I found her site through her husband Doug's site.

I saw RoadKill Kafe and it brought to mind two things;
first a restaurant in S. Dakota, and second ,
it pretty much described my current life. We're about the same age, I'm 48. Way too young( in my opinion) to have to put up with this B.S.

I always led an outdoor life. Hunting ,fishing,camping and such. I got into this mess 'cause when I was young and dumb I played football.

I wound up getting racked pretty good, had my left hip pinned. Being as I said , DUMB, I played football the next year and got racked again. I bent the equvilent of 6 twenty penny nails, and so they went in again and took them out.

Over the years,I was still active until about 15 years ago when they started to wear out.

As I became more inactive I put on alot of weight.

Finally it got to the point where I couldn't walk without crutches.

I had the first hip replaced on June 10th 1999. (left side) Did the rehab facility thing and went home July 2nd. I dislocated the hip on July 4th and again on the 6th.

They put me in a brace to hold it in a certain position while it healed, and sent me back to a rehab facility to learn how to move and put it on and take it off.

While I was there, I started having pain under my right shoulder blade. Iwas getting short of breath and wanted to sleep all the time.

The Chimp they had as my physical terrorist thought I was just dogging it and didn't want to work.

They sent me home. Four days later I was almost dead because those symptoms were do to a pulmonary embolism; a huge clot thrown from my leg up to my lungs.

I spent the next 10 days in the hospital, and the next 2 months at home on oxygen. The next hip was scheduled to be done on March 10th.

I went in on the 9th and they put in a Greenfield Filter, in my Vena Cava to catch any possible additional clots and hopfully keep me from taking that long dirt nap.

The surgery was done on the 10th, and I went back to the First rehab facility to recover.

All went well for four days. I threw the mother of all clots. If I didn't have that filter we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I ran a fever for 8 days straight, couldn't lift my head. My blood pressure crashed to 60/40.

This freaked out the Dr. so she took me off my meds for reducing the swelling in my legs. They then blewup to massive proportions. Since I was too ill to do the therapy they sent me home.

Rich , I live alone. I couldn't walk 15 feet without gasping for air. I lived for two days at home alone, unable to take care of myself, when my angel appeared in the form of a visiting nurse.

She took one look at me and convinced me to call an ambulance. I spent the next three weeks in the hospital. Among other things , it turns out I was pretty anemic.

When you have this kind of surgery ( as you well know) you leak. My blood count was down 40%! When I finally came home I was feeling better, but my legs were still like tree trunks.

My own Doc (who is the BEST) ordered a CAT scan to see where the problem was. This is when I found out that I have a clot that was caught by the filter.

The clot starts in my Vena Cava about solar plexus height and extends down to 4 inches below the groin in both femoral veins. They think maybe it will disolve but it will take years.

I had only intended to give you the Readers Digest version (short) but got carried away.

I lost my job.

I drove for a living but now I can't sit that long, and the whole blood clot thing prevents me fromsitting with my legs hanging down like that.

I've gone three to five weeks at a time without seeing another living person.
TV and phone conversations don't count.

Sometimes I think if I don't get out into the outdoors pretty soon , I'm gonna bite something. :-( The deepression is at times mind numbing.

I've lost a lot of interest in things that in the past always made me smile.

I learned through this who my friends are.

I try to keep a positive atitude but......you know.

I know so many others our age who have had hips replaced and got right up and boogied on down the road......

They say a little fear is a healthy thing. It helps keep you from being stupid. :-)

But I'm afraid to do most any thing I took for granted before.

I'll never get on a Bike again. It's a given that if you ride motorcycles , Sooner or later you're gonna wreck.

I can't take the thought of going under the knife for this again.

I got a buddy who has a couple of V- twins and he wants to put one under me but I guess I'm just a big wuss.

I haven't been hunting in 13 years.Or camping.

That's pretty much it up to now.

I don't know if this story has been all that interesting but it's mine. I'm not sure if I want it to go public or even if it would do someone else any good.

I figured I'd tell it to you because I kinda got the feeling we were brothers in the same battle, and lately I've been so damn tired of fighting.

Thanks for listening Rich.
Write if you get the urge.