all the gold is in your teeth. I spent about 5 hours of my Saturday in the Emergency Room of my local hospital. It seemed a bit strange to walk in and say I wanted to see a Dr. since I didn’t appear to have anything wrong with me. Good thing they can’t scan your brain and see what’s really wrong with you. I went through the sign in, got called back to the inner regions for a urine sample, personal/medical information, and got my cute little wrist band so I could go back out to the waiting room, and wait…and wait…and wait…People come and go, and some of the same people came in and went out of the inner regions, which leads me to believe they had been there for hours and were there waiting for someone to receive treatment. One of the reasons that it took me so long to get in to see the Dr. happened about an hour after I had crawled into an uncomfortable chair in the corner that would accommodate two people and didn’t have that sappy metal bar as a divider. I was sprawled, watching an overhead television show when a woman in her 50’s or so came through the door and made arrangements to get a wheel chair.
A few minutes later she wheeled in a woman that must be her mother, up to the admitting window, and demanded, “This is an emergency!”
I was with her on that one.
The conversation was easily overheard, the woman was 88 years old and she had fallen. She was holding a blob of paper towels up to her nose/face area, there was blood. I simply closed my eyes and said a prayer for her. I couldn’t look at her. The overall picture was someone that was very over weight, aging badly, and in pain although she didn’t writhe or cry or wince, it was obvious she wasn’t doing well with it. She had skin bags under her eyes that were not the normal bags, more like three or four bags to each eye, and they were black. I just felt horrible for her.
After her daughter finished checking her in, she was left in the waiting room for close to half an hour. I am at a loss at times like these because clearly it is not my place to try and be consoling but there’s a feeling in the air that is very hard on the spirit.
She no sooner left the room than the 2nd reason I was there so long walked through the door. He was a tall, rangey looking gent that was in his 70’s and was brought in by a male friend that was probably 50. The tall gent had tissue stuffed up both nostrils and blood dripping off of them. He’d had a nose bleed for hours. He was admitted after about a half hour also.
I watched more TV and tried to crawl further into a hole.
When I thought I would never be called, I finally was and there was no room for me to wait in so I was given a bed in the hallway. I laid down and listened to the iPhone iPod and had a serious session with life. There is no upside to aging. I’m sorry kids, stuff it if you don’t believe me but it’s not like you’re 20 and you’re going to heal right up and kick ass tomorrow.
No one ever tells you that you burn easier after 50, did they tell you that? It’s on all the heated pain relief gimmicks in the drugstores so don’t take my word for it.
I just came off of Cipro for the UTI. One of the first things you read on the warnings is that people over 60 may have tendon problems from taking it, up to two months after you stop taking it, as in tendons may snap – especially the Achilles tendon. Wonderful…the cure kills you…or cripples you!
Did anyone ever tell you that your lower jaw moves forward as you age? Or that your head moves forward by about two inches and that’s why so many elderly people have neck/should problems? We start walking like birds, leading with our heads. There’s a lot more. But of course if we maintain optimal weight, and put in the exercise program we need to maintain a healthy body, we save ourselves a lot of pain and strain not to mention medication to control Blood Pressure and other things created by sitting and gluttony.
I really have been extremely fortunate to enter this life with a very healthy body. It’s just now, as I’ve reached the 60’ish age bracket, that I’m starting to go through a major reckoning with the future as I watch those around me and start experiencing more twinges and aging issues for myself. I hate it!
My bed in the hall was right across from the door of the elderly gent that had the nose bleed. The Dr. was in and out of his room several times and said something about putting a stint up the other nostril if it didn’t stop. It appeared to just be on a runner, blood dripping onto the floor from the tissue hanging out of his nose.
I completely understand death at the point that your body has broken down and you are in poor health and pain all the time. I completely understand wanting to live. There’s pain in staying and pain in letting go. There’s a point where you start to realize that things aren’t going to get better. That’s where I was as the Dr. came to talk to me.
No, I didn’t have a UTI. Umnhhhh. We tried another option, another scrip for a female issue…nah, not going to go into it here.
Home found me wondering why I have such a difficult time just accepting life as it’s meant to play out. I don’t know, I just don’t know why rebellion always rages in my head at the natural order of life, I can’t help but wonder why it has to be that way…
Life should be like a sunset, never standing still, always changing and adding more color and depth as it changes, and starting over again tomorrow.
Professional opinion here, Linda. The head does not automatically move forward two inches as you age. Most Americans are stuck in a fight-flight response to the world, and part of the physiology of the stress response is the spine taking that shape. I’ve worked with hundreds of seniors in my practice, and they don’t get that way, and if they have before they get to me, it’s still correctable, even in their 90s! ( and as a side note, I just looked up the spelling of “correctable”to see whether that was right or whether it was “correctible”, and BOTH are listed! I’ve never seen anything like that! Am I a geek or what, getting excited about that at 6AM?)
I should have corrected that to read that we have a tendency to lean into things, like the computer screen so we can view it better, driving, walking, and a variety of other things, it isn’t an auto-pilot type of thing. Yet, if we knew some of this beforehand perhaps some would work on maintaining posture throughout their lives. I was on a rant about aging, what can I say? It’s brutal and there are no choices, you is gonna do it.