There are no cures

 There comes a time in a man’s life when his body begins to break down. It’s the nature of things no matter whether it’s mechanical or biological. Obviously, there are the big health issues that are always in the back of your mind, but it’s really the small things that begin to add up.

And when these little things happen in your 50s, the first thought in your head isn’t that of your eighth grade PE teacher telling you to “shake it off,” but of your own voice saying “maybe you should go see someone about this.”

Case in point: As I write the first draft of this I am lying flat on my back in bed because a pinched sciatic nerve has caused a constant pain in my lower back and left leg for the past month or so. This was preceded by an ingrown toenail that had become infected after my journeyman efforts at digging the offending shard out of the flesh of my toe.

For the back, I’ve been to the chiropractor three times and I’m on the mend. I think. The toenail was quickly and unceremoniously removed by a podiatrist with a pair of pliers. It now seems to be growing back so nice that I’m considering getting the other ingrown nails yanked.

I’ve always known that life is a precarious balance and that I could easily die at any moment, but it never seemed imminent. Yet as I age it’s the small health problems that lead one to take more serious the words, “I’m not in my 20s anymore, I’ve got to make some changes.” I especially realized this as I started writing this piece and thinking about my overall health. When you think of those things, you take a quick inventory of your ailments. I made a graphic to illustrate this list. 

My back pain is not included, but maybe it should be. I’m a little in denial that the sciatica is a anything but temporary. I hope I am not wrong, and if I am I will deal with it later. When it comes to it, I can’t ignore time, genetics and questionable actions taken in my youth. I don’t really have a medicine cabinet, but I do have a wide variety of over-the-counter products designed to provide relief to various aches and pains. In my bathroom, I have numerous creams and ointments to take care of sore muscles, as well as elixirs that promise to give me relief from the assault ingrown toenails have made on my feet. They are on the shelf next to bandages, antibacterial ointments and Gold Bond powder.

On top of my refrigerator are the oral medicines. There are the usual suspects – ibuprofen, acetaminophen, naproxen sodium and aspirin. Each one is used for different ailments. Aspirin is good for headaches and I take one out of fear every now and then when I have a particular fierce case of heartburn that makes me wonder if I’m not really having a heart attack. (Self-diagnosis is fun!) I’ll go back and forth between the ibuprofen and naproxen for general body aches. And when I have a fever, I’ll turn to the acetaminophen. Of course, all of these are interchangeable, but I don’t like to take too much of one or the other. Do they work? Sure, why not.

There also are chaulky antacid tablets and Pepto on top of the fridge, although these are used more often by the kid with the constantly sour stomach. (In fairness, I’ve seen some of the stuff he eats and I’m not surprised. One day he will realize that he can’t eat the Flaming Hot Cheetos like he used to.) The pain relievers and the antacids hold prominent positions, but allergy relief is close behind. (My Flonase, as well as spray saline and, for hard nasal stuffiness, a nasal decongestant is my bathroom for close nighttime use.)

If there is anything heartening about this it is that there are no prescription medications, and I hope to keep it that way as long as possible. Despite my aches and pains, I know that I’m not in too bad of shape. I know people my age who aren’t so lucky. It all comes back to those three things – time, genetics and questionable actions in our youth.

The human body is an amazing instrument. Contained within the average bag of meat is more than 90,000 miles of nerves, 206 bones and 60,000 miles of arteries and veins. Our muscles work in conjunction with each other to keep us upright and power us to do simple things and incredible things. Running it all is a brain that has brought us to the top of the food chain. Regardless of this amazing instrument that we are all born with, it will all eventually wear out. A heart in perfect condition still has so many beats, lungs can handle a finite number of breaths and our beautiful minds have a time limit.

No matter what, it will all first diminish and then break. There are, of course, things that stop working and we can continue living. For instance, I don’t have a gall bladder and I continue on. We’ve figured out how to exchange some things – like kidneys, eyes, lungs and even a heart. And we’ve learned to make some repairs. But eventually it will all wear out and quite working.

We give lip service to this inevitable obsolescence, but really start to experience it in middle age. As we age, our muscles lose mass and shrink. In addition, the nerve endings degrade and our response time decreases. We can make the process slower by taking care of ourselves and eating right, but it only slows it down. Drug companies, however, try to convince us that they have the answer for regaining our youth, although it would be more helpful if they would spend as much time and effort for, say, digestive health as they do for making sure I can get a boner. (Never mind that while there are numerous treatments for men, there doesn’t seem to be much concern for the ladies.)

For centuries snake oil salesmen have been hocking miracle cures to reverse the aging process. So far, none that I’ve heard of have accomplished what they claim. Time will catch us all eventually, but I still understand the desire to keep it at bay.

The tragic part of that march to the sea is that there are things beyond our control that accelerate the journey. My mother died of brain cancer at age 57. A friend I have know since the 8^th grade died last Christmas of a heart attack. I know and have known people with congenital diseases that arrived because of a genetic code that was written millenniums ago. We’ve learned a lot just in my lifetime to understand and maybe one day defeat these diseases.

Yet when it comes to a long life, we are our own worst enemies. We eat the wrong things, we don’t exercise enough and we engage in behavior that takes years off our lives. We know these things are bad for us, and yet we continue to introduce them into our bodies. We smoke, we drink, we eat pie for breakfast. And we do this knowing that it isn’t doing us a damn bit of good.

One of the wonderful things about human beings and probably the main reason we are who we are is that we’re bold in our actions. Our smart brains need stimulus, and when we are young and indestructible we tend to make decisions that are pretty dumb. Sometimes that rush for endorphins can kill us, or worse, cripple us.

When I was 17, I fell out of a tree onto concrete. If my body had not reacted quick enough to throw my arms out to cushion the fall somewhat, I would have ended up with a broken neck. As it was, I broke both my arms and tore my knee up. I’ve carried those injuries with me for the rest of my life. If a bear were coming after me it would easily get me because I can only manage a brisk walk. Running is out of the question, and I have not been able to completely straighten nor bend my right knee in nearly 40 years.

I didn’t let these injuries stop me from doing what I wanted, and this is the great thing about the human body. After healing from the surgery on my knee, I still went for runs. I liked running; I liked the endorphins it produces, and I found I could still do it. But by the time I was in my 30s I couldn’t run anymore without extreme pain – what was left that was any good in that knew was wearing out. So I stopped jogging and now I walk.

But that is only one of the things of a misspent youth that affect me now. For example, when I was a teen I constantly had headphones on listening to music. In my 20s I would not think twice about standing as close as I could to the speakers at a Deep Purple concert. Now I don’t hear so well.

All of these things really become apparent in middle age. Which I guess is a warning to slow down and treat ourselves better. Those in middle age have come to a point in life where they can see a little of what the future holds. We’ve seen friends get sick and die. We’ve seen parents and grandparents get old. At this point you start to see the truth and decide to do something about it. The goal shouldn’t be to hold onto youth, but to age with grace, to do those things that will make old age a little easier to handle. In short, we can no longer just “shake it off” but need to make conscious decisions about how we want to feel.

Excuse me now, but I think I have to go shop for some kale.