How Terribly Strange To Be 70

Sitting on the park bench like bookends.

I was 14 when Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends album came out, and I listened to it on repeat. The whole album is wonderful (Mrs. Robinson, anyone? or America?) but the Old Friends track seared itself into my very being. 

An awkward and insecure freshman in high school, I pitied those old friends sitting on the park bench like bookends. Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset. I wept that their lives had come to this as they reached age 70.

Oh, Paul and Art. I know you're not speaking to each other these days (or maybe you are?) but I'm so sorry you missed all those years of friendship. If you had you might have written a much different anthem. 

Last week a pair of old friends and I celebrated that this year we're all turning 70, and the week involved not one newspaper blown through the grass to settle on the round toes of our high shoes.* 

We are a different variety of old friends.

I have three friends who have been in my life since junior high. While I still regret that as a country kid I had missed the townie activities they shared in grade school, we bonded over pep club and music activities and warped senses of humor and the scandalous nature of Romeo and Juliet. After we graduated from high school we scattered to other lives, and it wasn't until we were turning 40 that we reconnected. Since then we've kept in touch and for the last couple of decades we're tried to get away for a couple of days every year. 

Our last big get-together, one that involved airline flights and a VRBO, was in January 2020. On that occasion we decided we were going to do A Big Trip the following year. Savannah, we thought. A place with activities and good coffee and a different vibe from our homes in Kansas, Alaska, and Colorado.

The following year, of course, those plans had been stamped with a big red "NOPE. NOT DOING THAT." We were sequestered at home, whipping up masks from left-over fabric in our sewing rooms, and no way were we taking a trip. So we began our own little four-person book club and have Zoomed monthly since then as we plowed through a variety of books I never would have read otherwise. 

Next year, Savannah, we kept promising each other as the years went on. And just as we were cautiously stepping out of our homes, blinking and shading our eyes in the sunshine, my hip committed ritual disintegration. It wasn't until this year that we could even begin to dream of a birthdays trip, and my recovery from hip replacement narrowed our options. (I'll be updating on that next post, I promise.) So we ended up close to home. One of the old friends had booked a trip to Japan during the same time period as our get-together and she urged us to not cancel, so last week the three of us were together for an Old Friends Turn 70 party..

One of our trio has a relative who works for a fancy-dancy hotel in the Big City near Small Town, and she was able to get us friends-and-family rates on the kind of lodgings I had always assumed I'd frequent when I was 70. And even though I'm still a couple of weeks from hitting that milestone, I am now claiming fancy-dancy hotels as a perk of my age.

For four days we ate our way through everything the Big City had to offer on a two-meal-a-day plus snacks schedule. We hit the art museum and toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house and wandered through the botanical garden. We stopped at famous local shops (Nifty Nut House, Spice Merchant) and were appalled to find out that one of the group had never tasted a NuWay sandwich (crumbled hamburger) so that afternoon's snack was root beer floats and a NuWay burger split three ways. 

The downtown location of our hotel meant we were able to walk much of the time and I managed to put 7,500 steps a day on my Apple watch. This doesn't sound like much, but my new hip was proud of itself. 

And we talked. We talked, and talked, and talked. 

How did we feel about turning 70? Mostly absolutely fine, although we are now much more aware that we need to be making good choices about how we spend our time because there simply aren't enough years left for everything on our bucket lists.

How are we physically? Not bad. But what are those weird bright-red bruises that pop up if we even think of brushing the corner of a cabinet door? And why won't they go away? Also, how much would it cost to get these droopy eyelids hoisted back up to where they belong? Have you figured out what to do about the nighttime leg cramps? Etc., etc., etc.

How are our families? Our hearts? Our souls?

We laughed until we cried about the dumbest things, including the time C. and I tried to get in the wrong white cross-over SUV outside the restaurant while D. stood watching us in bewilderment from her car three cars away. It was exactly the same kind of thing that would have had us in hysterics in high school.

In other words, it was nothing like the melancholy Old Friends ennui I had dreaded as a teenager. I would have marveled at how these friends, at an age I would have considered death-adjacent, are living with joy and energy. 

How terribly strange to be 70.

*Trigger warning: The lyrics of Old Friends may make you weep every single time you hear the song. (Or that may just be me.) 

