Only trouble with Having Old Friends is that Old Part

I saw this ad come across the TV the other night. The sponsor was making a point of their longevity in the practice of their services. They put up a big old icon on the screen. It said, "Founded 1970". "Founded 1970," which is 43 years ago. I guess that's a long time now. This is a problem in my life these days, time slips away so quick every decade seems closer than it is.

If "Founded 1970" is a proof of longevity, what is a friendship founded in 1950? That's a total of 63 years if I still remember how to count. So is it longevity or antiquity?

And it isn't just a friendship, it's two. There are actually a couple others. I've been friends with a lady named Iva forever, I mean we go back to the state of consciousness, let's say 70 years.

But she's a girl. I'm talking about male bonding here, three guys who met in third grade and got kind of joined at the hip. There we are on the left back in 1957, when we all had a lot of thick, dark hair. Ain't we a handsome bunch?

We were so alike in many ways. That's what cements you to other people over so many decades. We were very alike and yet very different in other ways.  I was pretty geeky, I guess, this hick from a swamp, shy and ignorant of so much that the other kids knew. Maybe we were all geeky in a way. We got a lot of guff from others in that small town.

Life moved us apart physically, and for some periods in mind and spirit as well. Oddly many events in our lives paralleled even when we didn't know it.  We seemed to move into the same areas or work for banks here and there. And in the end we all drifted back together, even if mostly over the Internet. There we are on the right when we had a little reunion in 2011. We were percolating rather well at the time.

Stuart is down in Florida, but we managed to write several plays together on the Web. Ronald is living
in the slower-lower southern part of this state of Delaware, while I live up at the top. To me we still are much alike. Our differences might seem big to some people. I'm a vocal Christian and 52 years married to the same woman. Stuart's Jewish and he's married, too. Ronald is pretty much non-religious in a definable way. He has his spiritual moments. He isn't married because he can't be. He's Gay. He has a partner of 48 years. I'm pretty Conservative; Ronald's pretty Liberal. I'm not sure about Stuart, maybe he falls somewhere between us.

But never mind the differences. We like each other as people and friends. You don't always have to agree to like someone. You have to look at a person's heart, not the labels they or others have hung about their necks. I've actually known some people in life who seem to agree on everything, but can't stand each other...so life's a mystery sometimes.

These are old friends, my oldest friends, and that OLD is getting old. Age is catching up to our bodies, if not our minds. Ron got news the past year that he has prostate cancer. Bummer, he is going for a nuclear seeding in May.

We just heard from Stuart that his knees are gone, bone on bone. He's into leg braces and pain and

most likely knee replacements down the road he limps along.

I thought I was the sturdy one, boppin' along without a care. Well, I knew that wasn't completely true. I mean I had a terrible time 15 years ago and lost my thyroid. Then I developed gout and Psoriatic Arthritis in more recent times. Boy, is that a pain!

But last week was the kicker right in the...well fill in the blank. I had a bit of pain about my waist and felt very tired. I figured that Ms Flu had returned. It would pass, I figured because it always did. But last Sunday after church I was really weary and woozy and didn't have the energy to walk across the living room.

Monday morning when I awoke I had to dash to the bathroom and I think it was trying for the Guinness World Record. I've occasionally had someone tell me I was full of it. Monday morning seemed to be an attempt to prove them right. I certainly wasn't full of much of anything after that.

But I figured maybe this gets the poison out and Ms Flu will fly 'way, except I was seeing something black that said it may not be Ms Flu. It's more like Captain Blood.

Well, for once I called my Doctor and saw her last Thursday. She is of the opinion I got me a bleeding ulcer. She sent me off to the Lab for blood work. The paper said STAT at the top. She said she'd have the results by 3:00 and if my hemoglobin was too low she was going to put me right into the hospital. Then she got me an emergency colonoscopy appointment for next Thursday. Oh, joy, oh joy!

But my Lab results showed my hemoglobin was down, but not dangerously low so I escaped hospitalization. I am also going to escape all the foods I don't want to escape. No spicy food, no tomatoes, no fries, no alcohol, no coffee, no tea, no soda and no chocolate. I can have tofu. Uuh!

