Page 11 - Life's Outtakes 8

Gaining Strength to Endure

l
I had a knee replacement a couple of weeks ago.
Usually a person needs a knee replacement when they
are getting old and their body is wearing out, but mine
wasn’t because of age. Mine was due to a major
athletic accident thirty years ago.
When I got my tonsils out at forty-five years old,
the doctor told me it would be hard on me because I
was so old. It was interesting to have the knee doctor
tell me I would struggle with knee surgery because I
was so young.
“Oh, you should come through the surgery with
flying colors,” he said. “But the therapy is going to be
much harder on you. Muscles and ligaments at your
age won’t be as flexible and will mend faster, making
therapy much harder than if you were older. You will
have to work harder and endure more pain so you can
get back your full range of motion and not walk with a
limp the rest of your life. Do you feel up to it?”
I remembered back when I had first had my
athletic accident. It was severe. I tore just about every
ligament away from the bone all the way from my hip

6