Minor hijack ahead
Karen - Your husband needs to do what he can now to prevent surgery, but you already know that. Meanwhile, you may want to look into a procedure called hip resurfacing. He's not a candidate now, but may be one in the future. This is the same procedure that Floyd Landis had.
One of my clients, a kayaker by profession had this procedure in Belgium at age 56 and is doing very well. He highly recommends this website for information:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/surfacehippy/
OK - hijack over.