Today we celebrate the one, the only, the remarkable Pretty for her addition of a new family member that gives us an even number Four, a quartet, to our family with the odd number Three for the past five years. Neither trio nor quartet came with music, however.

We’re talking bionic knees at our house, and then there were four following Pretty’s knee replacement on November 11th., Veterans Day in America which was a holiday for some workers but not for the busy medical personnel and staff at Midlands Orthopedics and Neurosurgery. This was Pretty’s second knee replacement, but the first one had been in either 2015 or 2016 – honestly, so long ago that neither of us could remember the year – she was fifty-five or fifty-six at the time. Her goal wasn’t for pain relief back then, just to have better mobility on the tennis courts. Pretty’s love for playing tennis has been a major social influence in her life long before the term social influencer was created.

This second knee replacement was dictated by the old devil Pain which could be quantified by levels from 1 – 10, identified by X-rays, and diagnosed with the two most feared words in any knee discussion: “bone on bone.” Pretty had to hang up her tennis racket this summer while continuing to trudge through the demands of her Antique Empire going thither and yon to pick up furniture, unload furniture, move furniture around in her booths, covering furniture in the back of her pickup truck in the rain, etc.

Since I am fourteen years older, and two knee replacements ahead of her, I have given Pretty the benefit of my good advice during the last ten days of her recovery and rehab at home – some of which has been unsolicited and would have been more helpful had I paid closer attention to the discharge details. Apparently a few changes have been made since my two bionic knees in 2019. That’s progress for you. Sometimes progress gets so far ahead of where you are that you can’t keep up with discharge details.

In spite of my counsel, Pretty has miraculously survived and in this second week moved from her walker last week to a single cane. Because of the kindness of our family and friends, we have had the most delicious home-cooked meals that put Meals on Wheels to shame. Home therapy consisted of a certified nurse for rehab three times a week and two granddaughters who’ve visited twice to check on Nana’s boo boo.

Hooray for Pretty who will have a follow-up with her surgeon next week and will hopefully be released for outpatient rehab in a facility! She is prohibited from operating a vehicle for two weeks after that, and I dread the inevitability of her resistance to authority – particularly the authority of a surgeon whose appearance reminds us more of a high school student than a medical school graduate.

As my retired military friend Bervin replied when I called him to serve as Plan B for getting Pretty to the surgery on Veterans Day, I apologized for asking him to possibly miss the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Columbia which was scheduled to start at the same time. “Ain’t no problem, Sheila. We’re all veterans of something or another.” Point taken.

In our house Pretty and I are Veterans of Bone on Bone with a quartet of bionic knees moving us along a cappella.