It’s my birthday, and my age is the kind of stupid joke I might have sniggered over when I and my friends were virginal nerds going har-de-har-har around the D&D table fifty years ago. Reality is less amusing.
Here’s the objective assessment.
My knees…if I were a racehorse, I’d be shot. If I stand for long periods of time, the bones tend to sink into the cartilage like its marshmallow fluff and they lock up on me. I might be able to walk away stiff-legged, but I’m desperate to put my butt on a chair and not move for a while. Fortunately, in this day and age I don’t have to worry about running away from sabre-toothed tigers, and even if I had the knees of an athlete, the tiger would catch me anyway.
My back is the current troublemaker. After my little fall last month, it feels like my spine is made of disjointed legos, fishhooks, and shards of glass. It’s much better than when it first happened and I was in so much pain I thought I was going to die, but the process of repair is far from complete. I’m not in pain most of the time, except when I bend, or go to bed — and then it takes forever to find a position that minimizes the grinding. It’s healing, but annoyingly slowly.
My brain seems to be functioning OK, but how would I know?
One nice development is that I developed a scotoma several months ago, a blind spot in my right eye caused by a broken blood vessel. It hasn’t gone away — if I blink fast so the visual field changes from light to dark at a rapid rate, I can still visualize it as a horizontal line of dark blurriness — but neural plasticity for the win. I don’t notice it most of the time, because my brain has rewired itself to compensate and fills in the gap with information from my visual map. I suppose if you aimed a frisbee at just the right angle at my right eyebrow, it could fit into the visual gap and I wouldn’t see it.
So, my weakness right now is against charging frisbee-flinging tigers. I’ll try to avoid them so I can make it to the next funny number, which is 420, I believe. I was fortunate to have timed my birth to completely skip the whole 6-7 nonsense.
My current plan to deal with the onset of age is to start wearing purple.
I hear it works wonders.
Don’t worry. For the current generation another number in the sixties, that you have already passed, has dethroned 69.
I have the pleasure of sharing the date with you :-s — here’s wishing you a very happy round-the-sun day, PZ!
So I won’t say, “Happy Birthday!” But let’s make it “Happy Looking Forward to When the Pain Goes Away”. Because it does, bit by bit.
Take it easy, PZ; don’t push yourself.
Have you considered becoming a vampire or other kind of nonagenarian? Insert bowhead whale DNA and live to 200? And we should not forget the Guild Navigators with their Spice infusions.
The talk about tigers gives me ideas. Maybe you could convince the Trump kids to follow you on a safari to the Sundarbans. Too bad they only had blanks in their rifles, wonder how that happened…
I’m 77, so same story but more sore. I’m up for another yearly shrug in May. Whoopee!! But before that I’m going to fire myself, then pick guitar, fill fruit jar, and be gay-o.
Golly. You’re in worse shape than me and next month I turn 71.
Keep fighting, PZ.
“My brain seems to be functioning OK, but how would I know?”
I was reminded of a line from the comedian Emo Phillips I heard many years ago: I used to believe that my brain was the most remarkable organ in the human body, and then I remembered what’s telling me that…..
Thanks for the preview! (Still in my 50s but feel it starting…)
Anyways, wish you a bunch of more birthdays to come while feeling much better than now!
So this summer will be your Summer of 69! You can buy your first real six-string at the five and dime!
PZ.
As i recall you are not taking opiods. I have been taking them, now 45mg of oxycodone per day, for 26 years with no significant side effects except constipation which is easily controlled. If not for the opiods i believe i would most likely kill myself in less than a year. I would not be able to stand the pain. As far as being addicted-i am not addicted -addiction is when you take something for a psychological effect says my pain doc-i am physically dependent. So what?
So why aren’t you taking opiods for the pain? It would help so much.
I was taking them in the first few days of recovery, but now the pain is mostly tolerable, and I’m feeling like most everything is recovering. My job right now is to not screw it up.
I began my 74th year last month. Two years ago I tripped and fell while doing some gardening, the sort of fall that was commonplace when I was a young, athletic type. The end result this time was a cracked rib on my left side. It took nearly a year before it stopped aching whenever I’d lay on that side while sleeping. Even now, it twinges when I sneeze or cough.
What a drag it is getting old.
My father liked to say that aging was like a used car – The mileage was more important than the years.
As I have lived decades long that he did, I’ll add “also maintenance and spare parts count.”
Well, I am 8 months behind robro but the example seems sound. I have an excellent doctor though I have encountered an idiot or two such as the one who actually said “we don’t usually see this [Giant Cell Arteritis] till the mid-sixties.” “I’m 65” I replied, which shut him up most satisfactorily. I am aiming for at least 85 and not screwing it up is top of the agenda. Moderation in all things. Including whisky.
Cheer up; in years to come you may fondly look back when you were only 69 and your decrepitude was not that extensive.
(Could be worse, no?)
Congrats, PZ. Getting old ain’t fun, I will be 80 in August. Still in reasonable shape physically, go to the gym 4 days a week but can’t run 4 miles anymore. My memory is going to crap so get ready for that. The thing I dislike the most about this age is watching your family and friends depart. My wife is in hospice and has a lot of pain, possibly terminal, and the only person I would wish that on is tRump. Good luck and enjoy what time you have left.
I had (still have?) that broken blood vessel in the back of one eye. The treatment for me was getting an injection into the eyeball, something which was supposed to speed healing. After 3 shots, i wasn’t seeing much progress so we gave up. This was probably five years ago, and while I can still find the spot if i look for it on a white background, it is no longer the distinctive shape it once displayed. Fortunately the blob is small and diffuse, not solid and not directly in the sweet spot for reading, so i have mostly forgotten about it being there except in certain lighting conditions. Between that and floaters and shrinking vitreous humor, plus artifical lenses where cataracts used to be, it’s a wonder i can still drive. And i’m “only” 68 years old.
Happy Birthday, PZ! I trust there was much rejoicing!
Yay. (Just adding my own there.)
;-)
Oops, I read your post only after sending you my felicitation.
Nevertheless, the “yay” still stands.
;-)
(Can’t find the original, but I and my wife vaguely remember it)
Is MJ legal in your state? I am currently a caregiver (retired educator), and pot is legal in CA and is a common drug (like for my clients) for pain. There are many ways to injest, and you’d be amazed at the ease of intaking the drug. Of course, you are aware of “edibles” in many forms. Just sayin’.
Happy Birthday PZ. Hope you had a great one and wishing you many more good years ahead with things hopefully improving for you – and the rest of us too.
Happy Birthday, PZ!
I hope that you heal and feel better soon.
Hang in there, retirement is coming!