New thoughts.

I was going to write a thing without any whining, but since the theme of the blog started out to deal with the process of aging, I will mention some elements of that process.

My back yard is a disaster.  I have two riding lawn mowers who seem to have permanent resident status in the small engine repair shop.  When things get tall enough, the hand lawn mower is a task that neither my shoulders nor my legs handle well.  Fortunately I have a six or seven foot privacy fence around the back yard or the neighborhood association would have had my ears by now.

I actually have been alternating between a string trimmer and a hedge trimmer to cut weeds in preparation for hand mowing.  I also have some branches growing down in inconvenient places so i got out the trusty chain saw to remove them.  Much to my disgust, my shoulders are so painful that I can’t pull the starter chain.  The chain saws (both of them) sit there and snicker as they see me coming.  I don’t know how successful it will be, but when my wife asked me what I would like for Father’s Day, I asked for an electric chain saw.

I had a request from a local Boy Scout troop for a financial contribution, so I offered the troop a couple of hundred dollars if they would come clean out my back yard.  They came and looked at it.  I haven’t heard any word from them since, not even an offer at a higher price.

Janet was treated some years ago for rheumatoid arthritis, but the rheumatologist said that her tests were coming up pretty well and he suggested that we save the money.  She recently has been in such pain from her leg (femur broken in several places and patched with metal plates) and the bone in her shin is just randomly painful.  Last weekend, her hands were so painful that she stayed home from church (unusual), so our family doctor rain the “rheumatic”  tests again, and they are out of sight.  She is back on methatrexate, which she hated before, and on low dose prednisone, which seems to help a  lot.  My neurologist sympathized with my shoulder pain and has giving me a dose pack of prednisone  which has really helped my back in the past,  My shoulders seem to be “shrugging it off” (note, poor attempt at pun).

Unrelated to anything else, but one symptom of old age is that instead of having “my  doctor” one begins to have “my neurologist”, “my cardiologist”, “my nephrologist “ (which, until I got one, I never knew that they existed under that name), “my urologist”, “my orthopedist” and , I shudder to think which new kind of “ist” I will acquire next.

I spent some time the other day thinking of wittty social commentary , but when i sit down to the computer I can’t remember what it was.  (Half witty, I guess)