Winifred and Me: A Five-Week Report

Back at the stove!

A couple of weeks ago, when I introduced the new friend who lives in my hip*, Winifred, I promised a blow-by-blow report of what I experienced in my first experience with joint replacement. I hope none of you Lovely Readers take it as an insult when I guess that many of you are either already at or approaching this event yourself. I mean, you are reading a blog. If you were cool and young (and I started to add "hip" to this list but, too soon) you would be reading this in Substack or as an Instagram post. 

The bottom line is that although my road to recovery has not been that of those who told me it was a piece of cake, and that within three weeks I'd forget I'd had surgery at all (nope, nope, nope), I'm making excellent progress. Last week, in fact, I cooked my first full meal since mid-August and it was not particularly onerous or exhausting. (One Pot Chicken With Rice and Caramelized Lemons, if you're curious, and it was delicious.)

So welcome, fellow limpers and groaners! I have two disclaimers to make before I dive into the nitty-gritty of my own personal hip replacement. 

The first is that surgery was five full weeks ago, and I was under anesthesia part of that day. Except for the moment I was emerging from anesthesia and was told that not being able to move my toes was perfectly normal (it is not), I remember virtually nothing of that morning, and only bits and pieces of the rest of the day. 

The second disclaimer is the most important thing I have learned in the past four weeks, and if I could write it in italics and boldface and a shockingly large font, I would. It is this: 

My experience is mine, and mine only. Yours, should you need joint replacement, may include two things that I have experienced, or several things, or nothing at all. It's like falling in love: You can prepare all you like but you won't know what it's like for you until you go through it yourself. Also like love, be aware that it can hurt but this isn't inevitable. 

Also, I am not a doctor. None of this, not one word, is intended as medical advice. Again, it is what I experienced and your own doctor may roll his/her eyes in horror at what you are reading. 

So. Let's dive in.

My surgery was the first of the day at Big City Hospital, and I highly recommend this prized spot. As the first of the day, I knew it would start on time and that I would have a few more hours of lolling around before the physical therapy crew came in to get my lazy new butt out of bed. Husband was not as thrilled about the schedule, since it meant we had to be on the road by 4:30 a.m. to make the 5:45 a.m. check-in time. Pffft. He had all day to nap. We arrived at the hospital on time, with the required walker and comfy clothes in tow.

As for the surgery itself, here is what I remember about it: (Crickets.)

That's it. Nothing at all. I assumed my (excellent) surgeon was doing the work, and had not subcontracted it to a first-year medical student, but honestly, he could have raffled off the opportunity in an NPR fundraiser ("Use cool power tools! Say STAT and mean it!") and I wouldn't have known the difference at the time. Because anesthesia is wonderful, I did not see him until I was mostly conscious several hours later.

Fortunately he checked in with Husband in the waiting room when I was still snoozing away in the recovery room. Husband was most impressed that (excellent) surgeon took all the time necessary to answer any of Husband's questions. Husband also remembers that I waved as I was rolled down the hall from the recovery room to the orthopedics wing, another moment I do not remember. The orthopedics wing, by the way, was an excellent place to spend the next 24 hours. (Some fake-joint patients leave within hours; my clotting issues won me an overnight stay even though this is still considered an out-patient procedure.) All of the personnel on this hallway only deal with zippered hips and knees so they truly know their art. They knew what is run-of-the-mill and what makes them say "Hmmm..." They have the best advice on pain meds. In my case, they were total sweethearts.

The physical therapy folks I would not describe as total sweethearts, but they know their job and their job is to get me up and moving when that was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. (We had been pre-warned about this--"You're going to love everyone you meet there," our joint replacement class leader told us about the orthopedic wing staff. "Well, not the PT people," she added. "You're not going to like them at all.") Surgery was in the morning, and by early afternoon I was out of bed and walking down the hall. There is an up side to this seemingly-cruel forced march: No need for bedpans. If you can walk 100 yards, you can get that hip over to the bathroom.

I was hoping that the 3:30 a.m. alarm would mean I would sleep well that first night, but apparently the good nap I had in the operating room caught me up on all the sleep I needed. As always, hospital sleep is the worst. The mattress is the worst. The pillows are the worst. The long, long night watching the digital clock on the other side of the room is the worst. On the advice of the nursing staff I had taken pain meds before I "went to sleep" (ha!), but even that did not help.

