YT – Mod-42’s advice and info is great. Even though your doc is the authority, the rabbonim know of doctors you never heard of. It may be worthwhile going out of town (yes for most LA is OOT, but I’m an LA’er myself) for the best advice. Like Health says, the hip replacement might be your biggest help, even though it’s a frightening thought since you’ve been working so hard to get your own bones to heal. Your biggest risk is because of the infections and sepsis that you had, so you should get a good Infectious Disease consultation as well since they may want to keep you on suppressive antibiotics before/during/after surgery.
Please keep us posted. I would be very interested to hear who you went to because my sister has rheumatoid arthritis and has terrible problems with her knees, to the point where she can hardly walk and is in a wheelchair quite a bit, and she’s only 65, but this has been a problem for 20 years for her. She previously had arthroscopic surgery and ended up with an infection (not sure what type). Now she is told that she cannot have total knee replacement because of the risk of infection.
Try to think positively, at least there is a possibility your pain can be helped with this procedure, but definitely get a second opinion.