This is not recommended for everyone, but I recently made a list of everything that is problematic with my body from a health perspective. Having reached the age of seventy, I realized that I was living with a number of nagging issues, primarily physical, most of which were not going to get better. As a habitual list maker, I wanted to inventory all of them.
To satisfy this urge, I started listing my maladies, afflictions, disorders and ailments beginning at the top – my head – and progressing downward. Item one on my list is inside my brain. It is anxiety, a condition that I share with millions of others. For sure, it’s all created in my head, but it produces physical effects such as upset stomach and sleep issues. At present, with medicine and mindfulness/calming techniques, the anxiety is being kept at bay. Still, future personal or world events could result in problems for me. (NOTE TO SELF – cut back on watching the news.)
Moving down a bit, we come upon my ears and the hearing aids I wear to address hearing loss in certain ranges. I do not know why my hearing is diminished. Yes, I have spent years listening to rock music, but I never turned it up to eleven. Come to think of it, though, there was that Springsteen concert that I went to in 1975 at the Tampa Jai Alai fronton that left my ears ringing for several days. Is Bruce the reason I need hearing aids???
While in the region of the ears, let’s talk about my tinnitus, which in my case means a high-pitched constant buzzing that is always present, even when I awake in the middle of the night. It is not loud enough to interfere with my enjoyment of life – it’s just always there. I am not sure of the cause, but I do know one thing about it. When I asked my ear nose and throat doctor if it was going to get worse, he replied matter-of-factly, “Well, it’s not going to get better.” Thanks for your sensitive response, doc.
Then we arrive at my frequently congested nose. I have been dealing with sensitivity to pollen, mold and dust ever since I was in my thirties. Submitting to the standard allergen pin prick tests on multiple occasions over the years, three different doctors diagnosed me as being allergic to just about everything except Bermuda grass. So, for over three decades I had regular allergy shots to fight back. To the surprise of me and my latest allergist, my most recent testing showed that I was no longer allergic to anything. I apparently was cured!
It soon became evident, however, that my sensitivity to pollen, mold and dust still existed at the same level as always. My allergist explained that I now had non-allergic rhinitis, with the same symptoms as previously. At that point, it dawned on me that I was wasting my time trying to fight this problem. Now I simply stay inside a lot during the spring, wear a mask when doing work in the garden or anywhere with dust, and simply treat my “non-allergic” symptoms.
Talk about not likely to get better, a bit farther down is my neck, which aches on a regular basis. The cause is stenosis (narrowing) of the cervical spine. I have had months-long flare-ups of the pain, such as in the aftermath of having an unsteady woman fall on me as I sat watching a baseball game at National Park. So, I do weeks of physical therapy as needed and neck exercises every day, along with taking Ibuprofen.
My inventory of one irritating bodily issue after another continued on down to my feet (one leg is shorter than the other), eventually totaling nineteen. I could describe them all here, but only morbid curiosity would keep you reading such a post. None of my problems are life-endangering, thank goodness, but none are fun, either.
It’s strange. As I reviewed my list of issues, I did not feel “woe is me” or become glum. Rather, I felt gratitude at being alive and being able to enjoy life despite the lengthy list of problems. It could have been otherwise. I nearly died in 1979, and my entire existence for that matter owes itself to happenstance.
Yet, here I am, seven decades in with loving family, good friends and two sweet cats. If having nineteen things wrong with me is the price to pay, well that’s okay with me.