Four weeks from today, around this time, I should be taking my first step.

On my new hip, that is.

Yup: mark May 8th on your calendar, as that’s the day I get #projectfemur a major upgrade. It’ll come in the form of surgical steel, titanium, industrial-grade ceramics, polymers, and cement.

It’s a monumental day, to be sure. On May 8th, 1429, Joan of Arc lifted the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years War. On the same date in 1861, Richmond, Virginia, was named the capital of the Confederate States of America. In 1886, the first Coca-Cola was sold by a pharmacist named John Pemberton as a medicinal tonic.

On May 8th, 1912, Paramount Pictures was founded.  On May 8th, 1945, V-E Day was declared, ending military actions in the European Theatre of World War II. In 1978, May 8th saw the first successful summiting of Mt. Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen.

Many famous people were born on May 8th: Oscar Hammerstein I, Harry S. Truman, Robert Johnson (king of the blues), Saul Bass, David Attenborough, Don Rickles, Toni Tenille, Melissa Gilbert, and Evgeny Lebedev – to name more than a few.

On the flip side, many famous people died on May 8th: two Popes, Gustave Flaubert, Harry Selfridge, Avery Brundage, Rudolf Serkin, and Dana Plato, again to name more than a few.

It’s the earliest day on which Mother’s Day can fall in the U.S. It’s Furry Dance Day in Helston, England.

And it’s the day of the arrival of my new hip.

So until then, I count down the days.