Middle Ages/Dark Ages

Up until recently--this year, in fact--I'd been feeling pretty good about my aging process. Though I was technically well into middle age--the clock said I was pushing 50--folks usually assumed I was 7 to 10 years younger, say 40 or 42. Maybe they were just being kind, but I don't think so. And when I took an on-line quiz that measured actual (physiological) age vs. chronological age, I checked in at 44 years, more than five years younger than my real age, and this was after my brush with skin cancer in April.

But there was more to come-and it's still coming. In January, I'm slated to get a small, sleek (but not youthful), over the ear hearing aid, to compensate for the loss of 3/4 of the hearing in my left ear. Back in the spring, I'd woken up one morning and noticed that my hearing seemed muffled, but put off a visit to the doctor, and after my dermatologist discovered a small melanoma on my chest, my hearing problem went to the far back burner. (Yes, everything is relative).

In September, I started getting radiating pain on my lower right side and discovered, after a trip to the emergency room, that I was carrying a kidney stone, (and which I still have 4 months later, despite a lithotripsy procedure). I'm slated for another litho next Tuesday, and am hoping I won't have to have general anesthesia as I did the first time.

As I look back on the past year, one filled with medical procedures and the loss of two close friends/relations, I can't help but wonder what next year will bring. And then I remind myself to try to live in the current moment--or week or month--and just do "the next dumb thing."