HEALTH AND AGING
If you don't admire hypochondria, move along past this one and the next couple. I can't tell what's a healthy preoccupation with my own health, staying health and whole.
Robin pointed out today that my relationship to food is like his relationship to tobacco. There's some truth in that. I have a hard time not cleaning the plate. I binge on food I don't really enjoy. I over-order at fast food (which I try to avoid, unsuccessfully) and I over-buy healthy food at the farmers' market and Costco and at the grocery stores. And then it mulches in the mulch bins at the bottom of the refrigerator. But food is an issue for lots of people and my eating is much more episodic than Robin's smoking. None of what's healthy eating--like the health advantages to smoking tobacco--is news. It's all in the quantities and proportions. An average man of sedentary or moderately active habit needs just little over 2000 calories. Well yesterday I had a milkshake--only the beverage for a good sized lunch from Jack-in-the-Box, my newest favorite neighborhood pusher. The milkshake--(I'm not sure about the dairy content, actually) was macadamia--so I guess it was local food, and nuts are healthy, right?--was over a thousand calories. That would be half my dietary alliance. For the day. But I didn't stop with it, of course. What is that makes me, or anyone, eat when they're not hungry, don't particularly enjoy what they're consuming, and am not even particularly "down?" I understand from people who have actually starved that hunger can be actually painful. But I've not been there. I've fasted a few times for four or five days. The trick was to drink plenty and go out into the desert. The secret of fasting for Jesus or me is to somewhere where there's no food and committing to stay. So here's to a healthy, balanced, ecologically sound, and ethical diet.
But more what's on my mind is the condition of my hands. I've had tingling in my hands before--most notably during the AIDS rides and when I was "training" (if I could ever call such desultory riding that) back in the 2000s. But this time was something else. July 1st, driving from Derbyshire to Devon, my fingers started to tingle enough that Robin noticed me wiggling and shaking my hands. He was nervous enough with the driving on the left. He wasn't approved to drive the rental, was freaked out completely with the mirror-image driving, and is nervous (very nervous) with me in the driver's seat, anyway. No matter that we both learned to drive in Boston. No matter that I haven't had an accident (including weeks of driving in New Zealand and England over the years) since 1974. So of course I was nervous too. The endless chain or rotaries (in England they're "roundabouts" but I grew up in New England where they still exist as rotaries) didn't help. So at first I chalked my hands up to tension and the long drive. But then my leg started to hurt. Zinging right down from the heart of my right ass cheek down to the knee. Eventually it extended down my shin, wrapped around my ankle and big my foot like a snake. And then my toes started going numb. And my wrist hurt, and that extended up my arm almost to my shoulder. And of course my bum knee hurt like hell from endless walking in London and the country houses that I kept pushing through. This all continued until I got back to Hawaii. And then some. The doctor thought carpal tunnel but was surprised it began on both sides, to pretty much the same degree, simultaneously. Tests. maybe Rheumatoid Arthritis, which would have explained a lot. MRIs (head, lower back), more blood tests (no STIs, no HIV)(and ultimately no Rheumatoid Arthritis. Off to the neurologist who scheduled an another MRI on the upper back and neck--we know a lot about my spinal chord: it's good, EMG (Electromyography) and told me my legs are fine, my spine is good if a little worn and torn. "Bad, bad carpal tunnel.", though. That's apparently a diagnostic term. {More on physicians and diagnostic terms in another post}
So the conservative treatment is to keep wearing the wrist braces I've been wearing for two months, "since most people want to avoid surgery."
"I don't." I explained, heartily.
"Well, let's wait a couple more months."
"Let's do it by the end of the freaking year!" and I educated him about my "'AFFORDABLE' Care" health insurance which costs me 365$ a month with a 6000$ deductible--when I have no income. I'm determined every procedure I could possibly need in the next ten years is going to come in after my deductible this year. Nearly there.
