Modern medicine!

My Annie, the mother of my children, has been walking with a decided limp as of late. She complained, a bit, of pain in her back, pain down one and both legs. It seemed to be worse at night, sleeplessness due to pain, a pillow between her legs to help a little. Her sciatica nerve, pouching pads between her vertebra and a few other guesses at diagnosis came from the "expertise" of well meaning family, friends and even medical doctors.

X-rays and an MRI, or two, revealed the true culprit; cartilage worn away from the hip joint, a little osteoarthritis and a cyst or two to add to her misery. The answer in our parents/grandparents day would have been grin and bear it. The recommendation today "Schedule yourself for a new hip."

The old ball joint on the tibia (major bone in our thigh) is removed, the inside of the tibia is bored out for about six inches and a titanium rod capped with a nice round ball is pounded into place. Then the old socket is reamed and a new metal and plastic socket is pressed into place! Not a whole lot different from replacing the ball joints on the front suspension of your automobile when the old wears out.

Well, mechanically it sounds simple! But then there are small details like a nice long incision that the surgeon makes to access the mechanical details, the bones.

The new socket ball joint was force-fitted and no cement (glue) required. The lady could immediately put full weight on her new bionic replacement parts.

Somehow the healing muscle and tendons are objecting yet, so it will take time to heal and adapt to the new repair parts. Our bodies have wonderful healing powers and ability to adapt to new roles in life and so she makes improvement day to day.

I can only applaud the professionalism of the doctors, nurses and aids that we encountered on this latest journey together. The hospital is just a building, although the modern equipment inside is most helpful.

To me the real miracle in this area of medicine truly is the wonderfully professional personnel that make the place run. The research has already been done and proven. The appliances (repair parts) are readily available. It is the doctors who have schooled themselves and are available to conduct the procedure. The nurses and all the support personnel made the place clean, bright, and pleasant and have created a healing atmosphere. We are truly blessed! May it only change for the better.

I was privileged this weekend to attend the annual Offutt AFB Air Show. Airplanes with a Military relationship of all types from World War II-era to modern were present.

It is always joyous to see and touch the wonderful KC-135 that was such a vital part of my own career, and yet a bit sad to realize that the same airframes are still soldiering on some 30 years later with no replacement in sight. Somehow, social programs seem to get political priority in spending as I guess it votes better for incumbents.

The star of the air show was the demonstration flight of the world's newest and best fifth-generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor.

In flight, it demonstrated a whole list of maneuvers that everyone knows airplanes simply cannot do. Passes across the field from 80 knots to just shy of the speed of sound. (It can go supersonic, too, but people object to windows broken out of cars and buildings from the sonic wave!!) It went straight up, stopped, and then executed a loop at the top. Most impressive to me were the vertical 180 degree turns done without banking! All was flown close in within sight of the crowd. Airplanes just simply can't be made to fly that way -- everybody knows that!

It is a shame that our all- knowing Secretary of Defense backed up by the present administration has ordered production of the Raptor to cease. I fear that we will need them by the thousands in the near future when China decides to slap us around, but production has been limited to a measly 183 airframes. So sad.

We touched a C-17 the type soon to be flown by McCook's own Trevor Evans. On hand was an F-16 from Sean Cappel's new unit, the SD Air Guard. Then too we looked at a couple F-15s soon to be flown by Imperial's own Scott Leibbrandt.

This old warrior always finds it uplifting to rub elbows with the wonderful young men and women that are today's U.S. Air Force.

That is the way I saw it.