Speaking of pain, I will make all veteran joint replacement patients jealous by reporting that I had almost no pain. I believe I took three pain pills, total, and those were prophylactic before PT sessions. I know; I've just destroyed all the sympathy I had built up by having a complication but this is to reassure y'all that pain is not necessarily the worst thing every replacement patient will face (see also: foot drop, as discussed in a previous blog post).

But morning comes! And with morning comes more PT. This time I walked 300 feet and climbed up and down a fake four-step stairway. I learned the phrase "Good foot first going up, bad foot first going down" and have repeated that phrase a minimum of 7,000 times since. Then the physical therapist gave me a photocopied sheet of exercises to repeat at home, and a warm good-bye hug (ha! Physical therapist, remember?) and I was cleared to go home. 

Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it: First days at home.

*That sounds kind of creepy, but the alternative to thinking of Winifred as a friend would be thinking of her as a foe, and that seems counterproductive.

Meet Winifred!

 

My surgeon apparently favors the button-and-zipper incision.*

What a cliffhanger! 

When I left you three weeks ago with a photo of Tom Walz's Award-Winning Tater Tot Casserole, I had intended to be back within hours with news that I was an award-winner as well, having earned the prestigious A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award. 

Spoiler: I am not an A+ Hip Replacement Patient Stellar Recovery Award winner. But I also have not failed hip replacement recovery--maybe a solid C shading toward C-? 

The good news is very, very good. Here are the things I feared most, in descending order and warning my sons that this list contains TMI:

1. Death. I probably had a higher awareness of this possibility than most hip replacement patients, given my clotting disorder and the distinct shadow that passed over my (excellent) surgeon's face when we talked about this. I distinctly remember our conversation: "You won't even be aware of it if things go wrong," he said. "I'm the one who'll have to tell your family you didn't make it through." Well, alrighty then.
2. Anesthesia-prompted dementia. My mother, the Best Woman Ever, went into her second knee replacement with slight signs of dementia but came out of the anesthesia fighting the IV and catheter and convinced President Lincoln was in the next room. She never completely recovered. I had discussed this with the surgeon and anesthesiologist and they assured me that if I were not already showing dementia symptoms this was unlikely to be a problem. Still...
3. (TMI AHEAD) Post-surgery constipation. I know. But IT'S A THING!

I was able to rule out two of those three things within moments of waking up post-surgery. I was alive! President Lincoln was dead! And...well, the third concern was still concerning but a few days later, checked off the list.

What I had not known enough to fear was emerging from the procedure with a dropped foot. In fact, I didn't even know what a dropped foot was. As I foggily emerged from la-la land in the recovery room, my first words to the nurse were "I can't move my toes. Is that normal?" And she looked me straight in my still-slightly-crossed eyes and lied through her teeth: "Oh, yes, that's perfectly normal." 

Mmmm...not so much. 

As my dear Lovely Girl #2's orthopedist brother was able to explain, dropped foot is a known complication of hip replacement, and happens when the sciatic nerve is stretched or damaged. This long nerve runs from the base of the spine to the foot, and when it is mad it can stop talking to the foot. In my case, that means I can push my toes and foot down normally (think of pressing on the accelerator) but I can't lift the toes or foot (think or lifting the foot back up off the accelerator). It's a very weird feeling: I tell the toes to lift, and nothing at all happens. 

Think of how you move your foot when you take a step--you lift up the front part, hit with the heel, then the front part lands. In my case, walking is more like having a raw pork chop attached to my ankle. To take a step in the first few days after surgery, I basically lifted my knee and kicked that pork chop out in front of me and watched it go SPLAT! on the floor. 

So, LG2's brother told me, this is a known complication even though it only happens in about 1% of cases because I am super-duper special. The silver lining is that it almost always resolves, but the attached cloud is that nerves are the slothful turtles of recovering cells and this could take a long time, that I should think in terms of many months. 

My (excellent) surgeon also reassured me that the pins-and-needles I was feeling were an good sign--the nerve is trying to fire, it just hasn't gotten its act together. 

