Tuesday humor from this WOACA

My younger co-worker sent this YouTube video to me today. He knows how cranky I've been since the operation. He sent it along to "cheer" me up.  It does.

 

P.S.  Make sure you watch this all the way to the end.

Navigating 60

"They" say

Friends since grade school  Cali visit 2008

•      "It's just a number" 
•      "You're only as old as you feel" 
•      "Looking good is better than feeling   good" 
•      "Confidence is everything."

My number is 61.  Of late, I've been feeling substantially older and there's no trade-off for not feeling good.  Confidence?  It lies somewhere between a good day at work and how well my makeup goes on in the morning.  

I'm on that precarious balance beam between aging and OLD AGE.  No matter how often I walk toe to heel up and down the beam, I lean in towards the tired and decrepit side.  Yes.  I "lean in" but not the way Sheryl Sandberg advocates.  I'm tired and mad as hell and I don't want to play any more!

Pitty party petulant?  You bet.  Envious of my retiring friends with money saved?  Yes again.  Fear of the future?  Definitely.

Class of 1969 H.S. Reunion held 2008

What to do?

Possible options:

• Plastic surgery
• Frequent facials
• More exercise, less food
• More time spent with old friends
• Create an exit strategy for when you retire or get fired

Of course, applying work strategies to personal problems may or may not be the best solution.  But it is a dispassionate approach.  I can already rule out the plastic surgery.   I'd have to dip into retirement funds and that ain't gonna happen.  I was getting frequent facials for a while and they helped.  They're expensive, however, at $60 per.  That means something else has to go and it's not going to be my hair cuts & color every six weeks.  Those will be the last thing I ever give up.

More time spent with old friends my age is the most appealing.   We can talk without flinching about things forty years back, an uncomfortable elephant in the room when meeting new people not clued in to our exact decade in life.  Being a "Sixties" kid is not what it used to be.  I like the camaraderie of shared experiences.  It binds and comforts us.

Party in Westlake Village, CA  2008

My husband and I are thinking hard about our next act, where to live and how to afford it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or experiences on the subject of retirement planning.  Even if you're not there yet, you probably have ideas along the lines of what you'll do.

Dan Aykroyd and I Have Something in Common

As described in my previous post, I recently underwent major surgery.  Part of the recovery involves being heavily medicated and taking a shit load of prescribed pills.  One of the requirements of post-op is a 4 week regimen of blood thinner, in my case, Coumadin.  It's something to which one doesn't give much credence unless one cuts a nick in their skin. I was told not to shave my legs, clip my cuticles, etc.  What I didn't think about was chewing a hangnail in the middle of a sleepless night while heavily doped on an opiate.

My finger started to bleed and bleed and bleed.  It wouldn't stop. It dripped all over my sheets and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.  I stumbled into the bathroom, ran it under cold water; applied rubbing alcohol, Bactine, a nice band aid.  The blood soaked through everything.  At this point I became nervous and started making a lot of noise so my husband would wake up and fix it.  He did.  He cleaned the cut (tiny one too), swathed it in bandages and tied it off with medical adhesive.  It finally stopped bleeding.

The next morning I realized I couldn't stop bleeding thanks to the Coumadin.  I'd had a Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child moment.  I now know just how he/she felt.

Off the Grid

Have you ever been rolling merrily along without a care in the world, only to receive an unexpected and unwelcome bit of news that sidelines you for a while?

That's what happened to me one month ago after visiting my orthopedist who originally replaced one of my two artificial hips.  He informed me I needed another new hip.

Yeah.  It's like this.

I was on a short vacation with the spousal unit.  I heard squeaking.  It wasn't the bed.  It was me!!  (Yes, I know what you're all thinking but it wasn't even during THAT).

WTF!?  My right hip produced a faint squeak if I moved a particular way. I could feel it too; the way one feels a cell phone on low vibrate.

I telephoned the doctor's office who had me scheduled the following week for X rays and a meeting with the doc.  I was hoping I had something that was nothing.  I knew better.  Squeaky parts are not consistent with functioning replacement prosthetics.

Three weeks later, I'm on the operating table, about to have the original prothesis removed and replaced in what is known as "revision" surgery.  I hadn't had time to process any of this.  I just accepted the urgent nature of the problem, a loosening prosthesis wearing unevenly on a polymer shielded hip joint with potential for fracture of the ceramic ball atop the femur.

I have been off the grid since early May when this began.  I wanted to write but heavy drugs don't stimulate creativity regardless of what some folks say.  As of last Wednesday, I weaned off the opiates and  am hoping Tylenol will hold me til I see the doc this week on my 4 week post-op follow up.

All I can say is, at the tender age of 61, three hip replacements and a knee replacement are not what I foresaw when I imagined growing old gracefully.

Snowden and Ellsberg: Are Comparisons Valid?

The NPR headline reads "Daniel Ellsberg Expected Life in Prison After Leaking Pentagon Papers".  

  

 Daniel Ellsberg was called a "traitor" and every other name in the book. I was in high school. I remember. He may still be that in the eyes of a few, but for the most part, history has exonerated his actions. It's easy to compare Edward Snowden to Daniel Ellsberg because he appears to have done us all a service revealing this information on the NSA's government sanctioned overview of private phone calls of private citizens, aka, you and me.

The Political Carnival referenced this LA Times article with a fresh perspective on the revelations of Edward Snowden, focusing on, not whether or not he's a traitor but rather if the information he reveals is true. 

"Standing on principle is meaningless if there is no risk attached. That’s his cross to bear.But in the greater scheme of things, the 29-year-old infrastructure analyst did the country a service.Even President Obama, while condemning the leak, seemed to acknowledge as much. “I welcome this debate,” Obama said last week. “And I think it's healthy for our democracy.”    

BREAKING NEWS: Genes May Not Be Patented

This is HUGE.  The Supreme Court has unanimously decided human genes may not be patented.  

The US Supreme Court unanimously decided Thursday that human genes cannot be patented, in a landmark decision that is seen as a major win for researchers and patients, who have argued that allowing patents on human genes impedes research and harms patients’ ability to find out their risk for disease.   boston.com

Having read "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" last year, I can only wonder what her family is feeling right now.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.   Rebecca Skloot, author of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"

Given all that's ongoing in our country now, the invasion of personal privacy without our knowledge or consent, the government's callous disregard of First Fourth & possibly Ninth Amendment rights, this is a very large victory.