Relative Something

Yikes! This gettin’ old stuff is definitely not for sissies. For most of my 50+ years I have successfully avoided serious back pain. My time is finally up. With no obvious trigger incident or activity for reference, all I can come up with for a cause of my current discomfort is the march of time. My symptoms match directly with all the descriptions Cyndie and I have read for degenerative disc disease of the lumbar region.

Gosh, this has never happened to me before. It’s stuff like this that makes me miss being that little kid I’ve seen in pictures from the early 60s. This is the point where brave people soldier on and learn pain management techniques and reclaim their previous level of activity. I’m more inclined to drop into a wheel chair and have someone push me up to the jigsaw puzzle table in the sunny corner of a room.

I’m finally able to grasp some of the effects of the experience of chronic pain. It has me thinking about all those years of naiveté where I viewed the world from my limited perspective. It wasn’t an intentional arrogance. It was a view of the world from a sheltered vantage point. I have found a new respect for those who make their way in the world under the duress of the oppressive weight of perceived pain.

I really, really loath becoming one of the people who whine about their plight of advancing age. Sure, I’d love to richly celebrate my increasing maturity with grace and aplomb. I would consider accomplishing that if it weren’t for the swelling prostate, degrading vision, diminished hearing, increasing allergies, advancing asthma, and now degenerating discs. And what the heck is the deal with eye brows suddenly bursting forth with growth in random directions?

I’ve got friends that are a decade and more ahead of me down this fateful path who are brilliant examples for me that continued living does not require whining about it all the time. They are a great inspiration. I’ve met my first situation of back pain and I am reduced to a blithering complainer. I am not proud.

The thing about suddenly prodigious eye brows… at least they’re not painful.