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He's 59 tomorrow.
Mar. 22nd, 2005 09:44 amHe started smoking when he was 17. He's a man of large appetites; three daily packs of cigarettes joined his two favorite food groups, salt and potatoes, to make their presence known in his weight and blood pressure.
When he was 36, he joined a summer bowling league--his team was made of a few "strays," including a slightly strange woman who talked to him for hours on the parking lot afterwards, even though he had to get up very early the next morning. Soon, they added Sunday practice sessions, which led to mini-marathon Scrabble games, which led to a Saturday movie date--and they've never really been parted since.
Sometime in his forties, he developed diabetes; occasionally, he paid attention to his blood sugar, but that skill never really interested him--he's a hardware man (his brother-in-law once called him a hardware encyclopedia. That isn't far off.). You can't pin biology down to one spot and keep it there (which is one of the things that strange woman I mentioned likes about it!), so he'd call getting diet sodas "paying attention" to his diabetes, and otherwise kept doing things pretty much as he always had.
Because, you see, he's always been strong and healthy. Even after years of physically abusing his body, he seldom got sick. His blood pressure dropped dramatically when he took up martial arts in his forties (a couple years after the diabetes started), and stayed pretty good as long as he could keep working out. He had a few small problems that they paid careful attention to because of the diabetes (toe surgery anyone?), but recovered from them quite handily. He would let his Tae Kwon Do students punch him in the stomach as hard as they possibly could; when his wife did it, it was a game they called "oofing lessons" because he'd just said something that required punishment. Thing is, as impressive as his paunch was, the muscles guarding it were suitably hard, and nobody of normal size, strength and striking technique was going to hurt him (as long as he had warning, which was part of the oofing game), even with an elbow strike that made him step back to regain his balance.
When they got married, he promised his wife that he'd outlive her ("by one day" *slightly lumpy-throated smile*), but she was realistic enough to think she'd actually be lucky to have him till he was 60, considering his build (big! very big!), habits and personality. It seemed like a good bargain, though--and a couple years ago, she began to think they might at least celebrate their 25th anniversary.
Then came the 2004, the Year of the Doctor: in January, a flurry of preparation for lung surgery, that ended up with a favorible biopsy report; in May, chronic kidney failure (diabetics, pay close attention--this will always happen to you if you don't control your blood sugars well, although you may die of something else before it sets in, because it will take years; when it happens, though, they can't stop it. Yet.), closely followed by the appearance of a new spot in his lung, surgery, pneumonia, ventillators and slow recovery from the extreme debiliatation that ensued. And continuing decline in his kidney function. The last visit to the kidney doc, she said he'd probably be on dialysis before the end of the summer. He needs a kidney transplant, of course, but they don't do transplants in recent cancer patients because the immunosuppressants necessary to keep the new organ from being rejected will unmask or encourage cancer growth. It'll be more than a year (assuming no new cancer, which is a good bet--five-year survivability for his stage is in the 75% range) before they will consider a transplant.
It's still a good bargain--having him for 22 years is more luck than anyone is entitled to. But you have to pay the piper at some point--and he turns 59 tomorrow.
When he was 36, he joined a summer bowling league--his team was made of a few "strays," including a slightly strange woman who talked to him for hours on the parking lot afterwards, even though he had to get up very early the next morning. Soon, they added Sunday practice sessions, which led to mini-marathon Scrabble games, which led to a Saturday movie date--and they've never really been parted since.
Sometime in his forties, he developed diabetes; occasionally, he paid attention to his blood sugar, but that skill never really interested him--he's a hardware man (his brother-in-law once called him a hardware encyclopedia. That isn't far off.). You can't pin biology down to one spot and keep it there (which is one of the things that strange woman I mentioned likes about it!), so he'd call getting diet sodas "paying attention" to his diabetes, and otherwise kept doing things pretty much as he always had.
Because, you see, he's always been strong and healthy. Even after years of physically abusing his body, he seldom got sick. His blood pressure dropped dramatically when he took up martial arts in his forties (a couple years after the diabetes started), and stayed pretty good as long as he could keep working out. He had a few small problems that they paid careful attention to because of the diabetes (toe surgery anyone?), but recovered from them quite handily. He would let his Tae Kwon Do students punch him in the stomach as hard as they possibly could; when his wife did it, it was a game they called "oofing lessons" because he'd just said something that required punishment. Thing is, as impressive as his paunch was, the muscles guarding it were suitably hard, and nobody of normal size, strength and striking technique was going to hurt him (as long as he had warning, which was part of the oofing game), even with an elbow strike that made him step back to regain his balance.
When they got married, he promised his wife that he'd outlive her ("by one day" *slightly lumpy-throated smile*), but she was realistic enough to think she'd actually be lucky to have him till he was 60, considering his build (big! very big!), habits and personality. It seemed like a good bargain, though--and a couple years ago, she began to think they might at least celebrate their 25th anniversary.
Then came the 2004, the Year of the Doctor: in January, a flurry of preparation for lung surgery, that ended up with a favorible biopsy report; in May, chronic kidney failure (diabetics, pay close attention--this will always happen to you if you don't control your blood sugars well, although you may die of something else before it sets in, because it will take years; when it happens, though, they can't stop it. Yet.), closely followed by the appearance of a new spot in his lung, surgery, pneumonia, ventillators and slow recovery from the extreme debiliatation that ensued. And continuing decline in his kidney function. The last visit to the kidney doc, she said he'd probably be on dialysis before the end of the summer. He needs a kidney transplant, of course, but they don't do transplants in recent cancer patients because the immunosuppressants necessary to keep the new organ from being rejected will unmask or encourage cancer growth. It'll be more than a year (assuming no new cancer, which is a good bet--five-year survivability for his stage is in the 75% range) before they will consider a transplant.
It's still a good bargain--having him for 22 years is more luck than anyone is entitled to. But you have to pay the piper at some point--and he turns 59 tomorrow.
