done by Paul Hamilton that shows a large group of us at one of the gatherings held last year, notice in the beginning we are all walking with either crutches or canes and some limping, then without any aids. To demonstrate that all of these patients are now pain free after their hip resurfacing. Hope to see you at the next one!

Vicky