After a couple of mushy retirement blogs recently I thought you might be ready for a blog laced with a little more realism. Realism that is about the hazards of getting on a bit age-wise with particular reference to our health. Prompted today by an email from my chum in OZ and his cancer treatment not running entirely smoothly and a ‘hark-back’ to one of my early morning sleepless episodes a couple of weeks ago.
I’m not suggesting in any way that my health issues compare to his but I like to think that I somewhat make up for in quantity what I lack in quality (of seriousness) compared to him. He may be the judge of that. This is my side of the ‘contest’.
A couple of weeks ago I woke or was woken by what I’m arguing was the perfect storm of mental and physical discomforts. The physical side of the equation went like this and started modestly. At 2.40 am I woke up to find I was the proud owner of one of those itches in my finger ends that would not be scratched. It percolated my dreams and disturbed my sleep.
To the point where I realised I needed to pee. No surprise there just the manner of my realisation. Not very impressive as an example of a health problem you say but, while I was sitting on the side of the bed after my toilet trip, I realised that I had a pain in my stomach and I felt a bit sick. Again nothing out of the ordinary. Just a negative feeling that I was experiencing many of the symptoms that had led to my colonoscopy etc. etc. last year.
Now to the bonus ball part. I have in the past written about pains in my foot that may or may not be gout. Whatever it is I just know it is extremely painful. This night it started to hurt (such a mild word) in my leg, just below my calf muscle. Seems an unlikely place for gout but then I’ve been told that you can get gout anywhere even, and I quote a doctor, in your ear.
What’s debilitating about the pain is that it’s like somebody periodically (about every 40 seconds although not so regular) sticking a red hot needle into you. The anticipation is worse than the actual pain. Makes it quite hard (read impossible) to get to sleep). This pain just for the record lasted off and on for two days although I have to admit it is most painful at night. As it was this night.
Throw into this melting pot of pain my Covid cough and sore throat. Well the truth is I’ve had both for months but in the middle of the night everything seems worse, doesn’t it. And I had to nearly laugh when I read on my phone this very morning about people who had ‘Long Covid’ and why they weren’t recovering. There was a list of 17 symptoms typically associated with people who had this form. I counted 9 of them for me.
Fatigue, yep; joint pain, yep; chest pains, yep; cough, yep; runny nose, yep; vertigo, yep. And on, I don’t want to bore you with the whole list and it made me nearly laugh but then this was in the morning not the middle of the night. The banality of the advice to people who have this form did make me laugh. It was along the lines of take it easy. I’m doing a lot of laughing aren’t I? And maybe that’s because I don’t think I have the virus at all or, if I do, I’ve had it long before they gave it a name.
Just wanted to give you an idea of the physical side of things before moving on to the mental stuff. As this is meant to be a short Friday blog I’ll keep it short. On top of all the above there was spread a lovely topping of mental issues. For example, The Walking Dead walked continually round and round my brain. A song from Transatlantic Sessions joined in the loop. I used to suffer badly in my younger days from this problem (ear worms is that what they call it?). It killed my musical career but the good news was it led to my love of jazz which has tunes that are hard for the brain to repeat. Plus I worried about our cooker problems where gas and electricity could have combined to obliterate us. Reading the news on my phone to distract me didn’t help either. It was outright miserable.
I had to laugh, yes again, well kind of. I put the radio on and I did write all this down in my diary. I might as well I thought, I’m not going to get back to sleep. And so it proved.
So there is my perfect storm. So yes, it’s fairly small potatoes by comparison with many folks but I would claim, although the potatoes are small, they are numerous. And I haven’t even mentioned my diabetes. You be the judge, I’m not saying I win but I claim the right to mention, through this retirement blog, my side of things.