It’s been six months since I had my knee replacement surgery
so I thought I would catch you up a bit. I get a lot of questions about how it
is doing. Many of those questions are
from people who are considering knee replacement themselves.
Let me just say this: If you think you need a knee
replacement, you probably do. I’ll tell you what I have heard patients tell me
hundreds of times—“I wish I had done this a long time ago.”
Let me explain my situation. Prior to knee replacement, I
had three surgeries on my right knee, dating back to when I was a teenager. All
were successful and I continued an active lifestyle, playing basketball until I
was 59. Really.
Even in recent years, my knee didn’t hurt much. Oh, I took
more than my share of ibuprofen and only when I went without
anti-inflammatories did I get an inkling of what was going on in my knee.
It’s been a long time since I could run. That was OK. I
could still ride a bike without any problem whatsoever. And I could hike. For
years, my wife I have taken an annual fall hiking trip, visiting some really
great places. Not in 2019. I knew that my knee wouldn’t hold up to it.
About the only time I had to run was on the football field
to check an injured player. In recent years, that got harder and harder and I
got slower and slower. It finally got to where I didn’t even try and run. This
past fall, I heard an official tell an injured athlete “Joe’s coming” as I
walked as fast as I could onto the field.
I rehabbed hard and tried to force my knee to allow me to
run, thinking that maybe I wasn’t tough enough. I knew it was bad but I didn’t
know how bad. Then I saw my own X-ray.
What a mess! It is no exaggeration to say that my own x-ray
was about the worst I had ever seen. But I knew that I had to get through the
football season so I limped along. Literally.
There were days when the pain was pretty bad…days when I
wanted to find an orthopedist and an operating room and fix it right then. But
I got through it and on the first Wednesday after the state championship game,
I was admitted for surgery.
Jump ahead to today. My knee feels great. It’s a little
stiff but that’s because of the extensive damage to my knee and the fact that I
waited about 10 years too long to have it fixed.
I’m biking hard. I climbed Lookout Mountain on consecutive
days recently. I’ve been mountain biking a bunch, even wrecking (without
injury) a couple of times. I’m ready to start hiking again. Thank you Dr.
Justin Jones for taking a mess and giving me a good knee.
My best advice? If your knee is changing your lifestyle, if
there are things that you can’t do that you want to do because of your knee,
get it replaced.
Like I said, I wish I had done it a long time ago.
I turned to a family member this week for ideas for this
space. She told me “well, you haven’t written about your newest grandchild
yet.” Well, I sort of did. Right after she was born. Talking about experiences
in the Children’s Hospital NICU.
Number seven. A blue eyed beauty that shares my name. Born
prematurely in January, she is now healthy and robust and though lacking in
understandable vocabulary, is quite the Talker.
But what kind of world are we bringing her into? Will she be
judged by her gender? By the color of her skin? Will she experience hate and
prejudice? Parents and grandparents worry about those things. Especially these
days.
So, what can we do for her? What can we do to make the world
a better place for her? When all this turmoil is over, I would really like to
think that her world will be more accepting, more loving, more tolerant.
As her grandfather, I want to show her love…unconditional
love. To make sure she knows that I will love her as long as I’m around. That
there is absolutely nothing that she can do to change that one bit.
I want to teach her the value of being physically active. If
needed, I will teach her how to ride a bike, play in the trees, and swim like a
fish.
I want her to respect her body and mind, understanding that
those are hers and hers alone—that it is her job to take care of both of them. Maybe
that means eating good, whole food but sometimes a girl just has to have a
burger, fries, and a milkshake.
And that means that she accepts her body, whatever shape it
takes. Tall or short. Thick or thin. I want her to love herself, to love the
person that she sees reflected in my eyes.
I want her to learn the importance of being outside. Of
walks in the woods. Of the mysteries to be found in a creek bed. That bugs
aren’t creepy but necessary.
I want her to recognize the fox, the deer, the bear, the
bunny, even the lowly possum. The Robin, the Mockingbird, the Eastern Bluebird.
The fish in the sea. That she is a part of nature just like all those
creatures. Even snakes.
I want her to understand that we are custodians of the
planet Earth and it is our responsibility to take care of her, to nurture her,
to protect her. The air that we breathe. The streams and creeks and rivers.
I want her to be less dependent on digital devices than I
am, to understand that real conversation is important, that human contact is
essential.
I want her to experience the joy of family. That her
siblings are the best friends that she will ever have. That her cousins are the
best people she will ever know.
I want her to play a sport—any sport. I want her to find
something that she is passionate about and pursues it with vigor. I believe essential
life lessons are learned on our playing fields. But let it be her sport and her
choice. From that, she will discover the joy of movement.
I want her to know that there is a world outside her four
walls, outside her hometown, outside her family and that she has a
responsibility to that world. Yes, I want her to go change the world. It’s what
she was brought into this world to do.
