When the Flames Go Up
When the Flames Go Up
Episode 31: "I look forward to yelling at my grandchildren to hand me my hip."
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:06:27
-1:06:27

Episode 31: "I look forward to yelling at my grandchildren to hand me my hip."

Bill Braine had a quintessential Fifties Moment when he spent his 55th birthday recovering from hip replacement surgery, adjusting to a CPAP machine, and mapping out how to Get Things Done in 2024.

When you think about a quintessential Fifties Moment, Bill Braine’s 55th birthday checks a lot of boxes. At the midpoint of his 50s, he was recovering from hip replacement surgery, adjusting to his new CPAP machine, and negotiating intently with his parents to downsize and de-clutter.

He was also continuing his now-14-year tradition of mapping out his annual goals with his adapted method of Getting Things Done, a mural-sized type of bullet journal that helped keep him on task to write his first novel, Bone Hollow.

If you’ve considered treating a bum hip or sleep apnea, Bill offers reassuring details and advice for each. You can deny your hip pain for years, but sometimes a very loving partner has to show you how mundane hip replacements are (his doctor replaced nine that day). And they’ll even mail you your femur for conversion into any number of objets d’art!

Thanks for listening to When the Flames Go Up! Please consider a paid subscription to support our writing and podcasting and replacement of our body parts.

We also talk about the entertainment value of Dull Men, the irony of AI robots that watch you sleep, and how turning 50 is all about appreciating life’s minutiae.

Other links:

Transcript

Discussion about this podcast

When the Flames Go Up
When the Flames Go Up
After we divorced, we started a blog about co-parenting to learn how to work together until our kids were grown. And now that they are, and the world is so busy disrupting and disavowing what we thought we were working for, we're looking to our community to help us all keep up.