Old age and other traumas

Are you as tired as I am of the "politics as usual" bull we get hit with every time we turn on the TV? Now that I'm looking at menopause through a rear view mirror,  I figured it was time to gripe about something else—my age, for instance. Having just celebrated another birthday, I'm probably a little more hyper about my age than normal. Which is why,  when I read in Genesis 24:1 that Abraham was "old and well stricken with age," I gasped. Well-stricken with age?

Looking that up in the dictionary wasn't very encouraging. It means "struck  or wounded; afflicted by something painful." Everybody tells me that old  age is simply a state of mind, not a disease.  But if the Good Book says it's an affliction, I'm ready to believe it. Painful affliction I can relate to.  This year I have survived the symptoms my body's deployed....and kept 26 doctors  gainfully employed! One doctor told me my cells are breaking down and forming a hard exterior crust. Naturally, I asked him if that means I'm a "crusty old broad."

"You're not so broad anymore," he said with a laugh."But you are weird!"

He explained that because the crusty layer keeps nutrients and oxygen from getting into my basic cells and prohibits toxins and waste products from getting out of them, nothing in my body works like it's  supposed to. Hence, the diagnosis of "weird." I've had so many infusions and enzymes lately, I feel like a walking agriculture lab. The  doc prescribed still another medicine and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to take this the rest of your life.

"Oh, yeah?" I asked. "Then why does it say in big letters, "NO REFILLS?"

Actually my life these days is sort of like visiting an all-you-can-eat buffet. What should  be hot is cold, what  should be firm is limp, and the buns are the biggest thing on the menu. Likewise everything that should be moist is dry, and what should be dry leaks.

For  awhile,  I went overboard on the healthy eating kick and ate only natural foods. Then I discovered that most people die  of natural causes. Don't you  think all those health nuts are going to feel really stupid, lying in hospitals dying of nothing?

While  it's true my body can no longer take a  direct hit from all those fats and calories, all is not lost. Going downhill, I'm picking up speed....I'm yawning  faster!