It’s a beautiful summer day here today; the kind of day that somehow reminds me of the summers of my youth. Maybe that’s just selective memory. They say that as we get older our memories tend to retain the happier memories more than the nastier ones, so maybe I’m just forgetting about those sweltering, summer vacation days of long ago before my parents could afford an air conditioner when I would lie in bed at night, clammy sheets sticking to me with sleep almost impossible.

No need for an air conditioner today, though. A very pleasant break from the hot, humid weather that has been the hallmark of this summer. Oh well, that’s what summer is. I’ll take it over winter any time, no matter how hot and humid. I don’t have to wear layer upon layer of clothing just to keep warm every time I go out of the house (and sometimes inside) and I don’t have to shovel humidity. And, unlike my childhood, I can enjoy the luxury (you mean it’s not a necessity?) of air conditioning.

I’ve just finished cutting my lawn, trimmed it up and blew all the grass clippings off the driveway. I filled all the bird feeders and washed out and filled the birdbath. I even took care of some Styrofoam packing material that needed to be broken down and put in the trash. (I sure hate doing that, but I can’t find any other way to get rid of it. They sure use a lot when packing something big, too.) Sure is nice to do something active for a change instead of sitting at my desk at work all day.

So far today it would seem that I have been doing my health a favor. Even if I’m not exercising, at least I’m on my feet, and a new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology indicates that people who sit more in their leisure time than stand are more likely to suffer higher rates of death and disease. Unfortunately, I sit all damn day at work and my leisure activities tend to be those (like sitting in front of the computer) that require sitting. Independent of that study I had been attempting to quit sitting so much. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that being on your feet more would be better for you than sitting on your ass. If nothing else you are actually using more muscles standing than sitting.

That is easier said than done, but I still need to do some laundry today and I hope to spend a little time in the workshop, so that will count against my sitting time. So, guess I better get up off my buns and do something!

Sigh.

It just keeps getting better. A trip to the optometrist yesterday could have been cheerier, but I suspect anything to do with my physical being is going to be less cheerful with each passing year.

I wear contact lenses, mostly because I can see “better” with them than with glasses. Let me explain “better.” If you are nearsighted, particularly as badly nearsighted as I am, you will notice a world of difference between wearing contacts and wearing glasses. It may be hard to understand if you haven’t had this experience, but with contacts everything looks “big” compared to how things look with glasses. Actually, it’s the reverse; with contact lenses everything looks normal, as it would to a person with good vision, but with glasses everything looks smaller, as though you were looking at things through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Sure, everything is clear, but it feels like the world has moved away from you. I much prefer the view with contacts.

As far as glasses are concerned, with the state of my aging eyes a single correction is no longer sufficient. You’re thinking I’m going to talk about bifocals? Hell, no – try trifocals. Bad enough to need correction for both distance and close-up; I also need correction for in-between to be able to see, for example, the computer screen. If you think it might be a little difficult using bifocals – needing to position my eyes just right for either seeing distances or for reading – you are correct. Add in that third division for trifocals and I can start to look like a bobble-head doll trying to find the right section of my glasses to look through, not to mention the neck strain that can result from that activity.

So why was my trip less than cheerful, aside from the fact that I couldn’t get everything taken care of in one trip and have to be back again in two weeks? After he examined my eyes he told me there are cataracts starting to form in both of my eyes. That is not unexpected as I get older, but in someone as nearsighted as I am cataracts apparently tend to appear earlier. My father had cataract surgery and I think my mother did, too, so if genetics plays a role, combined with my extreme nearsightedness, I’m a natural.

I’m not really as upset about it as I could be. Not too many years ago I would have been really depressed over such news as the prognosis would have most likely been eventual blindness. Today they have refined the surgical techniques to such a point that it is almost foolproof. The doctor said that they don’t even wait as long as they once did to do the surgery because they are now getting such good results. This is a good thing. Besides that, cataract surgery replaces the lens in you eye, which means that you are getting your correction built in. No more glasses! Well, maybe reading glasses, but I could live with that. Hell, I could live with a slight correction if I had to. At least it wouldn’t be the Coke-bottle-bottom glasses I need now.

