Nothing tell you that you are getting old more quickly than your body, and you can’t pretend you didn’t get the message
2nd of a few parts…
DAMNED BODY.
I always thought I would charge into old age with all the fire of 16-year-old me.
Until this morning, that is. Reality didn’t just hit me this morning. It’s been creeping up on me, telling me that at some point I would have to look in the mirror and say “self, you ain’t what you used to be.”
This morning stabbing pain in my knee woke me up at 5:30. I got out of bed and couldn’t walk. I had a knee replacement last Fall – Nov. 21 to be exact. The plan was this would allow me to hike, travel, dance in the streets and just generally bounce about. The knee replacement went along with having my right hip replaced – twice. 1999 and 2023. Did I mention having discs in my neck fused? That, too.
I don’t know why me knee was on fire this morning. I didn’t fall, didn’t twist it. I was told I’d have pain for six months after the replacement and I’m almost there. But damn, this was some serious pain. I hopped to the closet and pulled out my cane, put some coffee on and spent a couple of hours icing it.
Around mid-day I got back in bed and when I got up a couple of hours later, the pain was about half-gone. Go figure. I walked about a bit without the cane, still not sure what the hell had happened but starting to think that this might be what life looks like.
I drove out to Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas last month to be with some old friends and do some hiking, but the knee and back wouldn’t let me do much. Did I mention that back. Oh, yeh, the back.
I was having pain and went to see a surgeon who did an x-ray and CTscan. “You have a disc out of line, part arthritis and part an old injury. When was the old injury?” he asked.
“November 1962,” I answered. It was a cold late November afternoon, dusk falling, football practice almost over. One more play. I was at outside linebacker in the old “Oklahoma” defense. The guard pulled on a running play. The guard would later go on to play for the Cincinnati Bengals. I wanted no part of him in this last, useless play of practice. So, I hopped out of the way but my mental cleats slipped on the semi-frozen ground, I twisted and he hit me hard in my lower back.
I didn’t play my senior year. My freshman year at college I was trying to make the swim team (I didn’t) and was having back pain on flip turns. The coach sent me to the campus clinic. I had a disc out of line. It would work back in, or out. No more sports. Apparently, it worked back in. By the time I was out of college the pain had gone and never really came back. I ran, played softball and Y adult basketball, hiked, did pretty much what I wanted all my adult life.
Until now. Arthritis has settled in and the disc isn’t looking good. I’ve had injections, an ablation all to no avail and now I am waiting to see if I will have surgery.
I’M STARTING to think there comes a point where you “just say no” to getting cut up. My wife is in a memory care unit in a nursing facility. It seems about 90 percent of the folks in there are in wheelchairs, using walkers or canes. Maybe it’s time to just give in, to accept being a semi-invalid as a new way of life.
Problem is, I have no idea how to do that. Sitting in the recliner all day, taking long naps in place of travel, recreation, doesn’t seem to appeal. Could be they can do an ablation on the knee if surgery damaged nerves.
I suppose if surgery on the back is to be the call, I will do it. Why not? I’ve had three big surgeries in the last four years. What would this year be without one?
I suppose the point of all this is that at some point, your body does get old. My knee told me that this morning. A long look in the mirror after I got out of the shower confirmed it. Not a pretty sight.
So it goes nearing 79….
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].