My mother used to say “another organ recital” to describe her dinner conversations at the assisted living facility where she spent her final years. Whenever Champa and I joined her, sure enough, others at the table would discuss their medical problems. Among the most common of these, as evidenced by the walkers parked nearby, were knee and hip replacements.

During the past few years, medical issues have accounted for a growing share of our own conversations with friends, even though we’ve been relatively healthy ourselves. When I had hip replacement surgery this past Friday, I thought back to my mother’s dinner companions and wondered: Had I finally become one of them?

My procedure at Duke Regional Hospital went well. I returned home the following day and have been recuperating since then with a lot of help from Champa, my sons, a physical therapist and others. I hope to be walking easily again within a few months.

I know how lucky I’ve been to have access to an outstanding medical system and to live at a time when hip replacements have become routine. But the experience has reminded me of something I haven’t wanted to think about, which is the inevitability of physical decline. No mater how active, engaged and “not exactly retired” we aspire to be in this stage of life, we cannot avoid life’s frailties forever. We’re all in the lobby for the organ recital.

My hip problem began during one of the international trips that have highlighted our own adventure since leaving our conventional lives in 2015 to travel, serve in the Peace Corps and then redefine our lives back in Durham. Champa and I were visiting Vietnam with two friends in February when I felt severe pain in my upper right leg. Thinking it was tendonitis. I continued on with our trip into Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, skipping the longer walks to rest on a hammock or elsewhere. Several weeks after we returned home, I finally got an MRI and learned my hip was badly deteriorated and needed to be replaced.

I remained active while hobbling around prior to my surgery, even speaking at two local retirement communities about Moldova and the importance of making the most of this stage of life rather than drifting into old age. At the second talk, my leg hurt so much they gave me a motorized scooter to leave the auditorium. It was Irony on Wheels.

My new prosthetic hip should make me better. Champa and I still look forward to many years of travel, service and adventure, with renewed empathy for those with permanent disabilities. Still, coming as it does on the heels of my prostate cancer treatment (which also turned out well) and the deaths of several dear friends, the experience has gotten my attention.

I’m grateful for how things are turning out so far, truly, but feel more sobered than ebullient. It hasn’t been an occasion to shout “Hooray!” As I continue recuperating, I’m just relieved to be able to say “Hip Hip” and know they’re both working.