Back in the mid-nineties, I had hip replacement surgery. I didn’t want it, but the horse I fell from about twenty or so years earlier gave me no say in the matter. It was a strange journey. About 1989, I went to see an orthopedic doctor at Ft. Sanders when my back was hurting. He ordered an MRI after saying he was pretty sure he knew what was wrong. I wish he had just told me.

The MRI. That is a whole other story. Okay, you don’t have to twist my arm. In those days, most of those diagnostic machines were like bookmobiles. They drove them to certain places and you got tested. No headphones, no music (which you really can’t hear anyway), and you are enclosed. Totally. I compare it to a torpedo. That test took forty-five minutes, give or take a few, but it seemed an eternity. I knew what the victim in an Edgar Allan Poe story felt like being walled in.

A week later I walked in to the doctor’s office and he said, “You have a herniated disk. Therapy will help you with that. (It did.) Oh, and by the way,” he added. “You need your left hip replaced.”

Say what? My hip? Frankly, the doctor couldn’t figure out how I had arthritis in only one joint of my body. I mentioned the horse and he nodded. Story understood. “Uh, Doctor, I am in my thirties. I’m too young to have a hip replacement.”

He just shrugged and told me to come back when it got too painful. I really hadn’t had much pain. I made it another five years and the surgery was scheduled. Believe it or not, I had not yet had any major surgery in my life. I have to say, the doctor was good, even if he wasn’t outgoing. It took about 17 weeks in those days and therapy and I was wondering why I hadn’t had it done earlier.

It was such an improvement that late in the summer after the surgery, we decided to go all the way through the Smokies, stopping at Mt. LeConte to see the Appalachian Trail and Clingman’s Dome. I had not been able to do it before, so climbing that paved trail was on my bucket list. It was August, not the smartest time to do something like that, but I was determined. My two kids went trip-trap-trip-trap, like the Billy Goats Gruff, like climbing up fairly steep mountain trails was easy as pie. My husband and step-son had a bit more trouble, but I was pretty far back, making out like a steam bellows and wondering why I picked such a tough goal. As I said, though, I was determined. I had to stop and rest often, catch my breath and I would continue slowly up the trail, with everyone in the Smoky Mountain National Park passing me.

Then I finally made it. I was at the top looking down over the hills and valleys. I wondered about the stands of dead trees, wondering about the sanity of the people who had hiking the entire Appalachian Trail on their bucket list. The kids and step-son were ready to head back down, but I had to stand there and watch the clouds, hear the birds, feel the warm breeze on my cheek. It was exhilarating. Everyone who can, should walk to the top of Mt. LeConte once in their life, if for no other reason than to say they did it!

Oh, and by the way, I still have the hip.

Susan Kite is a member of Author’s Guild of Tennessee with five published books and two more on the way. www.bookscape.net She also has stories and novelettes in several anthologies, including a new one in Zorro, the Daring Escapades, available from Bold Venture Press