Welcoming Old Age

Sometimes, the infirmities of old age fire up and make a defiant statement about mortality. That bum knee lets you know just where you are on the timeline. Not talking about remembering to schedule your colonoscopy, though you should. What I’m referring to are all-of-a-sudden developments that take you over the precipice of teetering between middle and old age. Most of us will consider ourselves middle aged until we die. We simply can’t accept the hands of fate shaking us about the shoulders. I’ve been bracing myself for the past twenty years or so for this transition, welcoming old age. I think my latest malady has taken me over the edge.

Arthritis reached up and bit me something fierce recently. Certainly a transition event, the whole ordeal has been both alarming and painful. Arthritis is an affliction that has no definition, no clear understanding until you actually have it. For some, it hurts. For others, it’s too painful to have, harder to forget.

An empty feeling came on as I gripped my right hand with the left and looked down at the coffee mug dropped on the floor. Luckily, the mug was empty and didn’t even chip. Reaching for it from the cupboard, I found out quickly holding onto that mug was gonna be a failure. Then came the pain.

Through the years, I’ve endured illnesses and injuries others have been through and can easily relate to. Bugs and viruses, colds and hangovers, hangnails, toe stubs and minor cuts all have something in common with me. Whatever the normal severity, duration, or complication anyone else might get from these maladies, they are tenfold in me.

A cold can last over a month. Minor cuts can become major lacerations. From a bit of a bug to the bubonic plague in less than a week. How many ways to say you’re sick? Hard for me to plan much of anything in my life with these sudden onslaughts, but that’s just how it’s been going for the longest time. Some people get sicker than others.

Nobody, though, has a corner on illness. What I come down with may hail from a bag full of oddities, but no worse than health issues facing you or anyone else. Chronic hives, breathing difficulties, heart attacks, poor eyesight, stitched up here and there, these are all maladies that have been happening to me for nigh on 70 years. Regardless, I’d venture to say, that and more has happened to you.

What’s strange for me is that these afflictions appear to roll by in a constant barrage of dark clouds, unexplained phenomena that keeps me hurting. Well, used to be strange. I pitied myself with more wailing than a drunk at a stop sign. Thought I had more misery than that guy John Prine sang about in the four-way stop dilemma.

Still, life goes on and you make the best of things. Take vitamins, eat and sleep better, do what you can to keep yourself going. Being married to one of the most optimistic and headstrong women around, I not only get to come up with better perspectives, but in general, she keeps me grounded.

The missus jumped into action the day I came home from the hospital after my triple bypass. The widow maker and bunches of smaller attacks should have taken me, but here I am, fifteen years since and still going. Like I say, the little lady went with me to my cardiologist appointments, took notes, and came down with a plan of action to keep her man around.

Salt was the first thing to go. Now, you can’t avoid the stuff, just as much as you can’t avoid sugar in food. Still, a campaign with a whole new salt-free diet has done wonders. A few years ago, my cardiologist remarked at just how incredible my progress has been, well, especially for the huge hole I blew in my heart. A big part of that has been the low salt.

Sugar was another victim of my new diet, although the success there has been a constant struggle. Pretty obvious when you consider I was raised on truckloads of sugar. Back then, sugar-infested cereal was always topped with a spoonful or two from the sugar bowl before I would even take a bite. I ate a fair amount of healthy stuff, but I also flooded my body with tons of the bad stuff.

You see, back when I was growing up, sugar was good for you. Then again, so was lots of television, fast food, and the big one, cigarettes. Watching the tv, I would sing the little jingles on the cigarette commercials and was almost giddy when I lit my first one at 11 1/2. Cigarettes stayed with me all the way till the heart attacks said enough of this. Don’t miss the Marlboros one bit.

Just like knowing the Ten Commandments and living them are two different things, I was empowered smoking those tobacco sticks. Sucked ’em down like crazy right through middle age and for all that time I felt as though me and cigarettes were close pals. For years before the heart attacks, most working mornings would find me rushing to work after stopping to pick up a coffee, pack of smokes, and, mmmmm, a honey bun. No more, doctor’s orders.

I throw all this early abuse out there to show how I was setting the stage for disaster. To a degree, many of the maladies I am facing in older age have been self-inflicted. Of course, the other factor besides my supreme lack of insight on health issues is the fact that I was born premature. Turns out, that’s been a fairly big disaster all on its own.

Not saying being born was wrong. I’ve enjoyed my life. I’m satisfied with my station in life, comfortable in my own skin, as well as all those parts beneath. Still, being a premature birth has had an effect on stretching those colds for weeks and weeks. For the chronic hives that had no constant trigger, but put me in the hospital for weeks at a time, swollen like an elephant, beginning when I was seventeen. They started calming down long about retirement age after years of steroids and other gamey medications that come as a double-edged sword.

The arthritis gave me the most painful dose of reality I could imagine. Beginning with a right thumb that saw some injuries in times past, sharp pain grew to the wrist, shoulder, then visited the right knee. By the time Uncle Arthur moved in, felt like my entire right side was disintegrating. To get rid of the pain, I went outside with my grandson and did some moving about, tossing a football for exercise. Well, I dove for the football, which was an easy Nerf football, but I missed the catch and ended up introducing the left side of my chest to a tree root above the ground. The result of that escapade is the broken rib highlighted in the x-ray image above. I was worried they might charge me for destroying the defibrillator.

Let’s just say, there have been plenty of limitations put on me during my time on this earth. Now, here, as I come to grips with these more significant health issues, the natural deterioration of things, and all those infirmities that come with all those leaves and pages turning, I am still relevant to myself, still hungry to journey on, meet the next bend in the road.

Old age isn’t for sissies and I’m sure my journey further into that territory will require a lot of fortitude. Any regrets about black clouds and premature circumstances are long gone. I’m busy arming myself, gathering strength from all the wonderful things that have happened to me, all the wonderful people who have taught me lessons.

I’m sure the arthritis will be a challenge. The eyesight, the back pain, the myriad of issues I am likely to develop, all are concerns that will take up a lot of my time to deal with, react from. That’s okay. There is still a lot between the ears and until I’ve lost my happy mind and I’m unable to recognize myself, I’m planning on moving forward.

For all you old timers and soon-to-be old timers out there, hang on for the ride. Try to live and eat right, follow the doctor’s recommendations and don’t give up just because you’re hurting somewhere. You still have the memory of adventures that can feed new adventures. That alone is a pretty good start.

You still have friendships with you, whether in memory or sitting next to you. You still have the knowledge you gained and the insight of years of experience. Sure, even that will eventually face pressure. However, unless there is an actual health emergency causing it, don’t believe for a minute that your mind will turn off like a light switch. Ride the gradual decline, be happy in spirit. Next ride is coming up and I hear tell that’ll be a good one!