The dental implant was a nice, expensive “patch” that ensures I will always have a work horse in my mouth. Hopefully, it can pull solo through the puree stage of my golden years and not have to be yoked with another IRA-fed procedure.
The osteo part of my life has equipped me with new radar. It can locate every ramp, elevator, and handrail within a 25-mile radius. Once they’re detected, they become my BFsF. And, like my daddy, I love an occasional chair. I don’t mean a neutral-toned accent chair that sits in the shadows of the living room and awaits an overflow crowd. I mean that I like chairs that are occasionally placed along a route between Point A and Point B. A chair, stool, or ledge is like a refreshing Stuckey’s rest stop. It’s like a cool drink of lemonade in the summer and an electric blanket in the winter.
The term hip replacement is unappealing, since the word replace means to restore to a former position or place. My arthritic hip needs to be exchanged for something better---not fixed and replaced in its original slot. All I know for certain is this: When my hip pain grabs me, I see Jesus coming for me and I get scared. It’s the same kind of pain I get when I spin around in my wheelie chair and bang my knee on the metal filing cabinet. Last night the pain was so bad that I was ready to burn down the barn and eat the sheep. At best, it was comparable to being mauled by a bear.
Our bucket lists change as we reach the aging plateaus. After my hip replacement, I’ve accepted that I’ll never ride a Brahma bull, do the splits with my granddaughters, go bottomless on a nude beach, sail through airport security at a fast clip (Lanny will be boarding the plane while TSA grills me on my involvement with al-Qaeda), or claim to have all my original parts.
Thankfully, the hip exchange will enable me to get in and out of the car painlessly, keep up with the grandkids at Six Flags, carry my own luggage (Seriously?), gracefully step into and out of my sunken den (What were we THINKING when we designed our house in 1974!?), run in spike heels (just kidding), and climb to the top bleacher at my grandkids’ games. Oh, and one more thing I hope to be able to do:
Pole dance.
