The hospital where my surgery will be performed is St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Ind. Beech Grove is near Indianapolis and about 20 miles from my home.

St Francis is about five miles from where I grew up, and I used to drive by it all the time. It has grown from a small Catholic hospital to one of the highest rated hospitals in the country for many of its services, including orthopedics. St Francis has earned a five-star rating in both total hip replacement for the past seven years and a five-star rating in total knee replacement for the past six years from HealthGrades, which rates more than 5,000 hospitals across the nation using Medicare data and quality measures such as complication rates.

I feel pretty confident about having my surgery done there. At another St. Francis facility, one of my former athletes, who is 45 years old, had his hip replaced by Frank in November and he went home the next day. I am wondering why I'm scheduled to stay in the hospital from three to four days. I think it's because of my age but we'll find out.

My surgery is scheduled for next Monday, July 24. I had my pre-admit meeting this morning. It was scheduled for two hours, but it didn't take that long. I met with Erin Records, RN. It's funny, she did the pre-admit for my wife's surgeries last year. She had me sign various consent forms and instructions, took my medical history and drew some blood. For my first surgery I gave one unit of my own blood. They didn't use it and it was disposed of. They don't do that anymore since the surgery is less invasive and only takes 45 minutes. I also had an EKG, which only took about 30 seconds, if that.

Finally Erin gave me a list of pre-operative instructions. They are pretty basic, take one Coumadin, a blood thinner) at 6 p.m. the night before surgery; arrive at the hospital at 6:30 a.m (for a 9 a.m. surgery. Also, I can have no food or drink after midnight. I'm glad the surgery isn't too late in the day. When my wife had her second knee replacement the surgery was later in the morning, and she was pretty hungry.

I guess if you're ever going to have one of these operations, you might want to know what it is actually they do when they replace your hip. A lot of surgeons won't tell you all the gory details until after the surgery. There was a study a few years a go that said most patients recovered better from surgery if they didn't know all that went into it. Frank didn't tell me about mine until I had my one-month checkup. But I had already researched it before the surgery, and I think knowing the details had any affect on me, one way or the other.

First of all, understand that it doesn't take very long. My first surgery took on hour. I'm told it will take 45 minutes this time. It really wasn't a surprise since it only took 45 minutes for him to replace each one of my wife's knees. Here are the basics.

The surgeon makes an incision of six to 12 inches (some are even shorter) along the outer side of the upper part of your leg and buttock. The length and place of the incision depends on a few different factors. Usually the surgeon inserts the cup, or acetabular component, first. It fits into the hip socket or acetabulum. The surgeon may have to reshape the socket with small gas instruments called reamers so it will fit correctly. Now the cup may be inserted with or without cement. Usually younger patients have the non-cement implants so that the bone can grow into the implant itself. This forms a good seal and if down the line you need to have another hip replacement (a revision) it makes it easier. Right now they say a replaced hip averages 13 years. If you take care of it they last longer.

Next, the surgeon inserts the femoral component. That's the component that goes into the femur, or the thigh bone. The surgeon then "routs" the femur so that the component fits into the bone. Again it can be the cemented or non-cemented type. The surgeon then selects the size of the femoral head-neck length and inserts the component. When this is finished the incision is closed.

For years surgeons have used guides and jigs to aid them in placing knee and hip implants in the appropriate position during a joint replacement operation. Improper positioning led to early failure. The recent development of computer navigation seems to have helped to reduce this complication.

See that's all there is to it, 45 minutes, quite routine. Remember what I said in the first post, the only routine surgery is one that happens to someone else.

After the surgery I should be in the recovery room about an hour. Now I'd had general anesthesia before, and it always takes some time to really wake up in the recovery room. With a hip replacement they give you a spinal block and a drug that gives you amnesia -- it has been described to me as a dreaming medication -- so you don't remember what happened during the surgery. With my first replacement I woke up and looked at the clock thinking, "Wow that was a good nap!" One of the first things I realized was that the pain that I'd been having for 15 years was finally gone! Oh what a feeling!!!!

At the end of the surgery I'll be given another dose of pain meds, which should last another 12 hours. I may have a pump given to me so I can medicate myself. My wife had one for both her surgeries but I didn't have one with my first replacement. It is very important to keep the pain under control. If you try to tough it out it will take a lot longer to get it under control. I am a firm believer in better living through chemistry! I also know that it has been proven by science that pain hurts!

Feeling good after the surgery is important because later that day, the nurses will get me up out of bed and have me move around some. They will also want me to do "leg pumps," moving my feet up and down using the ankle joint. This exercise decreases the risk of blood clots forming in my legs. I will also need to cough deeply two to three times every hour that I'm awake -- again to avoid blood clots and pulmonary embolism.

I mentioned in my first post that I was keeping up with my exercising. I know that I won't be in the weight room until about two months after the surgery, so I decided to max out on a couple of lifts. This should give me a guide as to how much strength I've lost. This morning I did my one rep max for the bench press. For those of us who lift this is the "magic indicator" of how strong we are. When I started lifting in about 1962 that's about all we cared about. It is still that way for many people. They don't realize that it's just a lift not the be-all or end-all of strength training. That being said, every now and then I have to lift heavy just to see where I am. It's an ego thing, and it usually means benching. When I participated in bench press competitions I had a program I'd do a few months before the competition. I didn't do that this time. I did 295 pounds for one repetition. I lifted 300 pounds about half way up but couldn't lock it out. Not too bad for a 57 year old!

On Friday, I am going to put 225 lbs on the bench and see how many reps I can do. This is the basic strength test for football and it's used at the NFL combine to test college players for the draft. I'm not on the road bike any more. I don't want to risk a biking accident and delay my surgery. I have a very good stationary bike that I'm using. I usually ride for an hour on the days I don't lift and 30 minutes after my lifts. I try to exercise at 60 percent to 70 percent of my target heart rate to maintain my conditioning. I'm not sure how long it will be before I can get back on the bike. I hope it's not as long as it will take to get back in the weight room.

I'll be back with Post Three when I return from the hospital. Exactly when I file the next post depends on how long I'll be able to sit at the keyboard.