Hey! What Are You Doing Back There?

One of the tougher things that come along with age is sickness. The body starts to break down at a certain point and it gets harder and harder to keep things feeling right. Being completely out of shape obviously doesn’t help the situation but even those who take care of themselves find it a little harder to move than they did when they were young.

I go to the doctors now and the exams that get done are so much more invasive than they used to be. Not that that’s a bad thing. I kind of look forward to certain aspects of it. (Just kidding mom). The number of things they check for now are things that, when I was young, I never dreamed even existed. Of course the things that can go wrong are also greater than while young.

Actually, before I go on, I should put in a little warning. Parts of this might be found to be offensive to some. I may get a little more graphic than you may be used to. If that’s going to bother you then I suggest you get out now while the getting’s good.

I don’t know how to start this next part so I’ll just say it. The Prostate exam is nothing like you ever think it will be. Each one has it’s own special charms. From the moment I turned 40 it’s like a bell goes off in every Dr’s. Office I visit. The gloves come out and I’m told to turn around and put my hands on the table. Now, I’ve never been searched by the police, but I think I’d almost prefer that.

I remember the first time it was done. At the end of the exam, with a Dr. I’d known and been friendly with for 10 years or so, he asked how old I was. When I said I had just turned 40 he smirked and reached into the drawer for a new pair of gloves. He said,” Kevin, you’ve now reached the age where I get to legally violate you and, best of all, you’re gonna pay me for it.” He also told me it was going to bother me a hell of a lot more than him.

He wasn’t kidding. I would think it goes without saying that this is not something one would normally enjoy. Well, normally. So this became an uncomfortable, yet common, occurrence for me whenever I’d visit a Dr. for a normal checkup. I would actually try to avoid going just to not have to deal with it. I mean, think about it. It’s really odd, especially if you don’t have a regular Dr. that you know and have a relationship with. Not that kind of relationship! Get your mind out of the gutter.

There was a time, around 10 years ago or so, that I had an actual scare. I found that when I went to the bathroom there was, as the medical profession would say, blood in my stool. It was pretty scary. I went to urgent care and the Dr. happened to be someone I had never seen before. He was much older than I was used to and of course he had me strip down as he put on his magic gloves. He had me turn around and started doing his thing.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when someone has something poking him or her in places they’re not used to, it would seem that a normal reaction would be to “tighten” up as it were. Well, that’s what I did. My good Dr. seemed to have a problem with that. He asked, and I will never forget this, he asked if there was something wrong? He said I seemed really uncomfortable. Here was some old man, elbow deep in my ass, and he couldn’t figure out why I was “really uncomfortable”? Give me a break. It turned out that I was fine but it was an experience that, to say the least, was not one of my finer moments.

So now I have some serious questions about how I’m supposed to prepare myself when I go get an exam. I mean this man or woman, whomever it may be, is touching me in places that very few have gone before. I know, you’re all quite thankful for that, and you should be. But should I dress any nicer than I normally would, or might that make both the Dr. and myself a little uncomfortable? Should I wear nice cologne or maybe some fancy underwear? What if I dress down? Might the Dr. take that as a sign of disrespect and make the process much more painful than necessary? Wouldn’t that be a poke in the ass?

Sorry; I couldn’t help myself on that one.

All Or Nothing, Nothing In Between

I really think that old age is getting to me. Physically, it’s been showing for quite a while. Now, however, I’m starting to feel the effects mentally.

I don’t know exactly what you’d call it but my short-term memory is shot. For the last two or three weeks I can’t seem to remember anything that people tell me or show me at all. I mean it. It’s so embarrassing. I can’t seem to remember any plans I make and I constantly have the feeling that I’m missing something. Even when people ask me about future plans I have to hesitate because in the back of my mind I think I have made other commitments.

I take a pill everyday for heartburn. It’s a prescription. I even have one of those pill containers for each day of the week. I usually forget to fill it and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost track of whether I’ve taken the pill or not. The only way I can tell is when I’m awakened in the middle of the night with major heartburn like tonight. Oh, sure, I’ll take a pill now but it’s 1:30 in the morning and it takes an hour or so for the pill to work.

One suggestion I’ll surely get is to start writing things down. There is no way I could write down all the things I see or talk about every day. Besides, this came on so suddenly it really kind of scares me. I’ve always been one to remember everything. It’s always been a kind of source of pride. My memory has always been there for me to rely on and it’s not something I feel I can afford to lose, even partially.

I know that this could very easily be chalked up to getting older but I just don’t think that type of loss happens so fast. If it does, I hope it goes completely. I think the worst part of this is knowing. I have written in the past about mental illness and how horrible it must be if you know you suffer from it. Well, that’s my fear here. I don’t want to know about it. If I lose my memory at all, I want to lose all of it. I hate the way I’ve been feeling lately when I think I’m forgetting something. I literally feel like I’m going crazy. And this is the first time that’s ever bothered me.

