I am 76 years old, which is the average age for someone born in my cohort. 50% of people born with me are now deceased.
This is a part of growing old.....my medical problems and operations over the past 15 years.
Here we are during my most recent hospital stay. We have a reputation of always wearing the same shirts.....so of course we even had to do it there. The staff loved it.
1. Three foot surgeries. In one foot I have about 18 inches of screws and a titanium plate. For many months we hiked with me having to wear a hard-soled sandal.
2. Three shoulder repairs, including one for a torn rotator cuff.
3. Two eye operations. One for cataracts and one a Yag something-or-other.
4. Hernia repair. Now my groin is really a "mesh" (ha ha)
5. Radiation treatment for serious prostate cancer. 9 weeks daily of it.
6. Lupron--removes all testosterone, for prostate cancer. For 2 years, with the effects being permanent for all over your body. My muscles turned to mush.
7. "Chicken shots" in my knees. The substance is no longer made from chicken crowns, but that's how they are still referred to, for fun.
8. Open heart surgery, even though I had no heart disease. One of my valves fused, explanation unknown, resulting in an enlarged ascending aorta that came close to killing me.
9. Heart attack last January. Had a stent inserted, and now take three pills twice a day to heal my heart. NO risk factors (low blood pressure, low cholesterol, great high fiber diet, exercising 2 hours/day)
10. Because of my blood thinners I can't take anti inflammatory medicines...which I have taken for the past 20+ years to control my chronic arthritis.
11. Today: A shot of cortisone into each wrist because my arthritis there is not allowing us to do what we want and need to do for our health and happiness. It's getting more difficult to cycle, for example, because it hurts to pull the brakes. Cross your fingers that they work. If not, MORE SURGERY HERE I COME!
12. Now that the worst of the risk of my cancer coming back is over, I am starting on Testosterone replacement therapy. It is a daily, time-consuming task. You don't just pop a pill.
Between all of the medicines and attacks on me, it has left my body unable to do what we used to do. We still do everything, but at a much reduced level.
Aging is gradual deterioration in one's body followed by rapid deterioration, followed by gradual deterioration, etc. etc.
BUT we are campers, and hikers, and dancers, and cyclists.......and did I say dancers?
We refuse to give up on these joyful activities together until they are no longer possible because we have exhausted every treatment.
We have to know we did our best because our life is camping, hiking, etc. etc........and did I say dancing?
In fact, here is one of our dances we video taped yesterday.
And today we cycled for an hour. As usual, in the dark and watched the sun rise over the Superstition Mountains.
We are not ready to give up. Life and aging holds back no punches. Punch back.
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