There was a hipster joke here, but it got old and had to be replaced.
"Come real close and tell me it's fake. I dare you. Did you notice what appears to be a switchblade under my lower hand?" (via redditor steamviking)
This picture was posted to reddit with the title "So my dad got his hip replaced and had the doctor save it so he could turn it into a cane." What followed next was predictable: he was told by people claiming to be doctors on the Internet that this is impossible. In light of recent studies showing that people are more likely to trust fake doctors in comment sections than real doctors in real life, I'm not inclined to believe anyone.
Related: Someone asked the Internet a question. They got what they deserved.
Before we address the controversy, let's examine what we know to be true.
- That is a cool cane whether or not this is true, and it makes the guy holding it seem cool.
- It sure as hell looks like a hip-bone cane.
- The hip ball (technical term) has a big hole in it that does not look right.
- If true, that guy has a lot of metal in his leg.
- If true, that guy has a lot of metal...in his heart. \m/
The arguments for this being false break down into two basic categories:
- Doctors are not supposed to give you your internal bits back.
- That's WAY too much femur (leg bone) on that cane. Hip replacements don't usually take that much out.
I've been around enough to know that while in general you don't get your internal parts back, that rule does get broken, so let's move on to the second, more pressing issue: the amount of leg bone.
Do you believe in femuracles?
The Internet has a bone to pick with you. This bone.
Redditor steamviking, the guy claiming that this is his dad and the cane is real, counters this by saying that a.) his dad is 6'3, so it's really not that much femur for him, and b.) the hip was replaced due to severe arthritis.
Others in the comment section confirmed that cases of severe arthritis can result in significantly more femur being removed, although they also point out that the femur on the cane is in much better shape than the ball part with a huge hole in it. I have no idea what real doctors say. I don't know why that would be relevant.
In Caneclusion:
Since I started writing this story, the post has been downvoted significantly and the herd consensus seems to be that it is fake. While I'm not usually one to feel at home in the herd, I kinda feel like that cane looks like a contiguous piece of wood that's been carved at one end and stained below.
In conclusion, I'm calling bullshit, but mostly because of my own amateur wood-looking skills, as opposed to fake comment doctors.
Why should you believe me? I'm Johnny McNulty, god dammit. I may not be a fake Internet doctor, but I'm Irish enough to know a shillelagh when I see one.