74 and Counting—Slowly

Another pretty good Year!

In my world, counting, walking, eating, and everything else is done slowly these days. Eleven years ago this month I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was just a few days after my 63^rd birthday. That was not my favorite birthday.

I’ve always tried to be an active and upbeat kind of guy (mostly) and had figured I’d probably live forever. But when I got my PC diagnosis my first thought was, “Gotta be a mistake,” and then, “I’m gonna die!” It wasn’t a mistake and I didn’t die. I have since adopted a more moderate approach to life. 

Of the many, many people living with incurable cancer of any kind, I am definitely in the luckiest group. The reality is that year by year my cancer has continued to grow gradually. The treatments and many different meds have significantly slowed the process but not without a smorgasbord of not-so-great side effects. But slow is good and I may still live forever.

I’ve lived longer and better than I thought I might. So instead of worrying about the few things that aren’t perfect, I’ll keep on as usual. My body and, more or less, my mind work well enough for me to travel, visit friends and family, work on the farm, read books, and write stuff like this. No complaints, no regrets (well, maybe a few), and I’m still waiting, along with many of you, for that elusive breakthrough cancer cure. Happy Birthday to Me.

axman

I woke up this morning and, surprisingly, nothing hurt! So I knew…

      1                    I was still asleep and dreaming

2                   Those drugs I took REALLY kicked in

3                   I’d had a full and complete body transplant

4                   I was dead

The correct answer is, of course, (a) any of the above, or (b) some of the above, or (c) none of the above. You can’t lose on this quiz!

As Carol and I get older and older the number of body parts that hurt and the intensity of that hurt gradually increases. Bummer. But, at the same time, the things we can do and the places we can go don’t change. I have noticed, however, that I tend to swear at my body parts more often‑‑like when my arthritic fingers don’t hit the right keys on my computer. Sometimes this makes me laugh, so the swearing and laughing all equal out. 

We also keep getting slower and slower and slower at doing whatever we’re trying to do. But slow is still functioning. For example, when traveling we take three or four days to drive where it used to take two. When we cut fireplace wood or work in the garden, we consider three or four hours a good day’s work. And we spend more time in the hot tub with the jets going full blast and a glass of wine to maintain our hydration levels.

I don’t imagine our aches and pains are going to diminish in the near future (see first paragraph for alternatives). I also don’t imagine we’ll stop doing what we want to do until we fall over or our kids put us in the County Home for Senile and Useless Geezers (a distinct possibility). 

We are convinced that the more we do—in moderation—the better we feel both physically and emotionally.

axman

Hooray for the Fourth of July!

My annual Independence Day Blog

I will celebrate what I consider some of the good news:

•         The Republic is still here (despite what you may hear from some naysayers)
•         I’m still here (a true fact)
•         Carol and the whole family are alive, well, and active to varying degrees
•         Carol and I entered, walked, and completed a 5k on the 4^th (or was it a 4k on the 5^th?) and amazingly did not finish dead last (we were neither dead nor last)
•         Our SIX acres of grass is neatly mowed for the time being (thanks mostly to brother-in-law Jack)
•        My PSA is still at 0.45 and holding
•         Our strawberry crop was great (and tasty)

I pick the 4^th of July time-frame to talk about being thankful because the sun is shining and just about everybody can agree that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) done good, more or less.

Even with all the social and political bickering, yelling, blaming, and much worse, it seems we all still have the privilege to think what we want to think and say what we want to say out loud (although there are times when silence truly is golden). 

I am hoping to survive to an even riper old age by trying to laugh a lot (so far so good), be kind, look for some of the good things in life (often forgotten), and not blame anybody else for what and who I am. 

axman

It’s All Fun and Games Until…

Most of my blogs recount the long and strange history of incurable prostate cancer and me. And there are a lot more types of cancer and other serious conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, arthritis, and on and on and on... All these diseases can be nasty, painful, deadly, very expensive, and millions of us live with them. Doctors, meds, tests, assessments, evaluations, and our lives seem to revolve around those things we can’t control. 

