Nobody Told Me I Would Turn Purple
Another gift of the aging process that I would like to return
It’s happening more and more often. I come in from doing yard work, take off my gardening gloves, and there it is. A spot that I swear wasn’t there this morning.
It could be the size of a pea, or a quarter, sometimes a 50-cent piece. It’s not tender or raised, and I don’t recall getting a bump or scrape in that location — although, who knows; I was paying more attention to pruning or raking than I was to pokes from twigs or thorns.
The thing is, the spot is purple. Not just purple like a minor bruise: it’s a lurid, dark, winestain-from-a-night-you-wish-you-could-forget purple.
The spot sits there, on my hand or forearm, as unwelcome and impossible to ignore as a spider. It looks like it should hurt, but it doesn’t.
What it does do is piss me off. Researching it on Dr. Google definitely does not help.
“Benign, easy bruising that affects older adults” — but oy, the name
This is a condition that affects around 10 percent of people over age 50, with the percentage increasing with age. It’s no big deal from a medical standpoint.
