Living Young in an Old Body

Throughout my life, people have always remarked at how young I look. On the day of my wedding, an old man waved his cane at me and admonished me that I was too young to be getting married. When I was 34, I routinely got asked for ID at the bar or when buying cigarettes. Even now, I often get shocked looks when people find out that I have two grown ‘children.’ I’m certainly not complaining, and I hope you won’t think this is bragging either.

I love looking ‘young for my age.’ I feel young for my age. Perhaps because I surround myself with beautiful young people everyday. But there is one thing I miss about actually BEING young. I miss the confidence that I used to have in my body. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am very fortunate to be in relatively good health and to enjoy the ability to move my body across the Dance Dance Revolution mat with reckless abandon on most days. But, over the last ten years, my body has started to rebel.

It started with a lump in my throat that the doctor soon diagnosed as a wonky thryroid. Well, that’s not exactly what he called it, but the weeks and months that followed made my body do dreadfully embarrassing things, so I feel I have the right to call it whatever I want to. My face flushed and I had ‘hot flashes’ when I went from a cool room to a warm one. My skin started to get dry and flakey and it took an inordinate amount of will just to drag my butt out of bed. But the worst part was that the Doctor told me that I would have to take thyroid medication FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. At the time, I was devastated. A life sentence of little green pills. But then I realized that taking a pill a day really wasn’t a difficult task, and I was starting to feel ‘normal’ again. Things were not so bad.

Then about nine years ago, after a lovely five course Valentines Day dinner, I got this small pain in my lower back. I tried to ‘walk it off’ but it spread to my midsection and eventually to my whole body. I walked, threw up, writhed around, tried to keep my then partner awake to share in my misery, and eventually around 6am the pain slowly started to subside, I slept and chalked it up to food poisoning. Until it happened again 6 months later. This time, I ended up in the emergency room. I had a gall stone.

The Doctor humiliated me, by informing me that it wasn’t uncommon in 'at risk' groups, which he gleefully identified as the FOUR F’s. Female. Fat. Fertile. Forty. C’mon! I certainly was willing to cop to the first three, but I was only thirty six! That Doctor certainly had some nerve! Anyway, he recommended that I see a surgeon to have not only the offending gallstone removed, but its lovely home removed as well.

I ate a very low fat diet while I awaited the call for surgery. I waited three months and when I still hadn’t heard from them, I went back to my Doctor. Someone had forgotten to contact the surgeon. My Doctor asked if I wanted them to contact the surgeon now. By then I had lost 40 lbs, hadn’t had a gall bladder attack and felt great, so I decided to keep my little friend and his house. Now, I’m careful about my diet, and although I gained back a lot of the weight when I quit smoking, I have managed to keep the attacks to about one a year by watching my fat intake.

Then three years ago, I came home after a lovely brunch, sat down at my computer to get some work done and started to feel odd. Excited, is how I can best describe the sensation. But then, I realized that this excitement was actually a racing pulse. I took a deep breath. A few deep breaths. I took my pulse again and realized that it was still racing madly. I went to my Doctor’s office.

He took my pulse. It was 143. That’s double my normal pulse. He gave me a funny little pill which calmed my mind, but not my heart. He called an ambulance and away we went to the emergency room. An hour later, my pulse dropped to normal and I left the hospital with a handful of pills in case it happened again and various lab requisition forms which drained me of various bodily fluids and had me wear a heart monitor for a few days. Everything came back ‘normal.’ Apparently, it was a glitch. It happens. It will probably never happen again. Just a reminder that my body has a mind of its own.

Now, why am I telling you all this? It’s pretty personal stuff, I know. It’s not that I am ready to admit that I am old. It is not an admonition for all you young’uns to take better care of your bodies (though had I not consumed such huge amounts of fat and had I not smoked like a chimney, I’m sure I could have staved off some of these moments for at least awhile longer). But this rather long drawn out story is just another moment of ‘stage setting.’

Because yesterday, yet another indignity. A piece of me just fell off! That isn’t supposed to happen, right? But, there I was, eating a single square of chocolate and a piece of my tooth just fell off. I swear I did not bite down on a large nut or use my teeth to pry open a beer bottle. But suddenly I was chewing, not chocolate, but a piece of my own tooth. I was devastated.

After calling my dentist and setting up an appointment, I proceeded to spend the afternoon feeling sorry for myself. I can deal with glands deciding to halt production. I just sent in new workers in the form of a little green pill. I can handle a new friend in my gall bladder, because he taught me to eat healthier and that if I treat my body with respect, it respects me back. I can even put up with the little glitches, because really surprises and oddities are what make us all unique. But, if parts are now going to randomly fall off, I’ll tell you right now, I am not going to stand for it. I knew I should have opted for the extended warranty. Well, all I can say is that it’s a damn good thing my Dentist is cute. ;)