Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Poor Dave.

I try not to do a lot of complaining - well except about politicians! I do try to do a lot of that!

No, I mean I try not to complain about my lot in life, because let's face it, I am indeed blessed. I cannot imagine a more beautiful wife, my daughter is almost as beautiful as my wife, and my grandchildren are all, well, Grand! My house is almost perfect, with a view to take your breath away. I have a myriad of friends, well several anyway, and I could go on and on. But I won't.

The area of my life that I refer to in the title is of course my health. Now I am not completely unaware that there are many, many people out there that are far, far worse off than I am. However, that does not make me personally feel any better or healthier than I am, which is not very.

This is made worse by the fact that I have generally been in good, even excellent, health for most of my life. Apart from the usual minor maladies, like chicken pox, (twice!), and a bunch of other non-deadly diseases I have of course had my appendix and tonsils removed. I suffered less than your average number of broken bones as a child, plus of course a few scratches, cuts and abrasions - all worthy of nothing more than a few band aids, kisses from my mother, uplifting words and stories of horrific injuries to his poor body "when he was my age" from my father.

But as time went on and I saw my contempories slowing down, getting, and looking, older I instead continued on without slowing down at all. In fact in my 40's and 50's I had no trouble at all out-working my employees who were in their 20's. The golden years approached and I (silly boy) thought that they were indeed going to be "my golden years".

I, unlike all those other overweight, cigarette smoking, drug taking, unhealthy looking senior citizens, was obviously going to be doing all kinds of intense, athletic, virile things well into my 90's. What else could I think when here I was at age 59, hale, hearty, robust and yes. even tough. I was convinced that I would be one of the miracles that we read about, running marathons at 100. Hmm, I think I may be going a bit far there, as I had never run a marathon at any age let alone 100. But you get the idea, I felt great.

Then bang - literally - I was lifting a heavy stove when there was a loud "bang", I fell to the floor screaming, the man 3 or 4 feet away helping me lift the stove said "What was that?" referring to the bang, and life as I knew it ended there and then.

The bang had been two of my vertebrae collapsing. I was suddenly an inch or two shorter. An ambulance transported me to hospital where I was met by my wife and daughter. Osteoporosis was diagnosed.

I would like to interject a reccomendation here that when you go to a hospital you need a spokesperson with you like my daughter. Perhaps she would be available for hire? The nurses and doctors thought I might have osteoporosis. My daughter asked "Well how can you tell?" They said "There is a test where you drink a special liquid, we wait for it to get to your bones and then we do a special nuclear x-ray, blah, blah, blah" So Sarah said "OK when are you going to do it?" To which they replied, "Well it takes a long time."

Here is where Sarah came into her own. I am lying there squirming in pain, not paying a whole lot of attention to what was going on around me, just trying to get the nurses attention to get some more of that Morphine, please! When I almost sat straight up as Sarah said, loudly, with authority, "Well you had better get started then hadn't you? The sooner you get started the sooner we will know. What do you need to do first?" Which galvanised them into action!

More Morphine was administered, thank you, thank you, to whoever discovered Morphine. A nasty container of "Nuclear waste" or some such, was poured down my throat, and after 2 hours or so, during which time Sarah organised the staff of the Annapolis hospital that I had been transported to, to produce chairs and coffee for everyone, more painkillers for her father, a description of what was happening, and what was going to happen over the next few hours, I was tended to.

I am sure that no collection of hospital workers has ever been so glad to see the back of someone as those poor scrubs were of Sarah.

Suffice to say that I WAS diagnosed with severe osteoporosis. And so my life began to change. I started to see myself as I had seen all those other "Oldies".

One thing led to another. I won't bore you except to say that the brain tumor was no fun. And continues to be a real pain - so to speak! Literally! My torn knee, with two tears in the cartilege and a cracked femur makes me even more of a "Gimp" as I hobble around with my crutches and cane. And so on.

It is a flare up of the brain tumor pain which brought about this post - Poor Dave - and prompted me to ask for sympathy. But I think just writing about it has cured that! So no need to send sympathy. (But money would be nice!)

Well gotta get on, things to do.

Have a nice day.

God Save The Queen.

Call your mother.