When I hurt my foot a few months ago, I did what I usually do. Waited for it to go away. Silly me. I’m not twenty anymore and my assumptions about my body’s ‘autocorrect’ function are ancient history. I waited and waited some more and now I have to face the fact that it’s not improving. I should be grateful it didn’t get worse.
I had to go to the doctor. I’ve broken nothing, fortunately, but healing? Hmmm. Maybe. It’ll take time, says the doc. Time? I’m in short supply of that. And that’s the irony. When we’re young, we have all the time in the world. Now not so much. Yet, here I am, waiting much longer than I ever wanted for my foot to heal. Or not.
And that’s the next challenge. The doc said it might not heal. I might have to live with it. If that turns out to be the case, then I should probably be grateful that I won’t have to ‘live with it’ for decades. I won’t be around that long.
I’ve always said that I don’t fear death, that what I fear is what people will do to me while I’m trying to get there. The problem is that more things go wrong from one end of me to the other. I started with my foot, but I have a bum knee, too, something that can’t be fixed. The docs are waiting for it to get worse so they can justify a knee replacement, which I dread. My intestines — well, I won’t bore you with those unsavory details. Moving on up, there are my teeth. My dental bills would astound you. I go again next week. And as for my cataracts, the docs are waiting for those to get worse, too, so they can operate.
Oh joy. So much to look forward to. Not!