A New Hip

May 7-10, 2012

Mom and I flew out to NJ on Monday to help Granny with her hip replacement surgery. I don’t often blog about flight experiences but this one was noteworthy. It started off with a fired up old woman in the Eugene airport who announced to everyone waiting in the departure area that her husband had wet his pants. The adventures continued on with our flight from SFO to PHL. Mom and I were seated in row 7 on an Airbus 319. On those planes there is a video screen directly in front of the center seat. On this particular aircraft the screen didn’t want to stay down, which meant every six seconds or so it would cycle up and then it would cycle down. The flight attendant managed to get it to stop once. However, when I stood to climb out to use the restroom I tapped it and it started cycling all over again. The flight attendant nor I could get it to stay up or down. We were staring at having to watch this for four hours:

I knew I could fix this problem. I just had to figure out a way to MacGyver the situation. I decided to take my shoe lace off and try to tie down the screen... and viola!

Tuesday we helped Granny prepare for surgery by confirming all things were in order. For dinner we went to Jane and Pete’s house to celebrate Mom’s birthday. I had pineapple stuffing for the first time and now have a new favorite dessert dinner food. We were up super early on Wednesday morning to take Granny in for her surgery. She wanted to be to the hospital at 5:15AM, so this required a 4:15AM wakeup call for me.

The procedure was surprisingly fast. Granny went into the OR at 8:30AM. Mom and I went home during the operation but Granny called us from the recovery room at 10:30AM or so. We then made our way back to downtown Philly to see Granny. It was crazy. By 3PM in the afternoon she was already up and walking a bit. My mind is still blown that an 85 year-old can get a new hip in the morning and be walking by the afternoon. Modern medicine truly is amazing. Tuesday evening while Mom was still hanging with Granny I met a friend for drinks in the oldest bar in Philadelphia, McGillin’s Olde Ale House, which was built in 1860.

By the time Mom and I got back to Granny’s house at 9PMish I was exhausted. I went to bed early and slept in late. Thursday around 3PM Granny called to tell us I was allowed to pick her up. The check out process was pretty painless and by 6pm or so Granny was back in her chair in her own kitchen. The family (minus Jane and Pete) came over for dinner and we had a nice time together.

I’m off to bed early because I’m on my way to Pittsburgh at 4AM tomorrow morning to begin my adventure of three cities and three baseball games in three days!

Katy