Dear Lord, This Getting-Old Bit is a Real Pain!

The things no one told me about advancing years…but I think I really should have known!

Not me, but it does get the message across — source, Pixabay

“OK, Mr Hughes, we can’t, at the moment, find anything wrong. You’re free to go now”.

I was still sitting in the anteroom of my local hospital’s Accident & Emergency department, where I’d been left by the ambulance crew who’d brought me in under a blue light from my workplace, and was being assured by a nurse that I hadn’t suffered a heart attack.

I’d collapsed in the school secretary’s office whilst trying to hand over a payment cheque for my daughter’s school skiing trip.

Unbeknownst to me, all Hell had broken loose after I hit the floor, having, according to the secretary, turned a pale shade of green.

I hadn’t completely lost consciousness, but was feeling somewhat groggy and very cold as I was helped up into a sitting position, whilst colleagues, including my headteacher, did what they needed to ensure an ambulance would arrive as soon as possible, armed with the information they may need to deal with this broken teacher.

“But, before you go, Mr Hughes, did you know that you are diabetic?”

Bewilderment must have been written across my face…because I was most definitely bewildered!

“Yes”, the nurse continued, “…you will need to visit your GP and diabetic clinic as soon as you can.”

Apparently, my collapse was nothing more than a faint, probably brought about by missing out on breakfast that morning and having to rush about, making sure I paid the cheque, got to my classroom before the students, and ensuring my teaching assistant had all the details she needed for my first lesson of the day.

A faint, an emergency ambulance trip, a series of blood tests, and, all of a sudden, I’m diabetic!

Looking back on it all these years later, it wasn’t ‘all of a sudden’. I realise now that I’d been showing symptoms for a long while. It’s just that no one, including me, interpreted the constant thirst, the running out of energy by mid-morning, the frequent visits to the bathroom, and other tell-tale signs as being typical of diabetes!

I also now know that diabetes isn’t necessarily a feature of advancing years. However, for me, it was a start…I mean the start!

Since then, I’ve had to get used to wearing spectacles…just for reading, I’ll admit. Though it was something that, for me, represented another small nail in the inevitable knowledge that I was not as young as I liked to pretend I was.

Eyesight and eye tests have become regular, if not frequent, events in my life. Thanks again to diabetes. Retinal scans, eyeball pressure tests, and other things beyond my comprehension, twice a year.

“Don’t worry, Dave, others suffer far worse things!” My wife! Thanks, darling!

WHAT NEXT?!

Let me tell you!

I’ve just discovered I have become lactose intolerant!

For me, this has resulted in stomach problems I wouldn’t wish on anybody else. Diarrhoea and embarrassing flatulence, over which I seem to have little control. Any more than a minute from a bathroom and I may be in serious difficulty.

The solution? No more dairy products. Milk, cream, yoghurt, cheese, kefir, and any foodstuffs containing any of these are OUT!

I now find myself familiar with such products as almond milk, oat cream, coconut cream, non-dairy yoghurt, and all the other lactose substitutes I’d hardly heard of before my intolerance was diagnosed.

OK, so another condition that is not necessarily age-related…but then what else might be added to the list?

My father used to complain of an enlarged prostate gland and the problems that went with it. Me next?… I’m waiting on that one!

Muscular weakness, muscle pain, arthritis? More to be added to the list? Well, yes. They’re already there, and I’m very familiar with all sorts of pain-relief medications, creams, muscle rubs, and, more recently, devices designed to relieve joint pain in the hands.

Absent-mindedness and short-term memory loss. Let’s not go there — I can’t remember how many times I’ve been caught out wandering into a room, then wondering why I’m there — as for going upstairs, then coming back down, just to remind me why I went up in the first place!

I know there will, probably, be other unpleasant and irritating declines. A friend once told me of his declining interest and performance in sex. He put it down to advancing years and his…diabetes! Oh Lord!

I am often reminded of possible limitations I now take for granted. Among them are such everyday activities as driving. The number of times I’ve heard other folk say that it’s “their right to hold a driving licence and to drive!” I’ve never thought this and believe it is a privilege, not a right, and it has responsibilities, including the need to give it up when one is no longer able to be safe behind the steering wheel. Again, looking back to my father all those years ago.

I’m not there yet, but it probably won’t be long before I am.

I’ve been reminded by my wife that I have a reluctance to accept new techniques and technology. This is only because I don’t use my phone’s diary and calendar app. I still prefer to write important things down in a paper diary…and often with a fountain pen! Remember those?

I have written about my irritation caused by minor events, behaviour, spelling, and pronunciation elsewhere, and I know this isn’t only experienced by those of us advancing in years. However, I am aware that it is becoming even more irritating!

If I hear one more TV presenter talking of pro-noun-ciation, a secetary, libry or Febry, I may well burst!

I have also begun to experience the non-effect of alcohol, and I’m not talking about digestive upset. Years ago, I would have known about that large whisky I’d just downed pretty quickly. Now, I’d need to have another one, just to make sure.

Thankfully, I don’t drink heavily. I’m not heading for liver cirrhosis through alcohol abuse. Anyway, I can’t afford to buy that much Scotch.

Should I go on? Adding the inexplicable tiredness, the need for early nights, the poor sleep patterns when I get there, and the frequent visits to the toilet in the small wee hours? (Sorry about that one)

I’m now on a multitude of medications for all sorts of crap! All that above and more.

Should I finally admit to myself that I may only have a few years left and not the two/three decades I feel I deserve? Ooooh, a slippery slope that one if there ever was one!

OK, let’s count the blessings — I can still cycle a decent distance, I don’t need specs apart from for reading, I have good (enough) hearing, I also have a reasonably active mind and imagination, no major physical disablement, good, if small, group of friends, good relationship with wife and offspring, interest in life, hobbies, etc. and I’m still physically active. Did I mention that one?

What might be the chances of writing this again in, say, ten, maybe twenty years?

Check back here in 2036…maybe 2046.

I’ll still be younger than my mother was before she said her final goodbyes.

OK! What next?