What The Surgeon Said

Dad had a triple bypass two days before my daughter was born.

We’re two days before we hit the fifth without him and more than a decade since my grandfathers were around to celebrate with.

I have a vague memory of Grandpa Silver mentioning that one day the day would be all mine so to speak and so it came to pass.

The day my not so little girl anymore was born I called my father and asked him how he was feeling and he said it was like a buffalo was sitting on his chest.

“You have another granddaughter. When you come home you’ll get to meet her.”

We talked for a few minutes and then he had to go or maybe I did, some details are hard to remember.

I had three grandparents 90 plus year old grandparents to worry about a baby and a son who was 3.5.

The younger Mr. Wilner wasn’t so sure he was on board with having a baby sister and didn’t understand why his grandparents insisted on spending so much time with his New Jersey cousins.

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In around two months it will be the eighth anniversary of the surgery I had done for a double hernia. It came right after we moved out of the townhouse in LA and a couple of weeks before I moved back to Texas.

I stayed over at my folk’s house before the surgery and the two of them drove me to the hospital. I remember sitting in the back seat thinking it would probably be the last time both my parents took me to see the doctor.

Seemed kind of funny and surreal to me and I think I asked them if they remembered the old days when it was just the three of us.

What The Surgeon Said

A short while ago I watched this video and woke up throwing punches. I was wrapped in the blankets and had a dream in which the surgeon said he was going to be seeing me real soon.

I am sure I dreamt about other things as well but I don’t remember it all. It happened before Tell Me About Your Medical History Part 2 but all that has been on my mind since.

Had a different memory from about seven years ago in which I was driving and I could see my son singing along with this song.

There was a ton going on at that moment and I remember feeling like I was covered in gasoline walking through hell.

I remember a call with my father where he told me he I needed to unload and that I should use him. “There is too much going on, I can deal with it.”

He was particularly good about listening that day. I remember telling him I felt a bit like seeing how many guys I could take on.

Dad said that would be particularly dumb and I agreed with him.

“Might not go very well for me and if I do what I think I can I don’t think I’ll like the consequences.”

I could feel the change in his tone of voice and remember unhappily agreeing with him that it really would be dumb.

“Isn’t that why we’re talking, so I can take the edge off in a way that won’t cause issues. Besides I don’t want to hear you say you told me it was a bad idea.”

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My left knee has begun to bark at me and I can’t figure out what I did other than wake up every day for the past 55 years.

It feels like it needs to crack and if I can only get it to do that it will feel better. So I keep moving it around trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Thus far I haven’t had any success. Has me wondering if maybe I need to do some quad work or some other knee exercises.

It irks me to have to make these adjustments and changes because of age. I am not who I once was but I am certainly not dead either.