| 1:58p |
Eldering; personal note....
I've been re-reading my two vertigo-related posts and their comments, and thinking yet again about how hard it is to communicate emotional messages properly without intonation and tone of voice and other bodyparl .... and I think I need to try some explicit clarification.
What I want to make clear -- explicitly -- is that I have no complaints about my health and wellness. I'm not insane; I would of course rather have a nice normal spine instead of a meandering one, and I would of course rather not have vertigo to deal with, and it makes me cross that I get tired so much more quickly than I used to, and I'd just as soon get to the end of having hot flashes. I wish I were still able to sing. If I had magical powers, I'd fix those things. Like any other sane human being, I'd rather have no physical glitches. However .... I have no complaints.
I am one of the healthiest people I know. All around me there are people my age who are afflicted with one or more of that long dreary list of chronic illnesses ..... diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, Parkinson's, cancer, ulcers, depression, dementias of various kinds and degrees .... I have none of those problems. Not one. Those elders are taking half a dozen medicines for their complaints, and half a dozen others to offset the side effects of the first half dozen, and they are trapped in infinite regress by all those chemicals. I take one pill for the heartburn that goes with having a meandering spine. Period.
My hearing, and my senses of taste and smell, are unimpaired. And my vision? I was born near-sighted and had always been one of those people who, asked if I could read a particular line on the eye chart, said "What eye chart?" But then a few years ago I had two cataract surgeries -- about five minutes for each, never an instant's discomfort, and a glorious light show laid on -- and for the first time in my life my vision is 20/20 instead of 20/200. It took me a while to get used to that, because everything looked fake to me, like the painted backgrounds in ancient Westerns, but it's wonderful. I've always had to wear glasses with big thick lenses; now I only need glasses -- little delicate glasses -- for reading. Amazing!
I don't consider postpolio syndrome an illness. The polio was an illness, for sure, but that's far in the past. Postpolio syndrome, as I perceive it, is just an assortment of side effects associated with miscellaneous worn-out parts. I've long ago found coping strategies for all those side effects, and I'm sufficiently privileged to be able to put those strategies to use. That is, unlike some other elders I know -- who are on the line at the turkey plant or doing the "greeting" gig at WalMart or standing at a hot grill all day fixing breakfasts -- I can go lie down a while if my back is bothering me.
There wasn't any intentional "Oh dear, poor me!!" emotional message in those two posts about the vertigo, but I can certainly understand how they might be heard in the mind's ear as lengthy chunks of whiny lamentation.
So -- explicitly --. I consider myself to be in splendid health, and I know very well how blessed I am. |