F@#k I Hate Growing Old

Swear to God, I’m approaching the breaking point. I’m at wit’s end. I didn’t expect to fall apart so comprehensively, let alone so quickly. I’ve almost no working parts, save the bits that grow hair and fingernails, they still function pretty well; by golly I’ve got a good head of hair, and I can practically turn screws with the “raptor claws” (as my wife refers to them) at the tips of my digits. After that, though, nada. If I was a house, there’d be gaping holes in the roof, inch-wide cracks in the foundation, missing window glass, clogged and leaking pipes, dangerously frayed wiring, dry rot in the beams of the load-bearing walls, a bad smell in the kitchen the source of which nobody can find, three generations of raccoons living in the attic, and an army of termites eating away at the joists. Plus I’d be settling at one end. If I was the beloved family dog, my owners would shake their heads sadly, maybe shed a tear or two, and then, with all deliberate haste, pack me off to the vet for the lethal injection. Pity, really. Still. Only humane thing to do.

I’m only 64, for the love of God.

You know how people always say that on the inside, they don’t feel as old as they actually are?

I’m not one of them.

I do feel old, older than I am, sore, hobbled, incapacitated, and degenerating at an alarming rate. Nothing works properly.

It’s so disappointing, you know?

Especially so, since I had the means, having managed our money wisely, to retire young, at age 55 (I really did achieve the mythical Freedom 55!). I was looking forward, not unreasonably I think, to a number of good years before the wheels came off and the piston rods burst through the hood, and so it seemed to be going, for a couple of years, but then things started to blow. In mechanical systems, what happened to me might be referred to as a “cascade failure”.

First, my childhood asthma, long gone and presumed a thing of the past, began to reassert itself. Very well then, it was back on the asthma meds, but really, I still don’t breathe properly most days. Any exertion and my airways begin to seize up. Then my knees started to go, and they’ve been getting worse by the year, until today, despite several quite costly courses of treatment (nothing wrong with you that years of intrusive and expensive medical procedures can’t prolong, as they once quipped on Python), they’ve only grown worse, until today, I literally couldn’t walk to the corner store. At the same time my blood pressure, always tending high but under control, really spiked, which I suspect has something to do with my other woes, and the frustrations they cause. Treatable, but still, discomfiting to think about.

After that, just at the beginning of the pandemic, I woke up one morning and discovered I’d lost a large measure of function in both my legs, but especially the right one. I could still walk around, but they were weak and wobbly, and at the time I was disinclined to do anything like run into a hospital, because this was long before vaccines, we were under lockdown, and exposure to a concentrated hot zone of COVID casualties would surely have killed me. I hoped it’d get better on its own, and it did, a bit, but my legs have never come back fully, and the neurologists tell me they never will. I have a spinal cord injury. Those don’t mend. “But how did this happen?” I asked, confused by the absence of any precipitating event. Who knows? came the reply. It happens. Maybe if I’d sought treatment at the very outset they could have done something, but you know, maybe not, an injured spine is an injured spine. Anyway, nothing to be done now. Off you go.

Oh well. I rarely need to stand on tip-toe anyway, and even if I could otherwise walk normally, without the strangely stunted gait induced by the injury, my knees wouldn’t let me, so I’m no further behind really. Right?

Next came the tinnitis. Nothing to be done for that, either. I’ll learn to ignore it, they tell me. Oh, and I almost forgot, my teeth! Oh Lord, my frigging teeth! Great big molars started cracking in half. I’ve had five of them yanked so far (or is it seven? I can’t remember how many decrepit wisdom teeth my dentist reckoned were beyond salvaging). And on top of all that, just a couple of weeks ago, my heartbeat started to go wonky, I mean I’m just sitting there doing nothing when I realize it’s skipping beats and really racing, practically beating out of my chest actually, so we rushed into Emergency, where I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia. Jesus Christ! There I am, lying on a gurney, wired up to monitors and IVs, with electronic klaxons continually sounding off. A-FIB!! screamed the monitor. V-TACH!! The alarm bells were ringing so often that the nurse just disabled them. After giving various meds a chance to set things right, which they didn’t, they had to take the paddles to me! They gave me the blue bolts straight to the pumper! Just like in the movies! (Mercifully, they put me under for the procedure. My wife tells me they had me flopping around like a gaffed salmon. When I woke up, I was in such a fog that I began rooting around for the TV remote, so I could rewind the heart monitor and see how it went, exclaiming “Fuck! I missed it!) Now I’m on blood thinners, and will be for the rest of my life, so they tell me. But why? Why did this happen? Who Knows? came the reply. It happens. You can live with it. As long as you keep taking your blood thinners, you probably won’t form a blood clot and die of a stroke when it recurs, so there you are, and off you go.

All along the way, it’s been doctors, doctors, doctors. I never go a month anymore without seeing some sort of doctor. They almost never give me good news. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve delivered, after any number of tests and CT/MRI scans, a report that goes more or less like “Well, we can’t help you with that, but look at what else we found!” I’m scared of doctors. They frighten me. When I have to see them these days, I’m almost queasy with fear, like a cat being taken to the animal hospital, whining inconsolably in my little carrying case.

I ask you: what sort of life is this?

Oh sure, I try to look on the bright side. I try to count my blessings. I’m still on the right side of the lawn, you know. But between my back and my knees, it’s hard for me to do much any more, and I’m not looking forward to a double knee replacement, which I suppose is inevitable, all other treatments having failed. Meanwhile, just like all the other Hollywood celebrities, I’m on Ozempic (Wegovy, technically, same thing), trying to get my weight down – it’s amazing how appallingly fat you get when you don’t do anything at all beyond walk back and forth to the fridge and the bathroom – and I’m taking my various meds. I suppose before very long I’ll be one of those geezers with the little plastic compartmentalized containers, sorting all the pills I’m supposed to take for the week. Supposing I get that far.

I dunno, maybe if I stop lugging this knapsack of blubber around with me, my knees and back will both improve. Fingers crossed.

I used to be young and strong. I did sets of 20 chin-ups at a time. I benched 330, three times a week. I could do a hundred sit-ups. Now, if I so much as attempt a push-up, my shoulder joints ache for days. I recently tore a stomach muscle from coughing too hard. I fucking hate growing old. Golden years, me arse. Comfortable retirement, my big fat tuckus. This roundly sucks.

Oh well, let’s end on a happy note! I haven’t succumbed to dementia!

Yet.