A few days later I was fitted for a carbon fiber AFO (ankle-foot orthosis) brace that slides into my shoe and gives my foot enough substance that I walk with a fairly normal gait, or as normal as one walks three weeks post-hip replacement. Sadly, the brace means that I had to order shoes a size larger and wider than my already-substantial feet normally require. When they arrived I burst into tears. "It's progressive degradation!" I wailed to Husband. "Now I'm having to wear clown shoes!" I do believe Post Partum Depression might also apply to hips.

There is good news on the recovery front. A few days ago I noticed that I can lift my toes a tiny, tiny bit off the floor. And by tiny, I mean you can barely slide a sheet of paper under them, but that's progress from three weeks ago. And the nerve firing continues to be intense, and has ramped up from its original 10 decibels to about 500 decibels. (I know, I know. Pain isn't measured in decibels, but this has very much felt like something that can be heard.) Again, that's good. My (excellent) surgeon was quite sure that the nerve wasn't cut, but hip replacement is not a delicate operation and he believes the nerve was stretched.

So I am here, and healing, and getting better every day. Tomorrow (or soon) I'll write about the "normal" parts of hip replacement I've experienced and the positives, of which there have been many. 

I just wanted you to know that Winifred is installed and working great. See how beautiful she looks? 

*The surgeon did not actually use a button-and-zipper incision. That is not a thing. This is my denim skirt making its presence known in the X-ray from my post-surgery check-up. But if button-and-zipper incisions do become a thing, remember that you read about it here first!

The Newest Addition to the Family

Tim Walz's Award-Winning Tater Tot Casserole, now in my freezer

If I had told you a few decades ago that I have a new haircut, my toes are freshly pedicured, and my freezer is full of casseroles, you would have been beside yourself with excitement: The baby must be due!

Believe me when I say that I am looking forward to tomorrow with practically the same mixture of excitement, apprehension, and HOLY COW THIS IS FINALLY HAPPENING adrenaline that marked those four pre-Boy days. Throw in a similar amount of pain and reluctance to bestir myself from the recliner and you've probably guessed what's going on in the House on the Corner:

We're expecting a new hip!

This is not actually something I dreamed of when I was a little girl. Not once when we were dating did I say to my soon-to-be husband "I really, really want joint replacement some day." But here we are. And getting to this point has been a journey, as we motivational speakers say.

It began two years ago when I was seated in a low chair watching a movie with friends and stood up to discover that my right hip had handed in its resignation during the closing credits. An initial diagnosis of a groin pull (seriously?) was followed by physical therapy (ouch!) which was followed by an MRI report that began "Severe osteoarthrosis of the right hip joint is noted with diffuse cartilage

loss, marginal osteophytes, and associated severe reactive marrow changes in
the acetabulum and right femoral head." 

My medical license is expired but that did not sound good, so it was off to an orthopedist who translated: "Your hip is shot," he informed me. 

That put me on the road to hip replacement, which in this case turned out to be not a smooth superhighway but more of a Missouri state road. It was exceedingly bumpy. During the 18 months since we discovered the old hip needed to be put out of its misery, the surgery was delayed for several months while I dithered about whether things were dire enough the replacement was needed, followed by an actual date for surgery which was crossed off the calendar when my pre-surgery check-up found a glitch in my EKG which required a cardiologist work-up (everything's fine, nothing to see here, but non-emergency specialist appointments take a lot of time), then again when I decided things were going too smoothly so I tested positive for Covid between the two June weddings. Then my orthopedist had the nerve to prioritize a vacation with his family over my surgery (how DARE he?) and...well, you get the idea. 

Now the big day is almost here, and I have prepared obsessively. I have two walkers (one for upstairs, one for downstairs), a shower chair, and meditation podcasts for relaxation. Knitting projects, books, and television to binge during recuperation. Throw rugs have been removed to lessen tripping danger, the risers under the bed are gone for easier ingress and egress, and Husband has a lovely variety of frozen casseroles to heat up for dinners.

We even have taken a joint replacement class together, which reminded me that the last time a class leader referred to him as "Coach" we were in a Lamaze class. 

