Creblue--I'm 51 y.o. and have never had surgery before as well and I'm probably about 2-3 months ahead of you on the timeline. I'm going forward with bilateral THR on April 1. Why? Because I want my life back. And even now, I'm getting excited at the thought of the things I might be able to do again. My wife and I talk about it often and we are planning. For our 6 year anniversary on April 26--that's 26 days post-op, we're going to take a walk around our neighborhood with the dog. This morning, I was looking for something in the basement of the home we moved into 4 years ago and I saw all of the boxes of things representing what I used to do-still in boxes- because I haven't done them in 4+ years: cycling gear, flyfishng gear, hiking gear, camping gear, gym gear, etc. And I became so hopeful for the future that I resolved to do it all again.
So Creblue, take your time, pray on it or just think about it, see another doctor or 2, evaluate your options, read the posts, evaluate the risks because they do exist, think about how fortunate we have been to not have had any surgery or major medical problems before, and think about what life will be like without hip pain.
Good luck!
Tom