So while getting older sucks for one more reason, at least it’s not something that is the end of the world. I’m sure that will come, though. Call me an optimist.

Some old farts hit sixty and feel like they are still forty, while others feel like they have entered a time warp and slipped through to eighty. You can count me among the latter, particularly after a day like today. No, I didn’t run a marathon or fight a bear, but I did cut my whole lawn, trim it all, and power blow all the trimmings off the driveway. Sure, it doesn’t sound like much . . . for someone who feels like they are forty, but for someone who feels like they are eighty it was a big deal.

The worst part was trimming the weeds along the fence in the back yard. I must have been cutting down the mosquitoes’ homes because they attacked me with a vengeance. I’m sure I looked like a spastic dancer out there, the way I was trying (and I do mean trying) to swat them away. Man, was I glad when I was done with that and could escape into the house.

Doing that much work when you are totally out of shape can be difficult, but quite honestly the sense of accomplishment outweighs the pain of sore and stiff muscles. Besides, I’m not so stupid that I don’t know I need to be active and do that kind of work in order to get back into shape and stay there.

Of course, yard work isn’t usually a daily thing so one must find other work to do to stay in shape, even if it means (gasp!) exercising. I make no excuses for myself. I freely admit that I don’t exercise because I hate to exercise. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think about exercising every day. If I could burn calories with intentions I would be dropping weight like a hot potato. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way.

There are two things that really start to screw up us older folks. The first is losing strength and the second is losing flexibility (which usually is accompanied by loss of balance – deadly in those of fragile bone). The way to fix that is to have a stretching program combined with a strength-training program. Yes, aerobic activity is needed too, but if you don’t maintain your strength and flexibility you won’t be able to do aerobic activities.

I have yet to get myself going on such a program. I bought some DVD’s of stretching and yoga programs and have yet to open them. I also have books on strength training for seniors (damn, I never imagined the day I would consider myself a “senior”) that I have perused, but that’s about it. One of these days I really have to sit down and make up an exercise program. The trick will be in getting up and doing it.

Damn, this getting old shit is for the birds. I’m walking around today like a lame dog that has only two legs. Last Saturday I spent some time helping my son carry a bunch of stuff out to the dumpster as well as walking around several stores with him. I was sore and aching by the end of the day, but that’s to be expected from an old guy who pretty much just sits at a computer all day.

Sunday morning I was a bit stiff and sore, but I managed to do my own grocery shopping without too much trouble walking. Later in the day, though, I sat down to eat a late lunch and watch a little television and fell asleep (no surprise there). When I woke up, I couldn’t straighten my leg. Somehow my left knee had “locked up.” I hobbled around for the rest of the day, hoping it would unlock, but such was not to be. I figured that a couple of ibuprofen and a good night’s sleep would sort it out, but it was just as bad this morning.

So here I am wondering whether I should just wait to see what happens or head to the doctor to have it checked out. Man, this is a pain, in more ways than one. My wish for you in your old age is to not have any structural problems. It’s too late for me.

Edited to add: Well, son of a gun! I woke up this morning (Tuesday) and stretched and – POP – my knee fell back into place. I guess my leg had relaxed enough to let me stretch because I sure couldn’t do that yesterday. So while it still hurts, at least I can walk on it more normally, though most people would probably not consider the way I walk to be “normal.” That knee replacement is starting to look better and better each day.

I went to the dentist today. One of the first questions the dental hygienist asked was, “Have you had any surgeries lately?” After responding with the appropriate “no,” I added that I am planning on having surgery this coming spring to replace my old, arthritic knee. Now I know why they ask that question.

She explained to me that if I have a surgery like that, the next time I come in for dental work of any kind they will have me take a rather massive amount of antibiotic an hour before any work is done. Apparently, with the large amount of bacteria that is usually present in the mouth, even cleaning your teeth can get some of those bacteria into your bloodstream where it will most likely go directly to the place on your body most susceptible to infection, in this case a replacement joint.

