It’s almost time for hip replacement surgery.
Again.
On September 1st (eight days from today) I will head up to St. George, Utah for a return visit with Dr. Scott Parry, who replaced my left hip last November. It went so well last time that I decided like Ernie Banks…what the heck!…let’s play two!
My right hip HAS been bothering me. As a matter of fact, it is in worse condition than the left one was before last year’s surgery. I haven’t been able to hike with my buddies since January. I have been golfing occasionally, hitting range balls and playing an occasional round with my friends. But, my golf game sucks, probably because I’m favoring my surgically-repaired left hip.
My right hip bothers me most when getting up from a sofa after sitting for a while, which occurs a lot when you’re confined due to the pandemic. Charlie seems to know this, as she is constantly asking me to get something for her after I settle in on the couch. The dogs are also picking on me, wanting me to get down on all fours so that I can retrieve a ball that they’ve rolled under the sofa (on purpose). Those little bastards!
My poor hip can’t get no love.
My son Jonathan is going to fly here from Lexington, Kentucky this week to help Charlie for a week or so after my surgery. He did the same thing last year and was a big help. Jonathan can cook, which Charlie can’t, and he’s also adept at picking up dog poo out in the backyard.
Jonathan is also a golf nut, so his trip west has some perks. He’s flying out here on Friday, whereupon he will golf with his friend Tony in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday. He will then drive the 70 miles north to our place. The next morning, Monday the 31st, Jonathan, my friends Galen and Lloyd, and myself will drive out to Coyote Springs and golf at the Jack Nicklaus Signature course. Jonathan will shoot about 80, and the rest of us will combine for about 300 strokes.
It is what it is.
The next morning Jonathan will drive me up to St. George for my showdown with Dr. Parry.
I had my pre-op today in Mesquite with Bruce McPherson, who is Dr. Parry’s P.A. We went over the procedure, which is old hat for me, of course. However, a new wrinkle: Because of Covid-19 protocols, I will likely not stay overnight after my surgery. Last year, I spent the night on the surgical recovery ward and was released the next morning after I could demonstrate my fitness by walking to and from the cafeteria. Apparently, if I can get up and painfully hobble a few hours after surgery, the heartless bastards are going to release me.
Luckily for me, I have a retired nurse living in my house. And plenty of hydrocodone pills.
By the way, the hospital up in St. George, which is one of the finest I’ve ever experienced as an employee or patient, has fallen victim to the Black Lives Matter movement. The hospital, which until recently was called the Dixie Regional Medical Center, has been renamed the Intermountain Regional Medical Center. Apparently the umpteen million Mormons up there in Utah decided to get aboard the political correctness train. It must be Mitt Romney’s doing.
Of course, neither Black people, slavery or the Civil War had anything to do with Utah or the city of St. George, for that matter. The southern region of the state where St. George is located was once the location of a failed early Mormon experiment to grow cotton. Since it was in the “south” part of Utah, and cotton was the crop, early settlers in the 1860’s playfully used the moniker “Dixie” to describe their agricultural region. The unusual name for the region lingered long after the cotton -growing experiment died out, which was almost simultaneous with the failure of the Confederacy.
Anyway, I don’t know if the Medical Center’s decision to rename is indicative of a regional trend but, if it is, there’s going to be a lot of name-changing, as scores of businesses and such have “Dixie” in their official title. Heck, the local college is “Dixie State University”!
Speaking of name-changing, we might want to do some here in our house.
Both Charlie and I keep calling our new puppy BonBon (Bonnie) “baby”. That happens to be the name of our 3 yr-old Boston. It’s confusing. In retrospect, we should have named Baby something like “Stinker” because she has a persistent anal gland issue, if you know what I mean.
Then, we would have had a “Booger” and a “Stinker” before acquiring our little puppy a few months ago.
We could have then named her “Baby”, of course.
Then, again, “Midget” might have worked.
Except that we might have offended some elevationally-challenged individuals.