Old and ...

... Decrepit

Here I am about one week out from my 38th birthday and I'm a wreck.

About two weeks ago I leaned across the seat of my car to slide back the passenger seat. It was pushed forward because I was toolin' my daughter around in the Papamobile instead of her usual chariot. Anyway, about half-way through pushing back the seat (yes, I SHOULD have gotten out of the car, moved around to the other side and moved it back like a normal person ... but I didn't. Okay?) I heard a “pop” and my side started ... hurting. Really bad.

It didn't feel like anything was, um, out of place (read: “snapped in two”), but it sure felt like something had gone wrong. Because I had just attended a presentation at the local library where we were told that a parrot can exert 40+ pounds of pressure with its beak but it only takes 7 pounds of pressure to snap a finger, I immediately thought “cracked rib.” I was, after all, leaning on the arm rest and putting quite a lot of pressure on my side in my futile effort to “slide” the seat back. It COULD have been more than 7 pounds of pressure. “How much does it take to crack a rib?” was what I wanted to know. My inner dialog through wincing pain notwithstanding, my train was about 5 minutes out and I needed to get on it, so I wrote it off as a pulled muscle and headed for work.

ASIDE: No doubt Mr. Sub Conscious has something to do with this sort of thing happening as I get older because last year (about a week out from my birthday) I slammed my finger in the car door as I was ... moving the booster seat from my car to the other. It took six months for my nail to grow back. The plus side was that if I ever needed someone to leave my office because they were wearing out their welcome discussing everything BUT what they came in for, all I had to do was whip out the ol' mangled finger nail and I could get right back to work. Fortuitously, the smashed nail was also located on THAT finger. Yes, the “middle” one. Thank goodness I never needed to use it in that way, but can you imagine the power of the dreaded “double-whammy” finger? I could have lay a swath of rudeness and “fainting” spells (as the ultra conservative right is prone to do at the slightest whiff of “moral” impropriety – though often left immune to hypocrisy) throughout the US a mile wide with that jobber. Aside's Aside:Hey! Maybe I can smash my finger again in 2008 and run for president on the “finger” platform. All I'd have to do is wave it around at my campaign stops – the opposition would be SO offended and shocked at the notion of my waving a severely mangled, disgusting looking “rude gesture” on national television, they'd faint with such conviction, they might sleep through the November election!

So, here I was at work getting all sorts of great advice from co-workers and through instant messaging such as “Go see a doctor!” Okay, obviously you guys don't know me very well if you're making THAT ridiculous notion! Another good friend said that it might merely (MERELY!) be “separated.” I'm not sure what that means, but it also doesn't sound very ... good. Considering all the advice and heeding my own of “well, nothing FEELS out of place,” I decided to wait and see what happens.

Okay, if you've stuck with me this far, it gets shorter after this ... I promise.

So the subsequent week went about as one might expect. Terrible wincing pain upon ... well, MOST movement and, of course, most people needed me to actually get off my lazy butt and wander over to their desk to solve their tech problem dujour so I really wasn't able to give my side the rest I had hoped.

When the weekend finally and excruciatingly came (last weekend – Super Bowl weekend) my daughter and I were pretty booked up. On Sunday we went off to Brookfield Zoo to help celebrate Carver the Wombat's birthday. He is, apparently, the oldest living wombat in captivity. Being one who is partial to the little marsupials, I was more than happy to venture out on a partially rainy day to see the old guy. While holding my daughter up so she could see over the throngs of well-wishers (I kid you not, there were throngs....) I could feel (imagine?) things shifting around in my rib cage. A very disconcerting feeling I might add. Truth is, I think it was my imagination or simply “normal” shifting around of the joints because I came out of it with little extra pain – until the cold started.

Yes, of course I would get a cold because nothing feels better on the ol' internal organ shield than a big ... honkin ... SNEEZE. Yep. Each one was a new experience in pain. This new-found problem caused me to start bending in new and unusual ways to avoid the pain while minimizing the expellation of bodily fluids – sneeze stuff.

So already I'm quite the wreck, but these efforts to contain my sneezes in the least painful manner brought on ... back problems. You see, I have “issues” with my back. Over the past four years or so, she (she? why not...) and I have had the understanding that if she doesn't “go out” on me, then I will act in the most respectful and least damaging manner possible to ensure her minimal discomfort. In other words, no insane athletic activity that involves lifting massive amounts of weight or being hit such a manner as to upset the back. In other words, my normal sedentary activities.

And that brings us to today. I feel awful. The cold is in full swing, my back is twinging at the slightest provocation and my rib cage still feels like someone balled up their fist and punched me as hard as they could right in the ribs (but three days ago instead of 10 minutes ago – so improvement!) I have, however, developed a means of coughing that allows me to do so in a way that doesn't actually hurt but it's a little strange. When I feel one coming on, I'll bend over with my hands on the knees like an underutilized right-fielder (“Hey, batter, batter, batter! Sa-wing batter!”) and cough until the tickle is gone. While it's fine for me and just a little strange for those around me, it seems to freak out our two feline friends. Not more than 10 minutes ago I swear Preki (the cat, not the soccer player) ran out of the room yelling, “Mike Cat is going to hack the biggest hairball in history! Get him off the carpeting and onto the wood floor! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!” Or something like that.

So to summarize:

My side is killing me, I'm sick as a dog ... err, cat, and if I'm not extra careful until this cold goes away I could be looking at months of “back issues.”

Ah, it's great to get older isn't it?

I'm going to bed....

ASIDE: I'm a very private person. I have a few personal pictures up at work, but unless you're a close friend, you're not going to get a lot of details about my weekends or “how I'm doing.” Very likely, if you were a co-worker and asked how my weekend was, you'd get a very polite but short answer of “It was fine” rapidly segueing into “How was yours?” in an effort to quickly deflect the conversation onto the inquisitor. It works, though sometimes I wish I had the mangled finger tip back to cut them off when their weekend turns into a month. In that same light, I don't go around broadcasting when my birthday is. I'm not holding back on celebrating because of any “fear” of getting older – it makes a good joke (see above) but that's it – rather, I simply feel it's a personal matter for my family and close friends. While this blog is one of my efforts to be more open to the readers of ESC! Magazine, I ask that if you see me in person on or near my birthday (and a few of you do) and you happen to actually KNOW it's my birthday, please don't make a big deal of it because, while I don't mind that YOU know it's my birthday, I don't need everyone ELSE knowing – unless you're planning to buy me an iPod. For a 40gig iPod I'll wear a clown hat and do a Riverdance on the file cabinets outside the boss's office. Don't believe me? Try me....