I Did It

In the recent years, my body seems in revolt to the things I chose to do throughout my life. Early on in my life I chose many things that ultimately began a spiral of events in my fifties and sixties giving me pause of how I’m going to deal with my seventies and eighties. I fear some of my later years will be with a wheelchair, walker, or at best a cane to get from one place to another. A cane I have no problem with, in fact, if I had to walk with a cane in my later years, I would find it reassuring. What I didn’t expect or count on when I was younger was the pain associated with my wobbliness, strength loss, and loss of flexibility. I was trying to show my son the location of ankle pain for an upcoming surgery, and I couldn’t reach my hand to that side the ankle because my back is so stiff. I’m five months from getting Medicare, if it is still available and hasn’t been eliminated by the mega-rich loving administration currently in office. The realization of why these things are happening to me is the sad part. It all could have been eliminated by smart choices. I did it to myself and I know it.

I, like most kids, are subject to peer pressure. Playing football starting in the fourth grade. Not flag football, no this was full contact violence. Basketball is just as bad with the impact to ankles and knees. In sixth grade, I suffered my first major injury of someone stepping on my left elbow with cleats and tearing a tendon. For the rest of my life this has been an issue when it came to anything requiring strength. Lifting weights was always the most noticeable with my left arm lagging my right in a lift. Later on, I tore the bicep muscle in my right arm, and it retracted and I can only think this was a result of the compensation for my left arm. My first surgery was lower back surgery from blowing out a disk. Fourteen years later, I had a second surgery to add hardware for stability with a three-level fusion. Before retiring, I had to replace my left knee due to years of impact and in the seven years leading up to it, I was walking a fast-paced eight miles a days. I have numerous muscle tears in both shoulders rotator cuffs but none requiring surgery, just physical therapy and reduced levels of use. I’m waiting until Medicare eligible to fuse my ankle and correct a congenital shortened muscle in my calf. Hopefully, this will stop the pronation of my foot and eliminate the pain. My mobility and range of motion being the trade-off. I did it to myself and I know it.

I often wonder why I couldn’t have looked at fishing, bike riding, chess playing or any of the other multitude of sports and activities as viable. Baseball wasn’t eliminated from the late in life pain and certainly had much to do with my shoulders and wrist. Any number of things I could have done and been passionate about could have also provided a means of employment. Peer pressure is mostly the accelerant and to my wonderment of why these sports and activities weren’t more hobby-like instead of full force making a lifelong journey to perfection. Being a larger kid, coaches and other kids were constantly pushing me to be a part of the TEAM. Team sports I have no real ill-feeling towards, but I certainly didn’t want to push my kids into them, others did that for me. But, because I didn’t push, they were able to decide when they no longer wanted to be a part of the TEAM and chose to serve themselves first. They broke the mold of peer pressure in this family and I’m seeing that continue from my own kids. They all require their kids to participate in something, but they allow them not to be afraid to choose things that hopefully won’t wreck their bodies late in life. I did it to myself and I know I did.

However, it wasn’t all about sports causing problems. I chose to smoke at the age of seventeen and proceeded to smoke for most of the next thirty-two years. Varying amounts of per day smoking throughout the years. I recently was diagnosed with COPD. It is manageable through inhalers and pill popping and will give me many years of almost normal life as long as I don’t do things to exacerbate the symptoms that require mitigation. All those years smoking thinking it wouldn’t be me that would be affected, and I’ll be fine because I was an athlete and strong. Well, let me tell you, that is all bullshit, and you are only fooling yourself. These damaging things we do to ourselves will attack with vengeance and make you pay for your play. I’m not sure what is worse, not breathing and feeling that although you can suck in lots of air, it just isn’t being processed by your failing lungs or wondering if the next step you take will be the one that shoots pain through your leg so bad that it make you drop to the ground. And then that presence of an all-new challenge, getting up from the ground. I try to laugh about it mostly because I know I can still get up; it is just with effort and grunting. I did it to myself and I know it.

I’m just looking for a day when pain is minimized knowing it will never be gone. Moving around and getting the things done I need to accomplish for the day and not wonder why I did half of it later in the day when trying to get out of my chair. I’m disgusted with myself and what I’ve done to myself. I treated myself like crap and I had no respect for my body. But those things can change and I’m trying to do that for myself. I want to do things for whatever that means. And I’m tired of saying I did it to myself and I know it.