Growing Old

I see my Doctor almost as much as my Barber

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

I have been to see Doctors three times in three weeks. The most recent was my annual Medicare Wellness Exam.

I wrote about this exam, the first time I went.

[embed]Medicare Wellness Exam — Folly or Friend If you live in the U.S. and are under age 65, check out the fun waiting for you in the future.thehubpublication.com

So drawing the clock face was easy, “Show ten forty on a clock face,” he says, handing me a pencil and a piece of paper.

He says, “I’m going to read you a story and then ask you questions about the story at the end.”Remembering details from the story was a piece of cake; it was the same story he had read at the previous two exams. Sally is still a stockbroker and still has three children, and I still can’t remember the day she got married.

Dates are still my Achilles heel.

But the test is getting more difficult. Count backward from 50 in multiples of 7. “This wasn’t on the previous test,” I say to the doctor, but he offers no response and no reprieve.

Sounds easy, but it’s not. fifty, forty three, thirty six, twenty nine . . . .

Remember these five words; I’ll ask you for them at the end.

“Wait a minute, Doc. There were three words in the last two tests, but now there are five?” I’m three years older, shouldn’t the test be getting easier, not harder?

I say, “Apple, pencil, desk, and rainbow.” But I can’t remember the fifth word.

“Spell pencil backward,” I nailed it.

I think when all was said and done, I only missed two things, so perhaps dementia is being held at arm’s length. . . . at least for now.

But he schedules an MRI for my back problems, only that machine is booked two months out. I’m fine with that; I hate MRIs.

But, on the plus side, all my blood work came back within normal ranges. I’m still “Pre-Diabetic,” so I’m trying to cut the piece of pie and cookies in half now.

Until next year, I wonder what will be new and what will be the same.

It's time to change the story about Sally; no one is a Stockbroker anymore.