So I have found some not-so-new and exciting things for us to worry about and help take our minds off our already incurable diseases for a while! You can thank me later.

You know, of course, that our greatest risk of injury and death is a result of our own everyday actions and choices. Mother always told us, “Most injuries happen in the home.” And Mother was right. I’m also throwing in the things we do outside the home just for good measure. What are those personal risks? Here is but a small personal sampling:

1                   Our farm has many ladders, chain saws, table saws, circular saws, hammers, machines to cut grass and till gardens, and trees to cut for firewood. We still have most of our fingers and toes but that may be only a temporary condition.

2                   When not playing with tools of mass destruction, we drive at least 10,000 miles a year and fly another 10 or15,000. Then there are those forays into the unknown in our Jeep. It has a winch, so what could go wrong?

3                   My wife has a firm and fast rule. “You may not climb onto the roof unless there is an overwhelming need such as leaves in the gutter, limb debris, a stray kitten, or a clogged fireplace chimney. Statistics tell us a major cause of death and injury in older men is falling from ladders or roofs. She probably doesn’t know that.

4                   In the house, there is the ever popular slipping on wet floors, falling down stairs, falling upstairs, running into cupboard doors not properly shut, falling in the bathtub (yes, bathing is dangerous, too), and spilling hot coffee on ourselves. Running out of wine late at night is considered a disaster but seldom results in injury—unless we drunkenly go out looking for more.

But there are some risks we do not and will not pursue. We are active and have a lengthy bucket list but some things are definitely not on the list:

• 1       We are unlikely to be attacked and dismembered by sharks (a plane crash or sinking boat could change that one).
• 2       We will resist falling into an active volcano (but one could erupt quickly in our own back yard).
• 3       We will avoid avalanches near the top of Mt. Everest (back to the plane crash scenario).
• 4       We do not intend to be stomped by stampeding elephants (attending cheap circuses not withstanding).
• 5       We are not at high risk of being hit by a meteor (probably not, except when we may go outdoors).

I hope I have given you a lot more food for thought and worry. There are no promises or guarantees in life so… we might as well have as much fun as we can for as long as we can—meteors and angry elephants be damned!

Axman

How Old is Old Enough?

Life spans have changed dramatically in our lifetime…

For tens of thousands of years human-like creatures were generally content (or not) to live 30 or 40 years (should they survive infancy). The oldest and most decrepit might make it to 50.

Then, amazingly and almost entirely in the last 100 years, average lifespans have rocketed to 70 or 80. There are millions of people living to 90 or even 100. That’s a big change and probably largely due to improvements in sanitation, immunizations, and the availability of medical care. Great news, right? Well yes, mostly. Mostly you say? Yes, mostly I say.

It seems (to me anyway) that our genetics haven’t kept up with the changes in lifespan. The human-like body was designed to work at peak efficiency for about 30 years and then go into a slow decline, followed, hopefully, by a quiet death as a respected elder—if some saber toothed beast didn’t catch up with you first. 

So our decline may still start at 30 and continue for another 50 or 60 years. Much of our life is filled with system declines and failures…memory failures, blood failures, lung failures, liver failures, bone failures, hearing failures, sight failures, digestive failures, and on and on. And I didn’t even mention such things as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other disease conditions. 

We all cope valiantly with these conditions and indignities—some more successfully than others. The world is becoming full of old declining people (like me) without the ‘respected elder’ status of earlier generations. Nobody seeks our wisdom or counsel. Nobody wants to hear about the days before NSA surveillance, WiFi, the Walkman, or even TV (there was a time before TV?). 

Knowing these facts full well, I am dedicated to continuing my gypsy lifestyle, spending my kid’s inheritance, and embarrassing my kids and grandkids whenever possible. So far‑‑so good. Who’d a thunk us humans could have so much fun for so long with parts that hurt, parts that don’t work, and parts that are missing. Carry on!

axman