The Old

For the past two months, I have felt older than usual.  Oh sure, there are days when I'm fine.  I do what I'm supposed to do, get things done, care for my family.  Then there are these things.  Random aches and pains that remind me that Father Time is fucking me in the ass.  Random illnesses that signal my body is getting weaker and can't fight as much as it used to.  I know I'm being melodramatic, but two months of constant suckage is wearing me down.  I know people have it worse off than me, but that doesn't mean I can't bemoan the things that I feel happening to me.

A lot of it has to do with the two raging cellulitis infections that I had.  I've had them before, and they responded to normal home treatments with no IVs or PICC lines or days in the hospital.  Realizing that my body no longer wants to beat the shit out of them without the help of some pretty heavy duty antibiotics is fairly sobering.

Then there was the random cold that I caught from my son.  It wasn't so bad, but I usually wouldn't be susceptible to germs that early in the season.  It made me feel weak as hell.

Then my foot.  Always my damned feet, because of the weight, I'm assuming.  I screwed it up dancing, and the tendinitis came back.  The pain is almost nonexistent now, but appears if I do too much walking.  Then my knee started hurting.  While that has also subsided, it will twinge a warning spasm if I sit on the floor wrong or sleep wrong.

And now, random pains on my side and back.  These scare me more than the infections, more than a stupid cold, more than tendinitis and a hurt knee, because all I can think of is that it may not even be my body shutting down, but rather a loose tube from my lap band again.  I know.  I felt pretty shitty when I realized that that could be a possibility.

The pain started last Sunday when I was moving things and trying to do some Fall cleaning.  I thought nothing of it.  The pains continued.  It hurts in my hip joint when I walk fast or hard, and aches above that area.  I am worried.  It doesn't FEEL like a loose tube again, but who knows?  I can feel my anxiety rise just thinking about it.  And today....

Today it feels like spasms.  Not painful, just annoying.  I also developed a pain in my ribcage.  If I stretch them out, it feels good, but if I slouch or lie on my stomach, my ribcage aches.  I don't know if it is all related to each other.  It is down the right side of my body.  Maybe I screwed up one thing that is now screwing up other things.  Maybe I'm just overly panicky.  Maybe my body is telling me that it's time to stop fucking around and work on ME, so I am not laid up or dead or something sooner than I should be.

All I know is that as soon as I come back from Michigan next week, it's going to be another round of appointments to figure out what is wrong and get it fixed.  I can't go on like this.  I'm too much of a weenie to handle illnesses or to cope with getting old.

Fuck me sideways.  Or don't, because I'll probably break somewhere else.



Psalm 38

1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.

2 Your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down on me.

3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin.

4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.

5 My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly.

6 I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning.

7 My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body.

8 I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.

9 All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.

10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.

11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away.

12 Those who want to kill me set their traps, those who would harm me talk of my ruin; all day long they scheme and lie.

13 I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak;

14 I have become like one who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply.

15 Lord, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God.

16 For I said, “Do not let them gloat or exalt themselves over me when my feet slip.”

17 For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.

18 I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.

19 Many have become my enemies without cause; those who hate me without reason are numerous.

20 Those who repay my good with evil lodge accusations against me, though I seek only to do what is good.

21 Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God.

22 Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.