I Think I Need A Shave

I haven’t shaved my head for almost two weeks now. This is the longest it’s been in about three years. I love saying that, the longest it’s been, like I’m back in the 70’s with hair to my shoulders. I think a gerbil has longer hair than I do right now. I think the style is called male pattern baldness. It seems to be pretty popular with guys my age.

I haven’t seen my hair in quite a while. It’s really pretty weird seeing it again. It’s kind of a salt n pepper color and that’s something that will take a while to get used to. To me it feels real thick in back. I know that’s just because I haven’t felt the back of my head with hair on it for quite a while, but still, it feels thicker than it should be.

I’m not sure if I like it. I think it makes me look older but the folks here at work don’t all agree. I look around and see other guys my age with the same crown of hair and I see how they let it grow in the back and have it tied up in a ponytail. I’m really not into that look. I think it just looks like someone trying to fake their age. I used to debate dyeing my beard, which comes in grey, but it just seems so ridiculous. I sort of flip flop on this whole looking younger thing. I don’t like the idea that we have to work so hard to keep our youthful appearance. Hell, the way I act seems to keep people wondering about my age that I sometimes wonder how old I am myself.

What’s really sad is that the only reason my hair has grown at all is because I’m just too lazy to shave it. If I let it go for more than a day or two it just takes so long to shave it that I just don’t want to do it. I think my biggest fear about having it like this is the thought that people would think that I’m one of those guys who are fooling themselves about my hair. Trust me folks, I know I’m bald. I’m the youngest of three brothers and I don’t know of a conversation in our lives that didn’t entail one of them telling me I was bald or in the process of getting there.

My Father is also bald. I think he’s one of those guys that kids himself. He wears a toupee, has since I was very young. It’s always been so obvious to anyone seeing him that he’s wearing a rug that I would wonder if he knew that they knew? He’s always made sure that even when home he would keep it on just in case someone would knock on the door. All four of us kids have some great stories of Dad hiding his baldness when the piece wasn’t around. It would always make me laugh when he wasn’t wearing it, how he would put his hand on top of his head. As if that would make it so people would not know he was bald.

I will say this about my follicly challenged scalp. It really doesn’t look bad completely shaved. I don’t have any marks or bumps on my head that make me look like some kind of alien. When I do shave I use baby oil before the shave cream and it gives my skin a nice glow and boy does it tan well. I think I’ll go home and shave.

The First Step Is Admitting The Problem

I am a talk radio junkie. I have been for much longer than it’s been popular. I started listening to talk radio around 1984. It started with Larry King. Before he was ever on television he was an overnight talk show host. I know this because I used to hear him while driving across the country during one of my many moves.

Back in the days before satellite radio, the only stations you could get out in the middle of nowhere were A.M. stations. And unless you wanted to listen to country music or religious radio, your only option was Larry King. They didn’t even have sports talk radio then.

Once I started listening I was always looking for more. Here I was in my mid 20’s and when a friend would get in the car with me and the radio would come on, I’d take all kinds of crap because the radio would be on and tuned to an A.M. station.

When I lived in Las Vegas from late ’84 till fall of ’87 I would have Larry talk me to sleep each night. I didn’t even have a bed. There I’d be, laying on the floor of my bedroom listening to “The Larry King Show”. If I happened to still be awake when the show ended there was an F.M. all news station that I could flip to.

I don’t even remember when I would listen to music but it seems I did. I remember getting into bands like REM and The B-52’s during that time but I didn’t have a car while in Vegas so I didn’t listen to music there. I even remember the call letters of the news station there, it was knew fm.
When I moved back to California in ’87 I found the all news station in Los Angeles and would listen to that all the time. I remember at some point they started broadcasting “60 Minutes” every Sunday night. That was pretty cool. I used to love listening to the network news at the top of the hour. The only time I’d find myself leaving the local talk stations was when there was a baseball game on another station.

After I got married in 1990 I still would try to listen to talk radio but it was pretty difficult with Shelly and the kids. Totally understandable how a four and eight year old kid didn’t care about the news or financial info. I would still get to listen when I was alone and after I got a job at the help desk for the company I was working for I could listen to my hearts content. It was 110 miles each way and I’d get in a good four hours round trip each day.

Another thing I started listening to in the 90’s was NPR. I could usually keep myself occupied for hours with the stories I’d hear on it. One of the programs I really like and still listen to is called “This American Life”. It’s kind of like a news magazine and it’s pretty cool.

One thing that’s great about having my IPOD is the Itunes that comes with it. If you go to the Itunes store you can download what they call podcasts for free. One of the free ones available is “This American Life” I’ve joined a gym recently and I love listening to the many talk programs I get from the itunes store. I know, I know, everybody else is listening to music to help pump them up and do their workout but I’m a talk radio freak. I can set myself on the treadmill for upwards of an hour and listen to an entire episode of “This American Life” before I’m done. I then switch to music and hit a few machines.

I find that I get bored with the music and invariably switch back to some talk program I’ve downloaded. I’m such a nerd.