My friend Shawn sent a link to Gary Kamiya’s extraordinarily beautiful composition "I'm younger than that now," published by Salon, about that epiphany we all experience that we are over the hill! I was very moved by it. (Thanks again Shawn for sharing it with me.)
I have been facing this very harsh junction in the road of life, because of my health. Tonight, I had an appointment with the neurosurgeon. While I received good news–that indeed the hemangioma on my L2 vertebrae showed benign and had not grown in the past nine months – I was expecting another lecture on living with the cards dealt me by fate and live with my back pain. But the neurosurgeon was highly amiable; knowledgeable; understanding of my frustrations, concerns, and desires to retrieve some of my quality of life back; and helpful.
I learned that I have a unique nerve canal that is more narrow than the average person. This is the reason why my bulging disks at L4 and L5 have been causing me so much pain. (We talked about how this is most likely genetics at work, as all my brothers and dad have bad backs. In fact, just this week, my dad and second-oldest brother had their backs go out on them.)
Since I already had a disc operation on L4 when I was 26, we discussed that my next operation would have to be a fusion. So, before I even consider that harsh procedure, we decided that I would see a pain doctor and undergo a facet joint block. If that works, I will undergo a procedure called a radio frequency lesion. More info on that later, if it comes up on the horizon.
I now pass the torch over to Gary Kamiya. Enjoy!
Lately I've been asking myself: When did I get so damn old?
Will it be on Saturday, when my son graduates from high school? Did it start 10 years ago, when my knees gave out and I had to say goodbye to sports other than bocce ball? Was it last week, when I saw my reflection before I was ready and was shocked by the man with thinning hair and white in his beard who looked back at me? Was it five years ago, when a doorman in Copenhagen stopped me as I was about to walk into a club filled with 20-somethings with the soul-shriveling words, "There's nothing for you here, sir"? Or did it start decades ago, a long defeat measured in fears not overcome, things not said?
It's all of these things, and none of them. Aging is an imperceptible and abstract process -- until it rears up and bites you in your increasingly southward-aiming ass. And then it's still imperceptible and abstract. If life is a long dying, how can you single out one moment when you cross the line into the homestretch? What bifocals can you get that will let you see the enormous changes that are happening to you in slow motion?
Read the whole article here.
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