Most of all, I have my encouragers in place. So many loved ones who have watched me limp around with my blingy metallic blue cane are praying and cheering me on. And because I have some weird complications that most patients don't have (think idiopathic clotting issues) I'm aware that this surgery is not the run-of-the-mill standardized parts operation. During the single-digit hours of the night when I do all of my worrying, I have wondered if I should write "In Case I Don't Make It" letters to my family and friends, letting everyone know that I've lived the most wonderful life and each and every one of them has played a cherished role...and then the sun comes up and life goes on. 

I'll be fine, and if what I have been told is true, that hips boast the easiest recoveries of any joint replacements, I'll be out taking walks just in time for cool fall temperatures and changing leaves. I can't wait. 

I think I'll name it Winifred.

Not at All Smokin' Hot. No Less Delighted.

 

One of my sassier friends (Hi, A!) was a bigwig at a convention I had been scheduled to attend when we found out that Boy#4 and his Lovely Girl had chosen that weekend for their wedding. I emailed her, and laughed at her reply: "My love to you. And happy blessings on the weddings and the *smoking hot* mother of the grooms." She reminded me after my last blog post that I had promised pictures of this presumed hot-itude.

Well. 

The problems with posting pictures of oneself is that this is absolutely the most blatant, most pathetic, most eye-rollingly cringey way to force people to pay compliments. 

This is not what I'm looking for, but I get it. Ever since I entered the possibly-someday-might-be-Mother-of-the-Groom realm, weddings have focused me like a laser on what the women in the front right pew of the church were wearing. Long dresses or tea length? Blingy or subdued? Hats or no hats? If you are, or may someday be, an MoG, you want to know the how's and why's of the dress code.

This is, after all, the sole responsibility of a MoG: You must show up clothed during the wedding. (I'm ignoring, of course, the other responsibilities delineated in "Wear beige and shut up," because as if.) 

Friends, I spent more hours in the six months between engagements and weddings fretting about what I would wear to those two weddings than I did deciding what I'd wear to my own wedding. (My mother's dress. Boom. Done.) Frankly, I spent more hours fretting about this than deciding who I'd marry at my own wedding, but that's a story for another day.

The first three months I worried about dress length. Then I worried about which color. Then I worried about relative gaudiness. I spent hour after hour Googling "Mother of the Groom Dress--Long" and completely borked my social media algorithms to the point that I never saw anything but shininess and cleavage on my FaceBook ads. (Rabbit trail: Are other Mothers of the Groom as interested in let-it-all-hang-out dresses as my ads were indicating we are? Because, huh. That day has passed for most of us, sisters.)

Anyway, in March Husband decided he'd had enough of hearing me bemoan my impending nudity at two church weddings. We were heading to a weekend with the grandsons (and their keepers) in the Big City and he suggested we stop at a mall on the way. I was not a fan, since I'm famously hard to fit off the rack, but whatever. I wasn't making any progress. 

People, I married a genius! We walked out of the mall with two dresses, one that was found for me by the same saleslady who found me my dream dress for the Boy#2/Lovely Girl#2 wedding five years ago, and a second dress that practically threw itself at me after I had tried on a variety of ill-suited (So. Many. Sequins.) and ill-fitting (So. Much. Cleavage.) options. 

But did I stop fretting? Of course not. The second dress, although I thought it was beautiful, was not really compatible with the color palate of the intended wedding, so I kept looking. I ordered dress after dress to hang on the doorway to the guest room, trying them on and sighing. 

Poor Husband learned to not give an opinion even when asked. 

(Flowered Dress)

Him: "What do I think? It definitely fits the idea of the wedding theme better than the first one. Would you be able to wear a shrug or something, since I know you're uncomfortable with bare arms? It's a real possibility. What do you think?

Me: "I HATE IT!" 

(Sequined Dress) 

Him: "What do I think? Well, I think you're beautiful no matter what you wear."

Me: "I HATE IT!"

(Chiffon Dress)

Him: "What do I think?.........How about going out for supper so you don't have to cook?"

Me: "Okay."

Not counting the dozen or so dresses I tried on in the mall, our mail carrier began to routinely drop off boxes from businesses that cater to mutton dressed as lamb. Finally, a random Amazon search was the surprise answer: The wrong-colored dress I loved at the mall was available in navy blue--and navy blue was the color of the men's tuxedoes! Woohooo! 

