"Robert Reed - X-Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

the first in a series of increasingly expensive doctors, ending up sitting on the end of
an exam table while an expert on joint disease—a young woman barely in her
thirties—calmly explained what was wrong with me and what she proposed to do
about it.

“Titanium,” I heard, followed by the words, “You are a lucky man.”

“Lucky? How?” I asked.

“Our new hips are quite reliable,” she promised. “Under normal conditions,
you can expect twenty or thirty years of use. And of course there’s always the
chance that new materials will come onto the market. Bioceramics. Or perhaps, living
hips grown from your own bone tissue.”

“I’m fifty-three.”

But she didn’t understand my point. With a professional grin and minimal
charm, she explained, “We don’t need to operate in the near-future.
Anti-inflammatories and a change of habits should delay surgery for a year, perhaps
eighteen months. Depending on your personal tolerances, of course.”

“I am fifty-three years old,” I repeated.

She blinked. “Pardon—?”
 “I’ll never run again,” I blurted. “That’s what you’re telling me. Maybe we’ll
be growing hips like corn in another twenty years, but by then, I’ll be in my seventies
and desperately out of shape.”

“Oh, but you’ll still be able to ride a bike and swim, and you can use a
low-impact exercise machinery, within limits.”

“I know old runners with artificial joints,” I said. “They always try to bike and
swim. But they gain weight anyway, and they lose their fitness, and regardless of age,
they become fat old people.”

The doctor had no canned answers at the ready. She looked at the bright
screen before her, studying an assortment of images of naked bones and a single
decaying socket. Then with fingers to her lips, she added, “You know, Don ... other
than this one sad hip, you’re in excellent condition for a gentleman of your age....”

****

Upon hearing my news, runners had a standard reaction. Surprise and
uncamouflaged horror swept across their faces, and probably feeling aches inside
their own hips, they would blurt the same reflexive words.

“You’ll be back.”

Their hope was delivered with an identical tone of voice, reflexively optimistic
and minimally informed. The only exception was Kip. Watching my limping