Anyway, I went out this afternoon and bought almost all my treats for the party next Wednesday evening. I got a packet of Dulcolax Tablets, an 8.3 oz bottle of Miralax and a 10 oz. bottle of magnesium citrate, yum! I didn't get the Crystal Light to mix in the 64 ounce bottle of water with the Miralax yet.  I will have to drink eight ounces of this cocktail until the whole jugs gone, the instructions say.

It's a good thing I don't live in New York. I wouldn't be able to prep for the procedure. Mayor Bloomberg doesn't allow these super-sized drinks.

Pain

Life in recent times is a four-letter word spelled P-A-I-N. This is the cost of carrying this body none to gently through the years. Age has a way of reminding me that the smooth and sturdy container I gave no concern to in youth is now dinged and dented, wrinkled and wrecked.

In my younger days I was a fast runner, but you can't outrun age. Your sprints and dashes gradually become rapid walks and then you find that four miles an hour pace has slipped by a mile. All those old slowpokes you use to breeze pass on the trails are now going by you. You don't outrace that old geezer with the scythe. He was out of sight and out of mind once upon a time, but now I can catch a glimpse of him over my shoulder.

I suppose at this point I should put up that warning that this blog may contain images some would find disturbing.

I am referring to my knees.

Old Man Time doesn't like knees and elbows. He really warps the skin on those body parts. I have seen elephants with smoother skin than what my kneecaps have become.

In fact, I use to have nice looking legs and as these first pictures from the past summer attest, not so long ago I still had human-looking limbs, but this week not so much. Now admittedly arthritis has played a role in rearranging my landscape. My fingers have developed a curve and I can no longer completely close my hands into a fist. My feet have especially suffered the slings and arrows of uric acid overindulging in their joints like some mean drunk always spoiling for a fight. There are days few and far between I wake up pain free. Mostly it is a twinge in a toe or a stinging about the ankle that is barely noticeable in the daily activity of my life. Sometimes it is a flare-up of angry bees with red-hot fireplace pokers for stingers doing battle here or there. Never have these bouts prevented me from working and very seldom deterred me from my daily walk through the forest, even though such pain never rests, even when you do, and it bites you when touched, latching on like a Pit Bull having roid rage. I have a high pain threshold. I can deal with Mr. Arthritic Pit Bull.

But that Old Man Time hit me low this week. I was thinking perhaps tendonitis, but it looks more and more to me like bursitis, his second cousin. I've had a couple bursitis attacks on my elbows. I was a bit self-conscious about my big freak elbow, but after a couple weeks it went back to normal. It didn't much bother me unless I leaned on my arm or brushed against something. This knee thing is a  bit more obtrusive.  I was wondering if I could get on some weirdo TV show and make a few bucks by claiming I had a grapefruit implanted in my knee.

My daughter and I visited the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia last week, maybe I picked it up there. My knee certainly looks like an exhibit you'd find in that place. Over in this display we have a man with balloon leg! Admittedly my right kneecap ain't no beauty contest winner either, but at least it has some shape to it. My legs look like the before and after pictures of a participant on The Biggest Loser. Besides the pain, I really can't bend the blasted thing. You should see me try to put my pants on (well, maybe you shouldn't) or my shoe and sock. I haven't even been able to tie my own left shoe, although I did manage to do just that this morning. I felt the same sense of accomplishment as I did as a toddler first mastering such a feat. Oh, Larry tied his shoe all by himself, he gets a gold star!

I am doing all one can for such an inflation, keeping off my feet, resting, popping Ibuprofen and getting a healthily understanding why some people get hooked on pain pills. I did notice in this last picture I took this morning that the swelling has decreased ever so slightly. Hopefully in another week I can snap a portrait of matching kneecaps.

It does have me wondering how my dad stands it. I am going stir crazy because I can't do much physically around the house. It is a major task getting in and out of the car. I have to put in my right leg, then push this hulk of body up almost over into the passenger side to drag my left foot into place. But at least I am hobbling about. I took out the trash, took the barrel down to the curve yesterday. I can feed the cats and feed the birds and fetch the newspaper. I also have my writing, which I can sit at the computer to type and it is my lifetime love. Yet my dad can't do anything. He can't go out and get the paper or the mail. He was a long distance trucker until he was 75, then a school bus driver into his late eighties. Driving was his love and passion, but he isn't allow to do that anymore. It pains my knee to drive, but I can do it.

Old Man Time is a mean son of a goat!