The Mother of the Groom at the final two Weddings of the Century was definitely not smokin' hot. Clothed and appropriate would be more suitable adjectives. But I loved both dresses, and was comfortable and celebratory for hours of hugs and dozens of pictures. Worrying about how I looked did not enter into my complete delight at the occasions.

Tepid and delighted are exactly what I wanted to be.

Perfectly Different, and Perfectly the Same

So how was June for you?

The residents and former residents of the House on the Corner had an unbeatably splendid June. Over the course of 15 days, the number of Lovely Girls who have committed themselves to our Boys doubled, leaving us to post the "Out of Stock" sign in the Unmarried Sons Market.

Scheduling two weddings and one international honeymoon over the span of three weekends would seem to be the height of insanity, but, oh Dear Reader(s), this was joy not just doubled--it was tripled and quadrupled and multiplied exponentially. 

When our final son was born, a well-meaning friend looked at the fourth of our big-headed, bald, bouncing boys and laughed. "You don't have babies, you have a series of clones," she told me. Post-partum me, who had known their diverse personalities with each kick, did not appreciate that assessment. I was more than a little miffed because I knew then what I know now:

They are the same, but they are different.

All of the Boys are funny and smart and kind. They are "competitive but not particularly athletic," as one rehearsal dinner toast described them. They are sensitive and discerning, and they do not suffer fools gladly. 

Also, they are different. Our Boys include extroverts and introverts. Thick-skinned and emotions-on-the-sleeve. Decisive and deliberative. 

But they have one indisputable trait in common: They all have chosen and been chosen by extraordinary women. All four have married women who resemble each other in the best of ways--funny and smart and kind, hard-working and beautiful, competitive and discerning. They're just the same except in the many ways they are different--extroverts and introverts, quiet and more exuberant, night owls and early birds. 

The two June weddings mirrored those same-but-different couples. Both ceremonies were set in historic stone churches with late-afternoon sunlight streaming through stained glass windows. Both couples chose traditional vows and held each other's hands as they promised to love, comfort, honor and keep each other in sickness and in health. At my request, both couples made my mother's favorite hymn part of their ceremony. 

The two events, though, were reflections of each of the couples. One was a Texas-sized celebration with a glow-stick-lit banger of a dance. The other was small, intimate, and all but a handful of the guests were related to the couple. That reception featured a jazz trio and a trivia game. 

They were, in other words, personal and perfect. 

At the final rehearsal dinner the three already-wed Lovely Girls chose seats next to each other. That didn't surprise me; I am humbled and grateful that they genuinely like each other so much. I was moved to tears, though, when each, in turn, welcomed their new sister-in-law on the eve of her wedding.

They know that marrying into our clan is not for the faint of heart, that four Boys can be, well, clannish.

But just look at the pictures at top of this post. Make note of the wide smiles, and the beauty of the day, and take particular note of the joy in those faces looked at each other. Their delight lit up the rooms. It was the same at the weddings of the first two Boys.

Our Boys love and are loved by loveliest of Lovely Girls. That's the only sameness that matters.

Chiefs Victory Celebration

 

Now that we live in five different states the MomQueenBee all-clan celebrations are technology-assisted sagas--text threads with shared reactions, memes, re-tweets, links. As last night's game drew down we depleted our annual allotments of exclamation points and fireworks emojis, then exchanged video captures as all four Boys pulled out their bottle sabers to open what I am quite sure were celebratory bottles of 7-Up. 

The bottle sabers don't emerge every day: The Fours' saber has been moved a couple of times and wasn't immediately at hand so Lovely Girl#4 pulled out her high school twirling knives in order for that state to be represented in the celebration.

But when the hoopla had almost died down, Lovely Girl#1 sent the perfect benediction to the event, a three-text interaction between an almost-4-year-old and his dad.

"(Baby Wonderful#1) was awake when (One) went to check on him because of the fireworks. But also One wanted to remind BW that the win record during his lifetime isn't normal."

Then she sent the picture you see of the baby monitor that shows a loyal Chiefs fan whispering to his son, whose superhero cape is hanging next to them. 

"Then they watched fireworks out the window."