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Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1073 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Are You Afraid Gramps? - Ask Gramps


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1073 of our Trek and time for our Philosophy Friday series.  Each Friday we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.  As we continue on this trek called life, sometimes we have questions about life, so our Friday trek is a time where we can ‘Ask Gramps.’   Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason, this is not possible.  No matter how old we are, I know that all of us would like the opportunity to ask dad or gramps questions about life in many areas.

After investing 31 weeks focusing on the Enneagram, we are switching back to our regular ‘Ask Gramps’ episodes.   We may mix it up a bit on our Friday episodes, but will strive to keep them down to earth and enjoyable.

If you have been a long time listener to Wisdom-Trek, you may remember that 19 months ago I fell from a ladder and fractured my femur bone right below the hip ball.  The operation to repair it required a rod inserted down the center of my femur through the hip socket with a screw placed in the hip ball and another one right above my knee cap to hold the rod securely in place.  On the day that this podcast originally airs, I am scheduled for outpatient surgery to have the rod and screws removed.  Since I exercise a lot, the rod and screws are continually rubbing on the thigh and hip muscles, causing an irritating amount of low-level pain.  I could leave the rod and screws in my leg the remainder of my life, but given an option to have them removed, I chose the latter.

So the questions for this week is:

“Hey, Gramps, even though your surgery is outpatient and should not cause a problem, are you afraid or fearful to have the operation?
Are You Afraid Gramps?
That is a great question.  None of us like to have our bodies cut open, let alone choosing to have the procedure, when it was not required.  I have heard the question before…what is the difference between major surgery and minor surgery?  When you strip away all other concerns, major surgery is when it is performed on you, minor surgery is when it is performed on someone else.

Any time you have to be put out completely under anesthesia, there is a heightened risk of complications.  That is certainly a concern. During the operation the surgeon will need to make three incisions to remove the rod and two screws, and the primary cut for the rod will be about 3” long. That is also a concern, as there is a lot of bleeding and subsequent bruising. On top of these two concerns I had to also take into consideration that when I had the original surgery, my pulse dropped dangerously low three times. In the emergency room, during the operation, and once afterward.  We were told that the surgeon did give me a shot of adrenaline to stimulate the heart during surgery.  My low heart rate was partially due to the fact that I was in very good shape physically and do a lot of running so prior to the accident my resting heart rate was only 50 bpm.

So back to the question, Gramps, are you afraid?  I have to admit that as I record this podcast, which is the day before my surgery, there is a bit of both excitement and trepidation.