44 and so much more

 Old Man take a look at at my life, I'm a lot like you are.

Apologies to Neil Young, but the Great Long Decay has kicked into overdrive this week. With the replacement of my hip last week with the brand spanking new Smith & Nephew RC3 Multihole Confibulator, I have had a frightening look at old man incapacitation.

For instance, I now have a walker. With a handy dandy pouch in front to carry my important papers like my will and trust and Do Not Resuscitate orders. 

Actually, since I'm a left coast elitist, I don't have one walker but two. One for each floor of my house.

As the top picture indicates, I have enough pills to gag a Brontosaurus. Each pill comes with its own regimen, though given the off the charts pain in my thigh, I've ignored the instructions on the Oxytocins and have started chewing them like they're chiclets.

My daughter thought it would be funny to order me one of those old men pill boxes. So with the help of the Bezos Bots, I'll have that in my hands by the end of the week.

I also have a Reacher Stick. 

It's a shame I had to spend 9.99 to buy one of these when I could have just absconded one from my uncle's house in Palm Springs. 

When we cleaned out that house for his move into Assisted Living, there appeared to be a Reacher Stick in every dusty corner of the house. Right next to the 138 extensions cords, the countless collection of drill bits, many in their original Home Depot packaging, and reams upon reams of printer paper, as if he were going to write a novel. 

I must assume it would have been a novel about Reacher Sticks, extension cords and drill bits.

Finally, because the inconvenience of getting rebuilt one joint at a time was not enough, the orthopedic surgeon at UCLA sent me home with my own personal stockade. It was explained to me that for the healing process to go well I had to avoid bending down or crossing my legs in any fashion.

The ban on leg crossing was delivered with the same force of a Munich edict of 1938 banning Jews from blowing their oversized noses or some other indignity.

And so every night, when I must sleep on my back, my wife has to Velcro me into this contraption.

Which as you might imagine makes my 5-6 trips to the bathroom an unmatched nocturnal adventure.

Although it does give Debbie that momentary sense of satisfaction when she can whip out her Kathy Bates impression from the aptly named movie, MISERY.

Someone shoot me.