Sigh.

One more thing to worry about as I get older. Even the things that are supposed to help fix you up create potential hazards. Heck, just replacing the knee alone involves all sorts of risks. There’s a risk of infection, blood clots, nerve damage, poor healing, limited knee movement and other things, too. It almost makes you want to skip the whole thing.

On the other hand, the dentist said my teeth look good and to keep up the good work. I’m grateful for that. It looks like I will most likely be able to forego the false teeth that my parents needed as they got older (although my mother only required a bridge – something they don’t seem to do anymore). Then again, it would seem that my son is going to have even better teeth than I. At the age of almost thirty, he has never had a cavity in his life. I wish I could say the same. Ah, the benefits of advances in dentistry.

It seems that the older I get the more I worry about my health. That may sound like a “duh” statement, but bear me out.

I just spent a couple of days recovering from . . . I don’t know what. Something? Anything? Obviously something, but I could not come up with a self-diagnosis. Friday morning I was tired as heck and even had a hard time keeping my eyes open at work for the first few hours, which actually is abnormal. I felt kind of draggy all day, but just before my lunchtime the big boss in the company came to me for some information on a job we were producing as we spoke, and the information would not be available if I didn’t move quickly on it.

I paged the plant supervisor to ask him about the status of the job and he came to my office and told me they were just finishing it now, and if we hurried out to the plant we might be able to catch it in time. Now, he’s younger than I am and in much, much better shape, but as we walked way to the back of the plant I tried to keep up with him. What a laugh. I was practically running, and with these ol’ knees that’s not an easy thing to do. By the time we were eighty percent of the way there I had to start falling back. By the time I got the information I needed and got back to my office, my heart was pounding and I felt a bit lightheaded. Christ, I am out of shape.

The rest of the day I just did not feel well. Not anything definitive, just “off.” Later in the evening I had what I can only describe as a fleeting panic attack, where all of a sudden I felt like the world was going to end and I didn’t know what to do. It passed in only a few moments, but was very disturbing and concern over the episode lingered.

As usual, I went to sleep in my armchair with the television on. I woke up around 3:00 in the morning and reached for the remote control to turn the volume down and a wave of what can best be described as nausea swept over me. Not the kind of nausea that makes you want to puke, but the kind that makes you feel like the blood has drained out of your body. It was very, very weird, and I started wondering if I was having a heart attack.

This is where we get back to my opening statement. When I was a young man, I would have figured that I had a touch of the flu or something, but now that I am older, every little ache and pain that cannot be diagnosed specifically is translated into “Oh, oh, am I having a heart attack?” It’s like I’m just waiting for it to happen, as though I know it will. This should be no surprise, given that my mother dropped dead from a heart attack and my father went through two by-pass operations for his heart.

Every time I feel this way I battle with myself over whether I should go to the emergency room to have myself checked out or if I am really only suffering from something like the flu. I don’t want to delay having it checked out like my mother did and then die because of that decision, but I also don’t want to be an idiot and go have my heart attack diagnosed as indigestion.

The problem is that I just cannot seem to figure out the best way to handle this. Living alone adds to the concern. If I suddenly become unable to call for emergency help there is no one else here to do it for me. That puts the pressure on me to try to diagnose whatever I am feeling ahead of time to hopefully avoid that situation.

Maybe when I really have a heart attack I’ll know for sure, but the information about heart attacks says that not everyone experiences all the symptoms and not necessarily in the same way. This only adds to my indecision when I’m feeling crappy. I only hope that when (and note that I’m not saying “if”) the time comes, I’ll be able to figure it out in enough time to save my life. Of course, fate will play its little joke on me and I’ll be killed in a car accident and all my worrying about a heart attack will be for naught. At least I won’t be able to kick myself for having wasted time worrying.

I like to think of myself as a rational, thinking, reality-based human being. I don’t believe in effects without cause. I believe in personal responsibility. I believe in solving a problem using hard science based on hard evidence. I believe that society is best served with that kind of thinking. Somehow, though, all that goes out the window when it comes to running my own life.

