The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

My husband and I had an amazing experience in California, and it wasn't from lying out on the beach and relaxing, and we don't surf. We flew across the country so that he could have an operation. You might ask, "You know, what's so exciting about that?" Well, we take dance lessons. My husband skis, and he enjoys karate, or he has in the past, but his hips are giving out. They're achy much of the time. So he went for some routine scans, and a local doctor gave him some news. He said, "You got old man hips in a young man's body." Now this is partly genetic, it's partly aging, he's got the arthritis thing going on, and it's partly from wear and tear from years of martial arts.

So my husband then faced a choice. He could either have two total hip replacements or just let his hips deteriorate, and he wouldn't be able to dance anymore—no more Cha Chas, no more tangos, no more waltzes. But then, to go into surgery... I mean, this is total hip replacement, both hips for surgery. The stories we heard didn't make either of us want to rush to the phones because you'd have to put your life on hold for about six months. Now, of course, we're going to do it, but you don't look forward to doing this. And the operation itself sounded fairly gruesome. They have to cut through the large muscle groups in the back of your leg. Then they have to pop out the head of the femur. They have to cut the top of your large bone in the top of your leg, your femur, they have to wedge a ball with a spike into it, into your cut leg, and then they have to clean out the hip socket and glue a metal liner into it. All the muscles and tendons and various other stuff would need to be cleaned out and sewn together, and then you have to stitch and staple the whole thing back together.

So my husband would be spending weeks on crutches. He’d be taking pain medications, he’d have to have sleepless nights, and it would take him up to six months for a full recovery to be back to normal, where he could at least try a cha-cha or a mambo again. During the recovery time, he would not be able to cross his legs or bend them as we normally do, and he'd only be able to sleep in a few positions.

Now, my husband is active. He's energetic. He works out and he dances up to four hours a week. And I want to tell you, some weeks it's more than that. He skis. He takes long walks. So we're looking forward to at least a year, six months for one hip, six months for the other, of his being incapacitated. And last year, he went through two rotator cuff surgeries, and he had neck surgery a long time ago. So I'm thinking, "Oh no, not this guy's a wreck. I married a wreck." That's my husband. So, you know, I'm the living caretaker. So I'm mentally restructuring my immediate future. I'm preparing for months of caretaking: taking out the garbage (which is his job), cleaning the yard, helping him get his food, bathing him, chauffeuring him around.

Then I spoke to my co-author. I book on romance, and my co-author said, "I had hip surgery last year, and my doctor is amazing." Now, you always hear stories about a doctor being amazing, and so we kind of blew it off because we have a very good doctor. And he says, "No, look at this brochure." And he brought us in a brochure of a new type of hip replacement. He then said to me, "You know, I was playing tennis within four weeks of hip surgery, and I was playing competitive tennis within six weeks of my hip surgery." So at that point, he's got our attention.

So my husband did a lot of research, and he went from the prospect of at least six weeks on crutches, six months to full recovery, down to... is it three months? Two months? Three weeks? Two weeks? One week? Would you believe... days? So here's what we did. We flew out to Los Angeles, and my husband was operated on by Dr. Joel Matta, M, A, T, T, A, who you can reach at hipandpelvis.com if anyone wants to research this themselves. He brought a new technique into this country. Instead of cutting through the back of the legs to reach the hip and cutting through all the large muscle groups, you do a lot of damage. Instead, he invented a new table, based on information he got from a doctor in Paris, that allows him to twist your leg into a real weird position and not cut any muscles. You just move the muscles aside.

Now, to my husband's credit, he did a lot of exercising beforehand to stretch his leg muscles so he could reduce the pain post-surgery. But he entered surgery, this is the day of surgery. At six o'clock in the morning, two o'clock he was brought back up to his hospital room. The anesthesia wore off by five, the physical therapist came in and had my husband walking up four steps and walking up and down the halls of the hospital that same day, hours after surgery. Then less than 24 hours after surgery, they had my husband walking with a cane, up a full set of hospital stairs, and my husband decided that the cane was just a nuisance. He didn’t need the cane, but they told him to use it anyway because it signals to other people that you just had surgery.

The next day, they discharged him with no limitations. Two days after surgery, he was told that he could do anything he wanted provided it didn’t hurt, and he couldn’t get the scar wet. Now the scar is glued together; he didn’t even have stitches. It’s glued together with human super glue, which makes the recovery even easier. He has needed very few pain pills. Eight days after surgery, my husband took a full hour dance lesson—Rumba and Tango—and the dance instructor looked at him and said, "I can't tell. Which hip did you have done?" And then the dance teacher says, "I just saw it. It's your right hip, right?" No, it wasn't. It was the left hip.

So I cannot praise this surgeon enough. His name is Dr. Joel Matta, M, A, T, T, A. He's a top-notch surgeon, and he had been to France; as I said, he had seen the surgery done in a non-traditional way, and he told me privately that he had so much experience in pelvic and hip surgery and was passionate about learning as much as he could that when he saw this new procedure, he decided to introduce a similar one in the States. Now, it's new and radical, and that meant he's placing his excellent reputation at stake because if it doesn't work out, you know, you take a big risk like this, and you can be condemned by your colleagues. His colleagues were not overly supportive of this new idea, but Dr. Joel Matta had confidence in his own mind, his wealth of knowledge, his skills, and his years of experience. He invented a table that allows him to do this operation, and now he trains other surgeons around the country.

Another surgeon from New Orleans was there while we were there, and he looked at my husband pre and post-surgery and said, "Oh my God, my patients don't walk as well or feel as pain-free as you do until six months after surgery." This is two days after surgery. So personal, warm thanks and our tremendous admiration goes to you, Dr. Joel Matta, with your courage, your knowledge, your integrity. You saved my husband and all your other patients months of pain and months of recovery time. Thanks for being the type of person that both my husband and I can admire. And we’ll be making another trip out to see you for the other hip.

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Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who’s world-famous for his theories in goal setting:

Humorous repartee and good-natured teasing can be a lot of fun when partners are in sync. Never use humor in anger or as a disguised form of aggression, such as sarcasm or to score points with an audience. Imagine telling an embarrassing story about your partner at a dinner party. Sometimes your partner might enjoy the story being told, and sometimes not, depending on the content of the story, the audience, and your partner's psychology. Out of respect, always ask permission before you tell a funny story about your partner. Agree beforehand on what you can share in public.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.