Chopped/Pureed

What this thing needs is a 350 Chevy. (Photo by Jerry Button.)

I should explain the above picture:
Years ago, when my mother was in her 80s, she’d shop at the local grocery.
My sister, who lived nearby in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, would take her.
My mother was semi-crippled by then, so she’d take a powered cart.
With it she’d clobber fruit displays in the produce department, sending an entire display of pears or plums to the floor.
“Oh my golly!” she’d shout, then reverse her cart into another display. Or clobber a shopper.
So here I am doing the same thing; mainly clobbering shoppers.
I was lame from the following operation.
It ain’t easy driving a powered shopping cart. You have to be deft.
You don’t just back the sucker up without looking first, lest you back into some poor shopper.
I didn’t clobber any fruit displays, but many shoppers got clobbered.

Yr Fthful Srvnt began an incredible adventure Monday, December 7th — “A date that will live in infamy” per President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941.
On December 7th, 2015, my left knee was changed out, replaced with a new bionic knee.
This was done by Canandaigua Orthopaedic. (Woops! my spellcheck is going ballistic because the old spelling [including the “a”] is apparently of-the-Devil.)
The surgeon was Dr. Bruce Klein, a partner in Canandaigua Orthopaedic, and a really swell guy.
I say that because over 71 years I’ve had my share of jerks practicing medicine.
One I called “the pusher,” because he was always prescribing pills — as if pills solved every ailment.
I think he was taking kickbacks from the pharmaceuticals. He was eventually fired by his health-group employer. —That was back when we had to join a health-group for medical care.
My current “medical-provider” (we called ‘em “Doctors” years ago) is also pretty groovy. We trade wisecracks and snide remarks; e.g. “in case of death, please get medical help immediately.”
I been tryin’ to get this knee changed for some time. Klein diagnosed I was bone-on-bone almost a year ago.
It was probably all the running and foot-racing I did years ago, plus my dog slamming me to the ground on ice almost three years ago.
The results of that slam seemed to heal at first, but then returned about two years ago.
My current medical-provider also prescribed X-rays, and diagnosed there was little cartilage left.
So he referred me to Canandaigua Orthopaedic.
We tried physical therapy, but I was still bone-on-bone. I was hobbling, and could no longer walk my dog any distance.
I was still able to walk my dog around my property, but it was slow and painful.
There were various hoops to negotiate. It seems everyone has to collect their fee — not from me, my health-insurance. Urologist, heart-doctor, dentist.
You don’t change out a knee willy-nilly.
Everything has to be hunky-dory to avoid infection.
My biggest log-jam at first was my urologist. Urology Associates of Rochester, where I’ve gone for years, was vague. Klein was justifiably concerned my prostate might not pass urine when he removed the catheter post-operation.
But then Urology Associates of Rochester diagnosed I had the beginnings of prostate cancer so my prostate was removed.
Suddenly the logjam was gone. Urology Associates of Rochester cleared me for surgery, and wheels began turning.
My left knee would get changed out December 7th.
For 71 years I’ve used that knee; it’s been slammed and abused many times. Knees weren’t designed to last 71 years under such abuse. The life-expectancy for humans used to be 40-50 years. That knee had been pressed beyond normal limits — particularly a crazy bouncing dog.
—So began my great adventure.
I was carted to the hospital by my friend who daycares my dog, or did when I worked out at the YMCA. This friend and I used to work at Canandaigua’s Messenger newspaper. He, like me, is a dreaded Liberal (gasp). We laugh at Donald Trump, with hopes the NSA isn’t listening on what appear to be his shop’s sprinkler system.
“Please take off all your clothes, on put on this attractive flowered hospital gown.”
“Oh yeah,” I thought. “This is the hospital. I’m on display for all and sundry.”
Klein appeared, marked my left knee, then lights out.
Klein apparently did his job.
I awoke in the post-op recovery room, oxygen in my nose.
—Now would begin recovery from a complete knee-change.
As I recall, I was in the hospital two days, and was then transferred to MM Ewing Continuing Care Center (“you-wing”), a nursing-home next to the hospital.
For rehab, monitoring, pills, hospital-food, etc.
(MM’s husband George Sr. was head-honcho of the Messenger newspaper when I began.)
I was deduced as a “character,” continually bombarding them with questions, sick jokes, etc.
“WHOA! What do you mean by that?”
And “Does this apply to me?”
They told me I was doing wonderful, to which I kept saying “if you say so.”
I was there over a week. When I was told I’d be discharged my second Friday, I said “You gotta be kidding!”
But I thought about it, decided I was improving, and wasn’t that bad.
I would be going home to my brother-in-law, who had flown up from FL to help me. I was fairly stable with a wheeled-walker.
In-home outpatient physical-therapy would visit twice a week, and physical-therapy would continue elsewhere when I was cleared to drive.
—So I’ve been home a couple days with a bionic knee.
Brother-in-law and I visited Mighty Weggers in Canandaigua to get sustenance. My niece and her boyfriend did this too.
They got me a powered cart — “bumpa-cars,” I call ‘em. Then I’d drive it into the store.
“I got this thing floored!” I yelled at patrons walking past. Hilarious, not some stodgy old geezer quietly buying groceries.
“What this thing needs is a 350 Chevy!”
So here I am amazed. Two major operations down, and still one to go — I have a torn rotator cuff.
My beloved wife is gone, and I had a stroke 22 years ago.
Yet I’ve done all this.
Like it or not, I’m still here, ornery as ever.
I think they really enjoyed me at that nursing-home.
A character determined to get well, who made them laugh.

• “Jerry Button” is my brother-in-law.
• My friend and his wife own a pet-grooming shop. His wife is president.
• “Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester where I often buy groceries. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.