Memento mori

I am happy to report that I have survived my first year as an old man. K and I observed this milestone in the company of the oldest living things on the planet at Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California, among coniferous beings of sublimest age, silence, and elevation. Up to two thousand years old and almost four hundred feet tall, Sequoia sempervirens represents the closest life gets to eternal on this earth, before their root network detonates and they crash to the forest floor and exist in ruin as long as they did in majestic life. Astonished, awe-struck, agape, I admire, but short mortal that I am, I do not aspire. I survived and survive, but not so grandly and silently, and not without comment. I consent to pass on soon enough.

That is, while seemingly healthy and relatively resilient, I experienced more medical intrusion and observation this year than in any other year of my life. Some persistent, at times excruciating back pain, eventually required an x-ray, which showed some vertebral and disc degeneration and bone spurs, but nothing out of the ordinary for a person my age. I sit up straighter at work, which seems to help. Later in the year, an equally persistent cough, an unshakeable bronchitis, mandated a lung x-ray, which proved negative for pneumonia. My lungs have cleared in time without any treatment other than hacking and suffering.

But, most alarming, at least to my optometrist, during a routine eye exam, some ocular bleeding was detected. Such bleeding could be symptomatic of a number of things, two of them serious—a cranial blockage or diabetes—and one, the most likely of the three, trifling. Owing to some family history with atherosclerosis and diabetes, it was thought prudent to run some tests, a blood draw and a carotid ultrasound; the latter was of particular interest to me because of my long-term, slightly elevated cholesterol and, of course, my age. How clogged do the arteries of a guy actually get in sixty years? Otherwise healthy and fit, I granted that the slow accretion of plaque in significant arteries can appear like a thief in the night to dispatch the seemingly healthy and fit. So I had my carotids sounded. The results showed no cause for concern, satisfying my physiological curiosity even more than they relieved any anxiety. And the blood work showed my total cholesterol fallen, rather inexplicably, into the average range. However, another indicator showed me pre-diabetic. I have been flirting with a pre-diabetic blood sugar count for many years now, so that my refined sugar jones has finally caught up with me. It probably didn’t cause the hemorrhaging in my eyes—I recall bench-pressing earlier that morning—but I can no longer ignore my dietary sins, especially with K monitoring my vitals with the eye of a health professional. Partnered people, it is said, live longer than the single. If so, in my case, it will be because I respect her too much to die early and on her watch. So, out with the white sugar and the simple carbs. I will miss them. 

Colonoscopic thrills are scheduled soon, and K requires that I prepare a Health Care Directive. Memento mori. Here’s to my continuing slow decline.

The future