A Carnivore's Guide To Cardiology- Big Five Oh Round Up Part 5

 Better or Worse

Whoever said "Fifty is the new thirty" must have meant the "Old Thirty" was in the Eighteenth Century when life expectancy never passed Forty.

The important systems are working, but its the peripherals...

It's kinda like when you have a car with a great engine and strong frame that gets older.  It still runs fine, but all the sub-systems (radio, air conditioning, window gaskets, lights) take turns breaking down.

I thought I'd be able to make it to Fifty with all my teeth. They're one of the few things that work correctly most of the time.  I went to the dentist with an ache shortly before my last birthday thinking, "I hope I don't need a root canal, I hope I don't need a root canal, I hope I don't need a root canal."

Alas, it was a tooth that already had a root canal with a tasty new infection brewing within.  I ended up needing an extraction, and thanks to random plague related shut downs, it took forever to get it replaced.

I drove away from their office many a time thinking something I never believed I would, "I wish I needed a root canal, I wish I needed a root canal , I wish I needed a root canal."

A bunch of other little things popped up as well during the time I was desperate to avoid visiting any congregation of people.  

Do you know what "Septic Bursitis" is?  

Neither did I!

I do now. 

Its like my body became a strict, old school parent-

"Oh you're tired of hurting for no reason?

HERE I'll give you a reason."

Then there's the vision.  Since I can't see far, the normal progression to need reading glasses was a rare effect of aging working in my favor.  I needed my glasses less and less for anything other than driving and distance viewing of events and shows.   I haven't needed them for computer work for years. Life was good.

Then suddenly, I had some focusing troubles. Nothing huge, but I couldn't read comic books without powerful stage lighting, and constantly adjusting how far and what angle the page was at.  Reading any character like the "Batman Who Laughs" with black speech bubbles was an impossibility.

Clearly, this was an emergency.

A couple of years ago, I had a mild astigmatism for the first time, but it wasn't enough to bother changing my prescription. It was on the right, my evil eye.  That's the side that also has floaters, other more pronounced aging effects, a slight corneal scratch, and the one that got far worse during the sunscreen reaction and nose blowing tree incidents.

As my eye doctor kept bringing me in more and more frequently, the vision worsened.  She started off on the belief that I was too young (there's a first) to be developing a cataract on its own, and asked if  the eye was possibly injured at some point which could lead to early thickening.

My reaction:

*Thinking about 

the corneal scratch

And walking into branches while dumping leaves multiple times,

And beach sand blowing into it,

And work blood (analog and real) model leaks that hit me ,

And face firsting into closet doors I forgot I was using to baffle video game noise at night,

And sawdust shooting off the circular saw as I looked around my glasses to see close

And youthful roller skating where I could only stop by slamming flat into a wall*

"Maaaaaaaybe."

So now I'm scheduled to have someone shoot laser beams into my eye and implant a replacement to correct my vision and banish the cataract. This is totally worthwhile because I'm tired of looking like a stoned cocker spaniel when I try focus the good eye on whatever I'm looking at.

I'm planning to ask for the full Steve Austin upgrade.

Yeah, not as funny as "butt spelunking" but what is?

Probably should have finished with that one.