Aging

March 25, 2016

As a child, I choked on small things—pieces of meat, pills, almost anything. They never caught in my trachea, so I could always breathe easily, but I was unable to swallow anything, even water or saliva. I could always force it either up or down, until now. This time, they had to surgically remove the pork. My doctor told me that my esophagus was so narrow that his scope couldn’t even reach my stomach— the scope is only the width of my little finger. The solution, he decided, was to dilate my esophagus. The procedure worked—I no longer choke on anything—but it also accidentally perforated my esophagus, sending me to the hospital for almost a week on a no-food-or-drink diet followed by another week on a liquid diet. Later, I was told by a nurse that the odds of having this complication were one in twelve.

Thousand.

They call it eosinophilic esophagitis, and although I just learned how to pronounce it, I’ve suffered with it all my life. White blood cells called eosinophils mistake my food for pathogens, so they congregate in my esophagus to “cure” me. They stay there. The tissue swells, the esophagus narrows. Food gets stuck. At least I have some consolation: my immune system is effective. It did, after all, stop the food.

Asthma is an excuse not to exercise. It’s also a reason I will (hopefully) be rejected the next time there’s a military draft.

My neck and back muscles exist in a state of perpetual tension. Regular yoga, meditation, and chiropractic visits help to quell the discomfort, but they never eliminate it. My chiropractor tells me that it appears that my muscles do not fully regenerate while I sleep, so a small amount of residual tension from each day builds in the tissues until it becomes unbearable.

I have a constant companion: a dull, aching sensation that plagues both my arms and legs. Occasionally it is barely noticeable. Sometimes, the pain is so great I can barely walk, or think, or sleep. Ibuprofen is a failed placebo. Usually, like today, I suffer somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. This fluctuating discomfort-pain has bothered me for many years, and it confounds my neurologist. He told me that, as far as he could tell, I shouldn’t be in any pain.

My fingers feel aged and brittle. Tired, like an old dog after a long walk. Occasionally, I drop things. A glass of milk spills over the table, a pencil falls out of my hand. I crack my knuckles to relieve the stiffness, but it always creeps back. Flares often coincide with extended periods of extreme pain in my arms.

When people ask me how I’m feeling, I usually say “I’m fine.” But sometimes, as a test, I will tell them the truth: I feel old. They laugh—at me or my words, it doesn’t matter—or they say “Just wait ’til you get to be my age.” What they don’t realise is that I’m already their age.

At least, my body is.

Show Drafts

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Draft One

I sit in a hard wooden chair my right leg crossed over, around, and back under my left. It hurts a bit, a dull, aching sensation that plagues my appendages from time to time, currently neither severe enough to steal my focus as is the case sometimes nor mild enough to go unnoticed. This fluctuating discomfort-pain has bothered me half my life. My neurologist has no answers.

Since I was a child, I would choke on small things. A piece of hotdog here, a pill there. I could always force it either up or down. Until now. Last time they had to surgically remove the pork. The doctor said I had an esophagus so narrow his scope couldn’t even reach my stomach (and the scope is only the width of the little finger). When he performed the Dilation to End All Choking, the procedure accidentally perforated my esophagus. Later, I was told the odds of that were one in twelve.

Thousand.

Apparently I have been stricken with eosinophilic esophagitis. (Actually, I’ve had it all my life.) White blood cells confuse my food for pathogens and congregate in my esophagus to “cure” me. But then they don’t leave. Tissue swells, esophagus closes. Food gets stuck. At least I have the consolation of knowing that my immune system is effective. It did, after all, stop the food.

Asthma is an excuse not to exercise. It’s also a reason I will hopefully be rejected next time there’s a military draft.

My neck and back muscles exist in a state of near-perpetual tension. Yoga, meditation and regular chiropractic visits keep the discomfort in check, but sometimes there is no help. According to my chiropractor, it appears that my muscles do not fully regenerate when I sleep. Each day, there is residual tension from the days before that compounds over time.

My fingers feel old and brittle. There is a presence within them that does not cease. Occasionally, I drop things. A glass of milk spills over the table, soaking my food and napkin and splashing onto the floor. A pencil falls out of my hand, not because it is uncomfortable to hold but because it sometimes just doesn’t fit the contour of my grip. I crack my knuckles to relieve the stiffness, but it always comes creeping back. Flares typically coincide with periods of extreme or extended discomfort-pain in my arms.

When people ask how I’m feeling, sometimes I say, “I feel old.” They laugh and brush past it, moving on to the next topic of conversation, the ice sufficiently broken. Each time, it’s like a little experiment. Without exceptions, they find my words humorous.

But I’m not kidding.