My knees will outlive me, or, things to put in your pre-need funeral plan

I know I’m finally recovering from double knee replacement surgeries this winter because I’m regaining my morbid sense of humor.

I asked my husband today, “What happens to new knee joints when people are cremated? Does titanium melt?”

He thought for a minute and surmised that what doesn’t melt in a crematorium is pulled out and tossed, before handing the cremains over to the family. Unless, that is, a family member might want the joints as souvenirs to put on the mantle.

My husband is the same age as me (actually, I’m older and wiser by four months) and must have the same morbid fascination with how things work. He noted that all these implants have serial numbers so if something happens before a person is cremated…say a fiery plane crash or collision…the joints are better for identification purposes than even dental records.

I guess all of us who are newly bionic can take some comfort in the fact that some of our body parts will outlive us. As I feel my way through my mid-seventies I’m beginning to think in terms of mortality. Too late am I making a concerted effort to eat whole foods instead of things that come in boxes, and trying to get more exercise, even if it’s just  re-learning how to walk on new knee joints.

I’m still working on curing my sugar addiction and trying hard not to think about something I heard recently….that sitting is the new smoking. That’s probably doubled for folks like me who do a lot of sitting in front of a computer.

 I do hope to live into my 90s with renewed energy and purpose now that I have new knees. Cue the theme music from The Titanic–“Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the knees do go on…”