Feeling Sorry For Myself

A NEW LEARNING
The plumbing isn’t working properly. Oh that’s not nearly bad enough. My partial lower denture broke when I bit on something hard and so I am virtually toothless. Despite morning walk/runs my weight loss is so inconsequential that I will never gain biggest loser status – not even mediocre. I can’t see beyond my extended arm without prescriptive lenses. Because of a bizarre accident in 2007 when I nipped off the tip of my right index finger, I am now growing a nail that does not increase in length but in thickness. The worst case scenario will be that I wear a sling to support my heavy hand. I should probably get another prescription of cream to combat the skin eruptions on my head which the doctor informs me could become cancerous in a few years. And today I am loaded with aggressive antibiotics to fight off an infection of my prostate. So my sitter downer is not feeling so good. Of course my doctor did what doctor’s do in such examinations. He put on a rubber glove and told me to assume the position which informs the patient that the doctor’s hand is going to come into contact with some part of the patient’s anatomy that is both embarrassing and uncomfortable. My doctor calls this move his chandelier probe since he has to pull the patient down from the chandelier when he is done. I have fever and chills and pain all over my body. And my wife has been hit with a virus that settled in her esophagus. I am sixty-six years of age now, but I am now finally catching on. This is what I get. This is what awaits one upon retirement. Everything is on a sliding scale heading south. Oh, and if it sounds inappropriate to use the word prostate in a publicly read forum just be glad that I didn’t use the word ‘prostrate’ which a high percentage of men have failed to understand is not synonymous with ‘prostate.’ And further, it doesn’t seem to bother people to speak publicly about bodily functions as curse words and punctuations. Waiting in the doctor’s office I sat with several other patients. One middle aged woman across from me looked tough but her friend who emerged from an appointment looked cruder still. And she loudly told the desk nurse, “I guess I have to have a pap test.” And that began a five minute long public interaction about her period, a pap smear and more of her medical information than any of the rest of us needed to hear.