My body is determined to let me know that forty is just around the corner, and to process this, I thought I would make like an elderly person and share my physical ailments.

Lately I have been experiencing considerable discomfort and some pain at the part of my foot where my arch borders on my heels. In response to this, I jumped on the web and googled “heel pain” and after wading through a couple of pages I came across a malady known as a “bone spur” that is related to another malady called “plantar fasciitis”. A bone spur is a little growth on the heel bone and plantar fasciitis is when the soft tissue that surrounds this spur becomes inflamed. It is this inflammation that causes the pain. Although I cannot say for sure that I am afflicted by these two maladies, when the various sites I consulted said that middle aged people are most susceptible, and that often there is pain after a night’s sleep due to the soft tissue becoming contracted, which is when I typically experience this pain, I think I have good reason to believe that I am indeed the victim of bone spurs.

I always thought that when I got older I would likely be dealing with my fair share of physical issues as my parents had their fair share, but I thought older wasn’t till my mid-fifties. Along with this, I still view myself in many ways as one who is just out of college. Over the past couple of years, however, in the face of receding gums, mildly thinning hair, periodic back pain, unintentional grunts when getting up from low chairs, occasional random popping sounds, and some digestive issues, the fact of my getting older is undeniable. My body is schooling my mind telling it to recalibrate my sense of self to match my demographic category: middle age.

And yet, there is a part of me, a strong part of me, that refuses to give in. Along with Dylan Thomas, I will “not go gentle into that good night”. Consequently I am working on a plan to make changes in my life so that I will be kickin some ass into my eighties, and perhaps beyond. Of course, the mere fact that I have to make these changes just to maintain my previous level of functionality is an indication of getting older. My younger body had the resilience to withstand all the abuse that I put it through. By contrast, nowadays even the slightest abuse results in significant consequences: too much coffee equals too much toilet time, too much food equals to much gut, too little sleep equals grossly bloodshot eyes framed by dark circles, and too little exercise results in slow but persistently advancing aches and pains upon my body.

Having said all of this, I want to be careful to balance the fight with the kind of wise acceptance that generally comes with age. Indeed aging is a natural part of life and on some level it needs to be graciously affirmed. As I see it, however, I have at least another twenty years to work on establishing this kind of balance. In the mean time, I am going to pop a few vitamins, some probiotics, and an occasional antacid to help buttress my resolve to follow through on my plan to keep the symptoms of aging at bay.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 7:29 am and is filed under Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.