"Well give it another month and a half."--"I'll give it a month and a half."--"And no exercise that puts pressure on the wrist." "And keep the braces on twenty four seven unless you have to take them off for washing or something.""And no biking."
So I'm banking on surgery in December. What I don't know yet are the drawbacks. I don't know if it will be arthroscopic. I image, out of consideration for Robin, that the month of December holds two surgeries a couple of weeks apart. Still no information about the occurrence in both hands at the same time. And no word about why the leg issue just disappeared (But I'm counting my blessings and not questioning them too closely.) Mercifully the pool at Makaha Valley Towers opened almost two weeks ago and treading water for an hour or so every day feels...well...therapeutic.
It always helps to sort of know what's going on and the immediate future is holding. Sort of.
Twice in a week. That's pretty good.
If you don't admire hypochondria, move along past this one and the next couple. I can't tell what's a healthy preoccupation with my own health, staying health and whole.
But more what's on my mind is the condition of my hands. I've had tingling in my hands before--most notably during the AIDS rides and when I was "training" (if I could ever call such desultory riding that) back in the 2000s. But this time was something else. July 1st, driving from Derbyshire to Devon, my fingers started to tingle enough that Robin noticed me wiggling and shaking my hands. He was nervous enough with the driving on the left. He wasn't approved to drive the rental, was freaked out completely with the mirror-image driving, and is nervous (very nervous) with me in the driver's seat, anyway. No matter that we both learned to drive in Boston. No matter that I haven't had an accident (including weeks of driving in New Zealand and England over the years) since 1974. So of course I was nervous too. The endless chain or rotaries (in England they're "roundabouts" but I grew up in New England where they still exist as rotaries) didn't help. So at first I chalked my hands up to tension and the long drive. But then my leg started to hurt. Zinging right down from the heart of my right ass cheek down to the knee. Eventually it extended down my shin, wrapped around my ankle and big my foot like a snake. And then my toes started going numb. And my wrist hurt, and that extended up my arm almost to my shoulder. And of course my bum knee hurt like hell from endless walking in London and the country houses that I kept pushing through. This all continued until I got back to Hawaii. And then some. The doctor thought carpal tunnel but was surprised it began on both sides, to pretty much the same degree, simultaneously. Tests. maybe Rheumatoid Arthritis, which would have explained a lot. MRIs (head, lower back), more blood tests (no STIs, no HIV)(and ultimately no Rheumatoid Arthritis. Off to the neurologist who scheduled an another MRI on the upper back and neck--we know a lot about my spinal chord: it's good, EMG (Electromyography) and told me my legs are fine, my spine is good if a little worn and torn. "Bad, bad carpal tunnel.", though. That's apparently a diagnostic term. {More on physicians and diagnostic terms in another post}
So the conservative treatment is to keep wearing the wrist braces I've been wearing for two months, "since most people want to avoid surgery."
"I don't." I explained, heartily.
"Well, let's wait a couple more months."
"Let's do it by the end of the freaking year!" and I educated him about my "'AFFORDABLE' Care" health insurance which costs me 365$ a month with a 6000$ deductible--when I have no income. I'm determined every procedure I could possibly need in the next ten years is going to come in after my deductible this year. Nearly there.
"Well give it another month and a half."--"I'll give it a month and a half."--"And no exercise that puts pressure on the wrist." "And keep the braces on twenty four seven unless you have to take them off for washing or something.""And no biking."
So I'm banking on surgery in December. What I don't know yet are the drawbacks. I don't know if it will be arthroscopic. I image, out of consideration for Robin, that the month of December holds two surgeries a couple of weeks apart. Still no information about the occurrence in both hands at the same time. And no word about why the leg issue just disappeared (But I'm counting my blessings and not questioning them too closely.) Mercifully the pool at Makaha Valley Towers opened almost two weeks ago and treading water for an hour or so every day feels...well...therapeutic.
It always helps to sort of know what's going on and the immediate future is holding. Sort of.
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