Dr. Hunt, this may seem too corny to endure, but I’ll risk it. I find myself struggling to express the depth of my gratitude to you and the team of caring professionals you have gathered around you for the fifteen years or more you have added to my life. When I decided to go to you to replace my knees late in 2008, I was seriously facing the loss of most of my outdoor activities. In January, 2009, you and your team replaced both of my knees, and in two surgeries during 2011 you also replaced both of my shoulders. Now you have given me a new right hip. Because of your work, I have continued to backpack with three generations of family members for days on end on Isle Royale every fall (sometimes twice in a season). Early last spring I backpacked about forty miles of the Superior Hiking trail with a friend. Libby and I have been able to tour the Peruvian Amazon and the Peruvian sacred valley, and then spend a week on the Galápagos Islands. As a pastor I made multiple trips to partner congregations in El Salvador and in Nigeria. Twice I’ve made it to Alaska, most recently with Libby for a stay with friends in Halibut Cove on Kachemak Bay. Two years ago Libby and I toured Iceland, reunited with her relatives in Sweden and with my relatives and friends in Norway. And for the last three years I’ve led delegations to explore how migratory birds connect Minnesota and Nicaragua. All this scattered among countless forays across Minnesota and Wisconsin to go birding in remote wild corners of our region.
I only hope this little album of memories gives you some sense of my gratitude to you for your work and for my privilege of having access to this health care (when so many across the world do not).
Blessings, Keith O.
