iStock
THESE DAYS YOU hardly ever hear the truth about anything. This explains why nobody cares that Hillary Clinton tells lies and Donald Trump tells even bigger ones. After all, who doesn’t? For example, right here and now I will not write what it’s really like to recover from hip replacement surgery because it’s depressing, a downer, and nobody wants to hear it, least of all those aging baby boomers who are all clamoring for new body parts to stave off the inevitable. The bravest among them, or the ones with the best health insurance, will keep lining up for the popular procedure that’s fast becoming an everyday Olympic sport. To do so they will focus on the cheery, chirpy reports out there that the whole thing is “so damn easy, you’ll be back on the slopes (or the links or out jogging or biking, etc.) in no time!”
Fine, go for it! You should live and be well as my grandmother always said, but bear in mind that having your thigh sliced open followed by having the top of your hip sawed off is no walk in the park. And FYI, you won’t be having any walks in the park for some time, trust me. We can thank the overwhelming reach of social media for painting a prettier picture than truly exists, since we are all supposed to be feeling great and “smiley-facey” despite the grim facts suggesting otherwise, such as the number of suicides and people on antidepressants, the growing rates of mental illness and drug addiction and an alarming rise in violent crime.
Still, be my guest. And if you live in Maine, or even if you don’t, you’ll want the job done by Dr. George Babikian of Maine Medical Partners, truly a superstar of the hip world and a pretty hip guy in his own right. His staff is superb as well, and if you’re going to suffer through something as gruesome as this surely is, you might as well go for the Gold.
— Andrea Rouda
Andrea Rouda blogs at The Daily Droid.
oy. I think I’ll stick with the Advil.