MAINTAINING THE BOD: FULL TIME JOB

It takes a lot of time and energy and a team of highly trained medical professionals to stay healthy at my age.  In the next 2 months I have appointments:  dermatology to keep my pre-cancerous skin suit from erupting into anything deadly; dentist to replace a crown (not on my head); audiology to see if my "mild to moderate hearing loss" has worsened or if everyone has just begun to whisper behind my back (increasing my paranoia); mammogram to see if "the girls" are still perky (not) and not trying to kill me; and now a brain MRI to see if my migraines are caused by something horrific .

Also, I fell up the stairs recently.  On the very day I filled out a pre-physical form for my annual check-up that asked if I'd fallen in the past year, and by fallen I take that to mean NOT on the muddy slippery Kauai trial, which would trip up anyone, but just in my house moving around normally.  I said no.  Cuz it was true until 12 hours later when it became a lie I didn't correct.  

The front of my bulky slipper caught on the lip of the top stair.  I was not holding the handrail because I had my hands full with my phone, a half finished can of LaCroix, and my Kindle.  I flew forward at a force great enough to smack my forehead on the wall, wrench my neck back in whiplash fashion, and crash hard onto my right elbow, rib, hip, and knee.  I lay there, stunned, feeling a little tingle down my arm.  Hub came running and wouldn't let me move until he'd checked me out.  We determined there was no permanent damage, and he helped me up.  I'm still sore, over a week later.  It could have been so much worse.  New vow: wear shoes and hold the handrail every time!!!  (I also contemplated whether I could have drowned in my spilled LaCroix had my face been smashed into the wet floor and no one around to save me... Thoughts?)

So, I had my annual physical yesterday.  My doc was accompanied by a young man -- seemingly 12 years old, but maybe a bit older since he was introduced as a "pre-med student" doing an observation stint with a real doc.  Only later did I think to question why a PRE-med student was hanging around oogling my unclothed bod and listening in on my stories of creaky knees, migraines, panic attacks, and sexual exploits.  Shouldn't one at least have been accepted to med school to get to the good stuff?  Well, anyway, there he was, watching from the far corner of the room looking very uncomfortable like he was at the Junior Prom in the gym and might be expected to ask a girl to dance.

My doc declared me as "doing great!"  No big scary things going on, that we know of.  So that's good.  Cuz my platelet count that I'd seen on my lab report the previous day was low-ish and I had gone into a bit of a 24-hour tailspin over that and wondered if it could be something deadly and beyond my control to, well, control.  She said not to worry -- we will just re-check it in 6 months.  Nothing life-threatening happening now.  Whew.  But I'm sure my BP was sky high as I felt the familiar anxiety tipping into panic, with rapid breathing, slight light-headedness, and tears just at the surface.  But I didn't want to upset the 12 year old, so I held it all in.

We moved on to my now diagnosed "vestibular (dizzy) migraines" and she decided to order a brain MRI.  I've done that before and it takes all my meditation expertise to not completely lose it inside that machine.  Claustrophobia, anyone?  So that will be fun to look forward to.  I could have had it done as early as next week, but opted for later in May, after Son Two's upcoming wedding celebration and then another vacation, just in case the news is bad.  I don't want to ruin fun times with a deadly diagnosis.  

When we got to the girl parts exam portion of the visit, Master Pre-Med averted his eyes.  So cute. I was ready for his Mardi Gras beads should he have had some in his pocket, but my breast flashing netted me no reward.  Since I'd just had a colonoscopy in January, she offered to skip the rectal exam (always good news) and also skipped the pelvic this time since she asked if I was having any problems and I said, "No.  Nothing going on down there."  Then I amended, "Well, there's a lot going on down there...just nothing bad."  LOL   I noticed a slight upturn of a smile on the young man's face, so I said, reassuringly, "See?  Even in your 70's you can still have a great sex life!"  My doc and I laughed.  He did not, but I think he was amused (or appalled) nonetheless.

All of this to say, it takes a lot of maintenance as one grows older to keep the bod in good working order.  I am incredibly grateful to modern medicine, practitioners, scientists, and my daughter-in-law for being the practice manager (boss) of two branches of the big multi-speciality clinic I go to, for keeping it all in working order.  I saw her on the way out as she waited for a team to arrive on a PR visit of some kind where one of them was dressed like a mascot dog or bear or something.  It might have been the 12-year old pre-med student doing double-duty -- or perhaps I scared him out of the medical profession into a less stressful career where he could wear a disguise.

At least, that's the view from here...©

P.S. Next we will move on to the mental health portion of my upcoming appointments, wherein I will explore why I used the word "panic", "kill" and "deadly" so often in this post.  

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com