As you get older, your goals change. Getting up in the morning is critical; not croaking during the day is also important. You prioritize.
As Jack Nicholson said in The Bucket List, the three things you need to remember when you get older are: never pass up a bathroom; never waste a hard-on; and, never trust a fart.
Words to live by.
When you’re a septuagenarian like me, goals like climbing Mt. Everest, becoming a billionaire, or being elected President are now out of the question, and have been replaced by more realistic achievements like completing some honey-do tasks, playing a round of golf without embarrassing yourself, or passing a driving test.
Come to think of it, our next President will either be 74 or 78 years young. Go figure.
I have a new bucket list to work on, as I am in my first week after right hip replacement surgery. I’ve been here before, as it were, because I had the same surgery done on my left hip less than one year ago. So, I know the drill.
The first Bucket List item was getting up and bearing weight on my legs after surgery. I failed to accomplish that item. The plan was for me to walk a few steps on the day of surgery; then, the doctor would send me home from the hospital. However, when they tried to get me up and out of the recovery bed, my blood pressure dropped to something like 50/20. Not good; in fact, almost fatal. So, I had to stay overnight while things settled. It was probably an effect of the spinal block anesthesia (i.e. causing my blood vessels to dilate). It happened last November after my left hip surgery, too. If I have to replace one of my replacement hips in the future, I think I’ll ask for a general anesthesia, rather than the spinal block. Just sayin’.
Anyway, the next morning I was blue-eyed and bushy-tailed, could hobble to the restroom, my blood pressure was back to 100/65, etc., and they shipped me out. Bucket List Item 1: Checked.
The docs sent me home with a huge supply of narcotics for the pain. Lots of oxycontin and hydrocodone were prescribed to keep me in la la land. However, this was not my first rodeo, and I was acutely aware that extensive use of narcotic pain relievers has the diabolical effect of arresting the function of the bowels. The scientific term is concrete-itis, I think. The situation can easily result in the cure being worse than the problem, when a grapefruit sized turd refuses to budge a week after surgery. So, Bucket List Item 2 is weening oneself from the narcotic pain killers ASAP. This was accomplished on Day 2, when I shifted to Alleve. The pain I can handle, the sorrow I can’t.
Technically, one can walk on a replaced hip as soon as the anesthesia wears off. However, the 12’ diameter area around the wound site (where the surgeon stuck his own arms into my leg elbow-deep to move stuff around, saw off the end of my femur, remove the ball socket from my pelvis, and bolt/glue the new titanium joint into place) feels like you’ve been kicked by a very sturdy mule, maybe a couple of times for emphasis. So, yeah, you can walk…gingerly. Accordingly, an aluminum walker is provided to stabilize you as you painfully hobble around your house. Luckily, we have a spacious one-story home; I can’t even imagine how someone with a multi-level home would recover from this. Ooooooh. Anyway, Bucket List Item 3 is graduating from the walker to the cane, which I accomplished on Day 3.
A physical therapist is assigned to visit your home and help you rehab yourself. The recovery from hip replacement surgery involves an increasing amount of walking, trying to get those bruised and stretched upper thigh muscles back into working order. My therapist visited yesterday and encouraged me to jettison the walker, in favor of the cane, which I did. When he visited again today (Day 4) he noted that I had ditched the cane. (Earlier, I had walked with the cane to the end of our long cul-de-sac, about 150 yards, and back without much difficulty.) My therapist then had me do a few exercises to stretch those muscles and then authorized me to go “cane free”. Bucket List Item 4: Checked.
Fettucine Alfredo with Chicken, Carrot Cake, Wasach Omelet with Country Potatoes, 12 oz. Spaghetti, Chicken Breast with Rice, English Muffins with Peanut Butter, 12 oz. Spaghetti, and a huge Chimichanga smothered in Sour Cream and Jalapeno Salsa. And throw in a few Jellos and sugar-free Chocolates. That is the mass of foodstuffs which was logjammed in my bowels this morning, courtesy of the 24-hour period that my doctor had me on a strong regimen of narcotic pain relievers. I was beginning to feel a bit bloated, even though I’m only on my fourth day out of surgery. Last year, I was concretized for about a week, so the dread was beginning to set in. And then, a miracle happened…I got the urge to purge. And it worked! Thank you, Jesus, for checking off Bucket List Item 5.
The next few Bucket List items are going to be elaborations on previous accomplishments. I intend to walk to the end of our cul-de-sac tomorrow, cane-less. That will be Item 6, checked off on Day 5. I intend to begin to use my recumbent stationary bike (Bucket List Item 7) on Day 6 to begin to put some mileage on my new hip. We’ll see how that goes.
I would like to wait a little bit before doing some significant walking around the community. We have all manner of walking trails, from ¾ mile to 3.8 miles starting right at my house. I would like to get to the point where I can walk each of the dogs about 1 mile every morning…without tripping over the bitches. That will be good exercise for me and greatly appreciated by them, as the scorching heat has kept them indoors for several months now. Little Bonnie has never been on a legitimate walk on leash. That should be fun.
Maybe we start walking together in another week or so (Day 14?).
Beyond that, my Bucket List items include hiking with my friends (8 weeks) and golfing.
My golf game has been pretty shitty for the past couple of years, as I have been attempting to recreate my glory days… with two bad hips. Not gonna happen, because those hips just wouldn’t “fire”. Every swing was a new adventure, as my body refused to do something that it previously did without thinking. When I re-start my golf career in a couple of months, I think that I’m going to go to a swing pro up in St George who can use a computer to analyze what’s working and what isn’t and they make corrections. If I’m going to golf until I drop, then I’d like to do it competently.
At some point, I’d like to tackle Angel’s Landing again. That is a world famous hike in Zion National Park that I’ve done a number of times. It’s a beautiful hike and quite an accomplishment every time you do it. Most of the hikers up there are teens and young adults.
I also would like to do some hiking in the Colorado Rockies with my “adopted son”, Jason Friedman. We’re tentatively scheduled to drive up there (Golden) in the Spring in the RV.
Right now I’m getting a free pass on chores around the house. My son Jonathan is here, cooking and helping out wherever needed, and Charlie is doing all of the stuff that I normally do behind the scenes, like picking up dog poo, feeding the mutts, and finding where Bonnie has tinkled or left a pile.
Any day now, as I walk around without benefit of a cane, Charlie is going to declare, “No mas!”, and I’ll be thrown back into the daily chore rotation.
Which is my normal Bucket List.