As a rule, a living organism does whatever it can to assure survival. That is the first order of business for all life because without making that effort, life would cease to exist. Much of the effort made to survive is a based on the pain/pleasure, stimulus/response cycle. If you are in pain you do whatever you can to alleviate that pain. If you are a hungry lion, you go find an antelope to kill and eat. If you are an antelope, you look out for lions because being eaten is painful, to say the least.

Human beings aren’t wired quite as tightly as most other creatures on this earth. Oh sure, if we stick our hand into a fire the pain will cause us to pull it out, but we are also capable of pouring gasoline over ourselves and lighting ourselves on fire. Surely a lion or an antelope would watch that and think, “What the hell?”

So it is with our personal health – both physical and mental. In spite of hard evidence and painful personal experience, we can somehow ignore it all and continue behaving in a way that will only lead to self destruction. It truly is amazing that we have that capability. More than amazing, it is distressing. It calls into question our real capacity for rational thought, and I have to admit that I find myself in that situation.

There is no one that can grow old and retain one-hundred percent of their youthful bodily capacities. Given that obvious fact, would it also not be obvious that we should do everything that we can to delay the onset of any physical disability? Obvious, yes, but far from enabling, as I can personally attest. With old knees that have worn out, an aching back and rapidly vanishing strength and flexibility, you would think that weight loss and physical conditioning would be a priority. Well, the human brain inside my head doesn’t seem to be able to act on that.

It’s not a matter of rational thinking or lack of knowledge. I know what I should be doing and I know the consequences of not doing it, but somehow I cannot motivate myself to act. You would think that the pain that results from not acting would be sufficient to stimulate the response that would go far in relieving that pain, but once again, the human mind is capable of pitting the human body against itself.

Perhaps it is a matter of warring factions. While my body says, “Hey! Take better care of me. Lose some weight, get some exercise, eat better,” my mind is saying, “Hey, you’re depressed about your life, go ahead and eat what you want and blank out your emotions by mindlessly planting yourself in front of the television. Who needs exercise?” I’m afraid my mind has been winning.

The truth is that I’m sick of this war, but I can’t seem to facilitate a truce between the factions. Is this to be a war to the death? Well, technically, yes – I can’t get around that. The real question is how much more quickly that death will come without finding a reasonable compromise between my mind and my body. On the other hand, I have always found that in a conflict, compromise almost always means that both sides have lost, and I know that my body should not give up the fight for health, in spite of all the propaganda my mind throws at it.

I really do not want to spend the rest of my life, however much time that might be, in physical pain and suffering because of the frailties of my mind. Whether I can allow my mind to let go of the many issues that drive it close to the edge of insanity is questionable, but the results of not doing so are inevitable. In the end, as is usually the case, my life is pretty much in my own hands. What a sorry place for it to be.

I recently turned fifty-nine, only one short orbit of the sun away from a big decade milestone. A snapshot of the moment shows a man who is overweight, out of shape, living an unsettled life, and lucky if he actually makes it to sixty. Well, my friends, I not only intend to make it to sixty, I expect to make it to sixty healthier than I have been for the last ten years.

That is a big goal and judging from my past attempts, a smart man would be betting against me. The truth is, however, that it is not so much a goal as a necessity. I imagine there are many of you baby-boomers out there in the same condition. You have let your life become a bit too sedentary and have put on some (a lot of?) extra pounds and have lost muscle tone and mass. Getting out of a chair isn’t as easy as it used to be, and getting down on the floor and up again without holding onto something is darn near impossible.

Our changing hormones have not helped us with that either. For us guys, declining testosterone levels set the stage for reduced upper body strength, not to mention a general lack of libido. Supplementing with testosterone medications can lead, as it did in my case, to conditions conducive to prostate cancer, so unfortunately that isn’t a magic solution to the problem.

As we age, our bodies think that they need to hang onto body fat more tightly than in our youth, so we start our efforts to lose weight and gain muscle with a built-in handicap. Throw in the handicap of bad knees, hips and backs and no one would blame you for thinking that you might as well give up before you start. Well, many people do.

