I don’t even remember which surgery this was from. It definitely wasn’t my first, because by then I knew the drill. One of the main things they push after surgery is to get up and walk. No matter how awful you feel, no matter how badly you want another hit of morphine to melt the pain away, they need you to walk. Walking is what jump-starts recovery. It tells your body, and especially your digestive system, “hey, even though you feel like you got hit by a truck, you are actually okay.” It also gets things moving again and they usually will not let you leave the hospital until you have proven it.

So I timed my dilaudid injection just right, hauled myself out of bed, and started walking, with my amazing wife faithfully following and filming me. A nurse casually mentioned that a few younger patients had been putting in some serious laps, and that there was even a leaderboard. Once I saw that leaderboard it was game on.

That afternoon I walked several miles through the ward, crushing the competition and dashing the dreams of my fellow patients. When they handed me the “trophy,” I made a big show of dancing around with it. A very humble celebration, of course.