Every year on 9/11 I get nostalgic. Not just because of the tragedy in 2001, but because I woke up that morning, at 40 years old, the day after my hip resurfacing with Dr. Gross, and watched the planes run into the towers on the news.

It’s been 19 years and I’ve had virtually no problems with my cemented Corin device or the uncemented device I got from Dr. Gross on the other hip about 10 years later. I squatted 215 pounds this morning for 8 reps.

Back then there was a SurfaceHippy group on Yahoo sharing information. Dr. Gross’s office gave me a fruit basket and tickets to the zoo when I got in town. There were still getting used to out of town patients. I hobbled around the zoo for a while in appreciation for their efforts but had to give up due to the pain. The head nurse gave us tickets to the college football game after the operation, which got cancelled due to 9/11. I realized later it would have been very difficult to attend a college football game 5 days after the operation. I had to check in to a hotel and stay around town until the stitches came out back then,about 10 days. We couldn’t fly out anyway due to 9/11.