For good measure, let’s throw in one more road block – depression. With the ultimate end staring you in the face, knowing that you are not getting out of this alive, and knowing that you will never be the young person you once were, it can be easy to just say, “Why bother?” Good question, and I an afraid that I don’t have a single, all-purpose answer. I can come up with every platitude in the book, but in the end, we each have to find the spark somewhere within ourselves to want to carry on. I will offer only one hopeful thought – when you get into better physical shape, your mental state also improves, so if you can fake the desire to improve your situation long enough you may just find that it becomes a self-fulfilling situation.

So, here I am looking at a rather daunting task and trying to decide where to begin. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve done this, but hopefully I can make the lifestyle changes that will help me avoid the endless reruns of the same old story. Unfortunately, what is new this time is that my body is no longer that of a young man, or even a middle-aged man. As difficult as it is to accept, and believe me, it IS difficult to accept, I realize that I am at the early edge of being a “senior.”

I can’t just rip into myself with a hardcore approach to bodybuilding or I’m going to hurt myself so badly that I will only wind up setting myself back. I have to ease into this and, as much as I wish I could do this instantly, I need to accept the fact that it is going to take time. I also have to accept the fact that no matter what I do, I will never be able to look like some twenty-year-old hard body model, either.

So, here is where I am beginning – books and DVDs. I suppose that finding a personal trainer skilled in dealing with senior bodies is a good alternative, but I can’t afford that, even if I knew where to find one. Besides, it’s like having your house cleaned; you clean your house before the cleaners come so that they don’t think you live like a pig. I would have to be in better shape to go to a gym or to present myself to a trainer.

First place to go for me is Amazon.com. A search on “senior health” (and yes, it hurt to type that in) brings up several books and DVDs. A few additional searches and much reviewing later and I have ordered two books and three DVDs –

Strength Training Over 50: Stay Fit and Fabulous
Stretching, 20th Anniversary Revised Edition
Essential Yoga For Inflexible People
Yoga For Inflexible People
Energy Boost for Seniors

You will note the emphasis on flexibility. I think that this is very important as we get older. We tend to move a lot less than we used to and that serves to shorten and tighten muscles. We can be as skinny as a rail or as muscular as a pit bull, but if we are not flexible we will eventually wind up in a wheelchair or bedridden. Flexibility training also improves balance, which helps prevent one of the senior citizen’s greatest health threats – falls and broken bones.

You don’t see anything about diet listed, do you? That’s because I know what I need to do, and it really is simple. Eat less, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and avoid high carbohydrate, refined foods. I’ve been reading and doing the diet thing for years. I have had success but I have also yielded to convenience and emotional eating, which has brought me to my current state. Knowing that I have lost weight in the past gives me confidence that I can do it again.

As a side note, my wife is going to laugh at a lot of this. She’s been pushing these ideas for years. She will particularly get a kick out of me buying the book on stretching – a book that she has owned for years and that I never looked at even once. Then again, she’s not allowed to laugh until she is in as great a shape as I will be.

My books and DVDs are supposed to arrive today, so I expect to start developing my plan for getting into shape tonight. Actually, I’ve already started with the improved eating, but that alone will not fix my problems. The biggest pitfall I face is my past failure(s). It is very, very hard to start this with the expectation that I will succeed when my past record shows anything but. Still, if I stop before I start I won’t get anywhere. (Now there’s a deep thought.) I will also have wasted money on books and DVDs.

I cannot allow myself to think this way, and to tell the truth, it is getting to be a true life-or-death situation. I am no longer just playing with my health; I am in hand-to-hand combat with it. If I don’t beat the status quo, if I don’t defeat my complacency, if I don’t absolutely squash my inertia, I might as well just lay down and die now. It would be much less painful than the future that awaits me in the condition I am in.

I know this was a long post, and one that is pretty boring and self-centered, but I can’t help believing that many other boomers are fighting the same battle. I hope I can provide a little inspiration. In the worst case, I can be the bad example. Either way, here I go. Follow along with me if you wish.