Old Age Isn't War, It's A Massacre! Phillip Roth

 

Being old isn't what it used to be. It used to be you got sick, doctors did their best with what they had at the time, and then you died of things that are curable today. It was not ideal and I realize 50 years or less from now the same story will be true. Cancer will be curable, heart problems will be fixable earlier, and once this regime is gone, diseases will once again be eradicated. Everyone is fortunate to be living today with all the fancy equipment. That is if you are on Medicare. If not good luck. Even though this country, thanks to LBJ, looks after its old (think that would pass now?) with Medicare and ignores the rest of the nation claiming Medicare for all is too expensive. Yeah, tell that to 31 of 32 so called civilized nations that have national health care. But then again, we need a trillion-and-a-half-dollar military to protect us like its fucking 1945 (shhhh but it's because congress critters have defense industries in their district building shit the military doesn't even want it)..

Being old catches up with you. If you've avoided doctors forever and then you finally have some sort of emergency and have to go to the ER or the clinic, you realized that probably wasn't smart. I spent a great deal of my life without health insurance and only because of a broken hand did I go and get hit with a bill I couldn't pay without financing. Then I got health insurance but was so used to going oh well, that'll go away, I never used it. Not smart.

When the heat began to become unbearable, and my daily walks with Malibu became a bit harder, and I had to mow the lawn in shifts because my energy was like a video game and ran out quickly, I knew something wasn't kosher. But after fainting at a football game in the heat, throwing up at a baseball game in the heat, and then being unable to walk 3/4of a mile in the 115-degree heat in Vegas, I was taken to the ER where I was diagnosed with Atrial fibrillation. Simply put that means when you take your pulse, it goes beat beat beat......................beat.....beat beat beat. That long pause between beats gets to the point where you say ok, please beat again. Yeah, people live with it as will I.

But this time I needed my heart shocked back into rhythm. They electrocute you basically and your heart beats normally.  Well in my case, it was about 3 days until a fib kicked back in. Then it was a stress test. Somehow, my resting heartbeat was higher than when stressed so that's abnormal. So the next step was a left heart catheterization. Oh great. I spent a lot of years in the insurance industry and read LOT of operative reports of heart caths. They never seemed normal. They usually led to open heart surgery or stents or bypasses and even some heart transplants. Not good.

All of this tortured me for 3 weeks between the stress test and this. I wanted it over. I just knew this wasn't going to be good. What the hell is wrong with me? I'm indestructible, right? RIGHT? Not at all. I knew I was doomed. Sticking a wire into your heart and checking to see for blockages or worse didn't seem normal.

As Tom Petty said, the Waiting is the Hardest Part, and dammit he was right. I stressed for weeks because I'm not used to being sick. I just knew it was gonna be bad, I knew it. 

Let me describe the procedure. They EKG you, they shave you, they put X's in ink on your feet (???), they make you wait. The nurses are saints reassuring you. You do not know if they will put the wire thru your wrist or your groin. Please be the wrist. The doctor came in and said 90% of the time the wrist works. Ok let's see if my bad luck holds.

In the OR, they put you on a table about the same width as your body so don't move. The nurses joked for me to not look down. Oh did I tell you, you are naked except for one of those damn gowns? The doctor came in, made a joke that he'd done at least a dozen of these, some even successfully before he said I am kidding and went in thru my wrist. Could I feel it under twilight sedation? No. And THEN, the dye came out of the wire and honestly, it felt like it set my heart on fire for about 5 seconds. Even under sedation, that was scary. 

After about 10 minutes of this hour-long procedure, the doc said everything looks good, no blockages and the leaky valve wasn't serious. They will just try and shock my heart back into rhythm in a couple of weeks. Good news? Well hell to the yeah, it was. The shocking I've been through so it's all cake now.

Anyway, this whole rant is about getting old isn't fun. Your lifestyle will eventually catch up with you. Even if you have not abused yourself for decades, it will catch up. Nobody is indestructible.

Go to the doctor.