Thinking about it makes me tired

What can I say right now except that this getting old business is getting old.  I am sure that I would rather, since my awareness paradigm of the alternative is still based on faith, not experience, but there have been moments since I last posted that I have wondered about the advantages of just giving up and not worrying about getting old anymore.

The week started interestingly.  My wife, due to intense pain at the time, had the lower joints of her thumbs replaced about twenty years ago.  The replacements were metal and looked a little like golf tees, and  in the last few years, they wore out.  As a result, Janet's use of her hands has been limited.  This week we had scheduled the first replacement.  Monday we drove to Savannah, to St. Joseph’s hospital where they did all the preliminary blood tests, after which we went to a nice Italian restaurant and had a nice dinner.  It was a good day, except that we were scheduled to return to the hospital the next day.   We received a communication on our arrival home that our return  was scheduled a six AM. but we should be there by five thirty to get the final paperwork completed.  The Savannah hospital is  (by odometer check) sixty three miles from our house which meant that we had to leave by about four fifteen, which meant that we had to get up by—Oh heck, you get the picture.  I got us up on time, fortifying myself by some of this five hour energy stuff you see advertised on TV to make sure I would stay awake till we arrived.  We got there on time, to find a whole bunch of folks in the waiting room for out patient surgery.  We got dirty looks from most of them when the called Janet in ahead of everyone else, but we presume that her surgeon has clout there.  I sat and read the paper while Janet was doing, or having done whatever was done back there. 

The surgery was  actually performed at eight AM precisely and they called me in to watch her recover from the block, etc. that they used for surgery.  They were not able to use a complete “put to sleep” thing because her aorta is dissected and --- well.  She finally was released a little after noon.   One of the ladies in the waiting room stated that she had finished in really short time.  I smiled and said, we have been here since five thirty, to which she replied “I have been here since five”.

We had seriously under-rated that amount of pain she would be in, so we didn’t fool around in Savannah a moment, we just headed home post haste.  I got her home, went to pick up her prescriptions  immediately, brought them home and got her narcotized and in bed as fast as possible, with her arm propped up, etc.

In the meantime, I had been working in the yard almost every day to try to get the tomatoes planted the herb garden going, etc.  Last Friday I developed a sore on the back of my leg that was really irritating.  I assumed that it was a fire-ant bite, treated it with some hydrocortisone and tried to ignore it.  By the time we got home from Savannah it was really irritating.  The one thing I did with Janet before I put her to sleep was to drop my pants and show her the sore, asking if it looked like a boil was forming.  She thought not, though she expressed real concern at the inflammation. 

The nest morning, as I got out of the shower, it felt even more sore, and I had acquire some sores a little higher up, in the most sensitive of places.  I showed it to Jan again (not the sensitive places) and she observe that she though I had shingles.  I should call the Dr.  I did, and after narrating a description of the problem she got me an appointment that afternoon.  I have been just about worthless since that time.  Shingles, particularly in some of the places I have shingles, is not a pleasant experience, and if one more person says to me “Why didn;t you get the shots?”  There may be an instant assassination or attempt thereof.

We are scheduled to go into our timeshare at Hilton Head Sunday evening and part of me is rejoicing that there is little to do there but sit in the balcony and look at the Inland Waterway, or loll in the couch or the bed watching the forty six inch flat panel TV’s that litter the place.  The other part of me is worried about being away from home in a lot of pain and frustration,  (I am wondering if I can use the swimming pool etc, the way I am, and though Janet has a neat little blow-up envelope that she is supposed to be able to take into the pool, will she still be in such pain that she can’t.)

Life gets tegus some times, don’t it?