This past Monday my father went under the knife and had his right hip replaced. It’s been an eventful week for him, and for me as I kept in touch from 3000 miles away. Not to keep you in suspense, the operation was a success and he’s home and happy.

It’s been interesting for me on several levels. I remember a generation ago my grandfather had both hips replaced. I don’t remember the exact year but I think it was 1974; it was much different then. The artificial hips weren’t nearly as good as they are today and at the time they weren’t supposed to last very long. People like my grandfather were told they should wait until the pain was unbearable because they (the doctors) didn’t want to replace the hip more than once in a lifetime. It was a serious enough event that we drove 500 miles to be with him when he had the operation. I remember at the time thinking he was so old. I have to laugh because he was 72: four years younger than my father is now. My mother at the time was 9 years younger than I am now and my younger nephew Chris is 2 years older than I was at the time. I guess this is all the proof I need that the torch has been passed.

Back to my father: he was certainly ready to have the operation because it was really making it difficult to keep up the walking he likes to do. That said I’m not sure he was completely ready to be a patient. He’s not a guy who get sick. I remember only once when I was in high school that he missed work because he was sick. When I got home from school he was in the backyard chopping wood. In one of our conversations this week we agreed that this was probably the longest he’s been in bed since he learned to walk as a child. It certainly wasn’t easy for him to need help with getting out of bed etc. but he did really well. The hospital had horrible food but that’s not a surprise. But the fact that they didn’t have ESPN is, to our minds, a human rights violation. In any case he’s home and on the mend and I’m eager to see him being able to walk again without pain. Love ya Dad.