60!

Today, I turned 60. Son of a bitch! Why me?

Back in July, I had a foretaste of old age. I woke up in my mom's house with my leg vibrating like a tuning fork and aching like a bad tooth. I gladly would have donated my leg to science, provided they were willing to take immediate delivery. I gritted my teeth as I suffered through her recollections about the fictitious middle child she thinks she mothered, the one who apparently couldn't wait to get on the school bus each morning to face a full day of being small and nerdy with glasses. Then I happened to mention my concerns about boarding my flight home the next day and six hours of being jammed into a seat. Her reply was shut up and stop complaining.

Seriously, mothers. Okay, if it wasn’t for her, I would have been calling a cardboard box home, but really, seriously ...

It turned out my leg cramp was a pinched sciatic nerve. I managed to soldier on for about a week, then the torture started in earnest, blinding shooting pain radiating from my buttocks to the sole of my foot. For eight days, I was flat on my back on the living room couch, staring up at the ceiling fan, cursing and screaming at God. God and I have issues.

Thankfully, a buddy stocked me up on grown-up baby food - Ensure, bananas, Gator Aid - and drove me to visits to the chiropractor. One day, the pain was not as bad as the day before. I was going to come out of it. But now when I walk down the street - an endeavor I no longer take for granted - and see old men and women hobbling about as best they can without complaint, well, let's put it this way, I'm not viewing them through the same stupid eyes.

I’m entering the decade where things fall apart, what a good friend refers to as old Chevy syndrome. You know, you’re happily tooling down the freeway and - clunk! - the trannie drops out or a wheel goes flying off and suddenly things are never the same. I’ve already been through my brain quitting on me. Now a whole leg. Add in my deforested head, failing eyes, nagging aches and pains, and back teeth that resemble broken crockery, and - let’s put it this way - pretty soon I’m going to require the services of a stunt double.

Last week, I talked about this with my psychiatrist. I pay for my visits, which means I get to talk for a full half-hour about things I want, rather than be rushed out the door after a drive-by ten-minute meds check. I’m not afraid of death, I told him. If I die I die, no big deal. But to endure the rest of my life in constant pain and fatigue, with vital bits and pieces not operational, with my brain failing to boot up. Year in and year out ...

I have two choices, I told him. I can grin and bear it or I can become a grumpy old man. It’s kinda like reaching acceptance with your illness, he concurred. You acknowledge reality and learn to accept your limitations. That way, life is only a constant challenge (which I gather is normal) rather than an interminable burden.

A few months ago, in an email, I joked to my daughter Emily that age is the biggest risk factor for everything that can go wrong with you. So don’t be stupid like me, I advised her - stay young.

But age does have its compensations. Three and a bit weeks ago, I became a grandfather. On a Skype connection, my daughter in New Zealand held up little Teddy, days old, to her webcam. My beaming face, in turn, landed on her computer screen. What she couldn’t make out, of course, were my tears of joy. Today I turned 60 and life is good.

How Lucky I Am

At ten last night, I plopped into bed exhausted, expecting sleep to overtake me. My sciata had other ideas. What was particularly depressing was I had been up and about that day, with recovery in plain sight. Now I had a possible major setback to contend with. It wasn’t till about four in morning that I was able to drop off into an approximation of sleep.

I literally had to force myself to get out of the house and go have breakfast and put on a happy face. Bantering with waitresses is part of my recovery bag of tricks. I managed to make a lame joke about adding a Coors Light to the coffee and orange juice and water that JoAnn, my other favorite waitress of all time, was bringing me.

Please, God. No setbacks please. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

I was hoeing into my California omelette when I started paying attention to the conversation at the adjacent table:

A woman about my age was bringing a neighbor up to date on her husband. Half his foot had been amputated. It was touch and go. He had diabetes. He had been experiencing loss of feeling in his extremities for years. He’d had a major infection. He’d been on crutches for more than a year.

That wasn’t the end of the story. He’d had complications. A severe rash. Meds side effects. Plus stupid doctors. Emergency room visits. On and on, it went.

Diabetes runs in my family. My father mercifully died before doctors got a chance to amputate him piecemeal. He was a cripple the last six or seven years of his life. My younger cousin barely made it to age 40. The last time I saw her, my aunt was pushing her in a wheelchair. Her complexion was ashen gray and I didn’t recognize her.

Then I thought of a spur-of-the-moment visit I had made two years before when I was in Washington DC. “Walter Reed Hospital,” I said to the cab driver. I found my way to what appeared to be the main unit. A young man with no leg, with what appeared to be his family in tow, was being wheeled down a corridor.

I found my way to a smaller out of the way building. Young men - kids - in wheelchairs were enjoying the spring sun outside. Everyone of them had a missing limb. I approached the first one. “Hello, sir,” I said. “I’d like to shake your hand.”

I did this a number of times. Then I found my way to the lobby of a rec center and did it again.

I paused in a grove of trees. There I lost it. My body shook uncontrollably. Tears streamed down my face.

JoAnn came over to my table. “You know,” I said. “I can’t help but think how lucky I am.”

The sciatica? Nothing.

I returned home, still feeling pain, but in a rare state of transcendent contentment. I settled into a comfortable sitting position on the couch with my laptop, performing small chores, savoring my temporary splendid relationship with my universe.

For the heck of it, I pulled up an educational video I had done earlier this year. In one scene, I am running full tilt as I leap onto a small rock, which becomes the platform for a spectacular sub-orbital mission. The film freezes at the apogee of my ascent. The closing segment of the video opens on the same freeze frame, then shows me gracefully descending in slow motion. It is a beautiful sight.

I was 59 when I filmed that piece. I’ll be 60 in a few months. I joked to my daughter in an email two days ago that age is the biggest risk factor for everything that can go wrong with you. So don’t be stupid like me, I advised her - stay young.

I may or may not be able to attempt that kind of leap again, but it doesn’t matter. Age has its compensations. I will be a grandfather in a few months. Yesterday, my daughter emailed me a recent photo. She is a natural beauty, but now she radiated a special aura.

The sciata is a bitch, a taste of things to come. I’m entering the decade where things fall apart. But, right now, I’m okay with that. That could very well change tomorrow. But at this very moment, trust me, I have so much to feel lucky about.