Points of Light — Getting Old
I took advantage of the day off we got last Wednesday for George H.W. Bush to begin putting up our Christmas lights for the season. It seemed like an appropriate way to honor the man famous for calling on the “thousand points of light” in his inaugural speech. I continued the process this weekend, and should just need one more day’s labor to get them all up. We go all in with the Christmas lights.
Unfortunately, as I get older, the process takes more of a toll on me, physically. I’m really beginning to feel my age as I approach the mid-60’s (just turned 64 last month). Monday, my back and legs were so sore, I decided to work from home and give my body a break. Then yesterday, the aches were subsiding, but as I got up to begin getting ready to go, everything started spinning — another bout of vertigo.
This really threw me for a loop. It was my second such episode within a month. I took a sick day, and did my best to stay out of my head about what this means. The last one, I chaulked up to congestion getting into my tricky (left) ear. This time, I didn’t feel like my ear was that congested — I just had the spins and the nausea that accompanies them. It persisted all day, and today, I am still feeling the effects of it, though the spinning has subsided.
Fortunately, I had my bi-weekly session with my counselor yesterday evening, and he was able to help me get off the negative thoughts that were swirling about my condition, and I came out of there feeling much better. So much about one’s health is dependent on one’s perspective towards what’s going on with them.
Of course, I had gone as far as worrying that the schwannoma had returned. I previously had one of them embedded in my facial nerve, i.e. the seventh cranial nerve in the tympanic region, technically a brain tumor. I first experienced chronic vertigo around the same time they’d discovered the tumor in there, so I’ve always associated the two, in my head. As it turned out, according to my doctor, the two conditions were coincidental, the one was not directly related to the other.
The tumor wound up going away on its own — doesn’t happen often, but I drew the lucky straw on that one. The vertigo responded well to a medication (nortriptyline) he put me on, once we got the dosage properly adjusted, then seemed to go away altogether following an inner-ear surgery (tympanoplasty and eustacian tube balloon dilation). Now, it seems to be coming back.
I have also noticed some deterioration in my hearing, despite the hearing aid, which had been my first indication of something wrong in there several years ago, which led to the discovery of the tumor, on a CT Scan and MRI. So naturally, that’s where my head went, despite my best efforts not to let it go there. It seems to have a mind of its own!
While I am not feeling 100% today, I feel at least well enough to take the metro into work. That only requires a three mile drive, versus the fifteen miles, in heavy traffic, to drive all the way into town. I should probably stay home again, but I don’t feel like I can afford to miss another day.
This weekend, our son is coming out to assist with the installation of lights on the roof, one concession to age I am making — not sure my legs will withstand the climbing around up there that I usually do.
Getting old is not for sissies, that’s for sure. But, I do like putting up the lights.
