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This getting old thing sucks
20 June 2007
[indent]I'm still listening to the music I was listening to when I was 25. I can still sing along with every Beatles' song and remember the lyrics to literally thousands of songs by them, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Blood, Van Morrison, Blood, Sweat & Tears and hundreds of other 60s' bands... but sometime in between 25 and today my body got a lot older while I wasn't paying attention.
This has been brought painfully to my attention during the past several weeks. In early June I had prostate surgery - minor surgery, done through the urethra rather than an invasive incision, but surgery nonetheless. Parts of me, no matter how small, were removed from my body. I spent a week at home recovering and went back to work the following week.
When I was 25, I would probably have bounced back in a few days. I'm not made of rubber anymore and I don't seem to bounce very well any more.
Perhaps I tried to push myself too fast. I thought I could just carry on like I would have 25+ years ago. Wrong.
I had assumed that - because it was a rather simple surgery and I was in hospital only overnight that the effect on my body would be minimal. My body thought otherwise. I convalesced at home with a catheter and drainage bags for the following five days and thought I was doing fairly well when it was removed. I had developed a sense of self sufficiency in handling the inconvenience of the tubes and the bags, although they were terribly uncomfortable and sometimes painful.
It wasn't the pain that got to me, though. The pain wasn't debilitating, more irksome and sometimes distracting, but generally low on my attention horizon. It was the general feeling of being tired, sluggish, slow, the difficulty in focusing and the constant need to shift positions and move. I felt distracted, out of sorts, uncomfortable. Shock, I suppose, although I didn't recognize it as such at the time.
The week of recovery went by and I assumed it was enough, so I went back to work determined to continue on, just avoid certain types of task. My expectations to be able to fill the day soon crumbled. A day proved too stressful to my still-recovering body. I wasn't healing that quickly and started to pass blood after a day's work. So I cut back to a few hours a day.
Then I got an infection. That slowed me down further.
That seemed to go away after a five-day course of antibiotics and I had a fairly good, weekend. Not perfect, but all the signs of recovery seemed to be good. No blood, very little pain. But a full day Monday, followed by a lengthy council meeting, exacerbated the problem again. The blood returned, and the sluggishness came with it. Maybe it's the sitting for so long.
I'm in fair shape: I eat well, I consume almost no white sugar, don't smoke, don't eat junk food or red meats, take my vitamins, watch my diet, eat greens and fruits, seldom consume alcohol to excess, don't over-eat, I am modestly active (although, yes, I could do a lot more), I bicycle or walk to work in clement weather, my mind is active and I read more than I watch TV, so I expected I'd be able to recover fairly soon.
Well, I either over-estimated my condition or under-estimated the effect of surgery. Either way, the last two days have been rough on me. I feel like I took two steps forward, and five steps back.
So I'm trying to take it easy again, give my body time to recover, cut back on my time at work. Trying to get back on my feet again slowly, not rushing things. Shorter days, more relaxation. More time to meditate on the frailty of the human body. My spirit remains undiminished, but perhaps a trifle dented with this annoying reminder of my own mortality.
Damn, but this getting old sucks. I don't think I want to do it any more.
[/indent]
This has been brought painfully to my attention during the past several weeks. In early June I had prostate surgery - minor surgery, done through the urethra rather than an invasive incision, but surgery nonetheless. Parts of me, no matter how small, were removed from my body. I spent a week at home recovering and went back to work the following week.
When I was 25, I would probably have bounced back in a few days. I'm not made of rubber anymore and I don't seem to bounce very well any more.
Perhaps I tried to push myself too fast. I thought I could just carry on like I would have 25+ years ago. Wrong.
I had assumed that - because it was a rather simple surgery and I was in hospital only overnight that the effect on my body would be minimal. My body thought otherwise. I convalesced at home with a catheter and drainage bags for the following five days and thought I was doing fairly well when it was removed. I had developed a sense of self sufficiency in handling the inconvenience of the tubes and the bags, although they were terribly uncomfortable and sometimes painful.
It wasn't the pain that got to me, though. The pain wasn't debilitating, more irksome and sometimes distracting, but generally low on my attention horizon. It was the general feeling of being tired, sluggish, slow, the difficulty in focusing and the constant need to shift positions and move. I felt distracted, out of sorts, uncomfortable. Shock, I suppose, although I didn't recognize it as such at the time.
The week of recovery went by and I assumed it was enough, so I went back to work determined to continue on, just avoid certain types of task. My expectations to be able to fill the day soon crumbled. A day proved too stressful to my still-recovering body. I wasn't healing that quickly and started to pass blood after a day's work. So I cut back to a few hours a day.
Then I got an infection. That slowed me down further.
That seemed to go away after a five-day course of antibiotics and I had a fairly good, weekend. Not perfect, but all the signs of recovery seemed to be good. No blood, very little pain. But a full day Monday, followed by a lengthy council meeting, exacerbated the problem again. The blood returned, and the sluggishness came with it. Maybe it's the sitting for so long.
I'm in fair shape: I eat well, I consume almost no white sugar, don't smoke, don't eat junk food or red meats, take my vitamins, watch my diet, eat greens and fruits, seldom consume alcohol to excess, don't over-eat, I am modestly active (although, yes, I could do a lot more), I bicycle or walk to work in clement weather, my mind is active and I read more than I watch TV, so I expected I'd be able to recover fairly soon.
Well, I either over-estimated my condition or under-estimated the effect of surgery. Either way, the last two days have been rough on me. I feel like I took two steps forward, and five steps back.
So I'm trying to take it easy again, give my body time to recover, cut back on my time at work. Trying to get back on my feet again slowly, not rushing things. Shorter days, more relaxation. More time to meditate on the frailty of the human body. My spirit remains undiminished, but perhaps a trifle dented with this annoying reminder of my own mortality.
Damn, but this getting old sucks. I don't think I want to do it any more.
[/indent]
