The end is nigh

At least, that's what they tell me...

Because February is evidently Health Month for me, by March I will see four different medical professionals, including an orthopedist because I hurt my wing. The rest of my appointments are mostly just me visiting the various members of my medical team to make sure they’re doing OK.

So far, the most interesting thing that has happened during my multiple visits occurred at the office of my primary care physician, whom I visited for what I laughingly call an annual physical, though it’s actually something I do every six or so years or so. Upon my first meeting this physician years and years ago, he asked me how I was, and I answered with a statement that in Missouri means, “Fine, thank you.”

Only I said, “Pretty good, thanks. All my wounds are self-inflicted.”

And just like that, everything slowed down. He stood up, shut the door all the way and scooted closer to me on his little stool.

“What are you telling me?” he said, quietly.

It only took a moment and then I was horrified and I couldn’t back-track fast enough, couldn’t possibly reassure him sufficiently that I didn’t mean literal wounds. It’s like answering a “how are you” with '“upright and taking solids!” I am not cutting myself, not wounding myself in the least (at least, not wittingly), I’m great, better than great!

I reminded him of that earlier statement this week, and he laughed. He said he’d gone home that night and asked his North Carolina wife if she’d ever heard “all my wounds” statement before, and she had, and she reassured him.

In the course of this month’s hour-long poke-and-prod, my doctor told me I’m immensely healthy (I know!) and that I would probably live until age 85-90. He volunteered that last information. I hadn’t asked and how the hell would he know, anyway?

I haven’t thought much about death because there’s a part of me that still believes this goes on forever, and I will remain a part of it, and not just as a memory, either. But the day before my doctor visit, I got an email from the Social Security Administration saying that I could retire as of this past Monday. If I don’t precisely feel whatever my age is supposed to feel like, there are powers at work keeping close track, whether I acknowledge it or not. I know how this works. One day, I won’t be able to open the jelly jar. I’ll stop mowing my own yard, stop shoveling my own snow. I won’t scamper up ladders or try to lift things bigger than a car. And then I’ll die. The year my grandmother announced she wouldn’t start a garden was her last year on earth. Because I’m still thinking I’ll live forever, this is all still a little bit theoretical.

In other words, I’m not upset by all this, per se. At least, I’m not losing sleep. It’s just something I have to poke at for a while, like a new tooth. How did that get there?