Sickness and Demise by Google

I was just about to start this off with the admonition to all you wonderful people, "Don't Get Old!".......then I realized that the alternative is not very inviting so I take back the command.  Actually getting old is a very interesting process full of surprises (i.e that's funny.....I always used to be able to reach down there to put my socks on),  shocking discoveries (when the Gallup Poll asks me whether I expect my situation to be to be better, worse, or the same in 10 years (as they often do about different life situations)  just thinking about it scares the shit out of me.......I have absolutely no answer...... "damned if I know where I will be in 10 years, you insensitive dolt" doesn't have a box to be checked........I just click on "next"   and pray it is not as threatening. 

Perhaps one of the funniest things about getting old is the fact that, on your bad days,  you and your peers often have a lot of the same vague but possibly ominous symptoms but, in my case, only I have a computer....(these old biddies who refuse to move into the 21st century really burn my ass) ...consequently I have to be prepared to receive phone calls at any hour of the day or nite with an anxious, quavering voice pressing me to look up this kind of pain in the foot just above the big toe or that kind of strange eruption or rash on the hiney  or what could be causing a person to be unable to lift her legs and get out of bed in the morning and off I am dispatched to see what the oracle called Google offers as diagnosis. 

(Fortunately for that last mentioned condition I was able to diagnose it myself by asking how many blankets and quilts were keeping her warm and found the weight of same to be so heavy that it is a wonder she could ever walk again...removal of half of them resulted in an instant cure.......ah well.....)  But that Google can be a menace as well as an aid.........by the time I finish looking at the pictures and reading the dire predictions I usually come down the the very same affliction and can't rid myself of it till my next visit to the doctor whereupon he manages to dispel my fears without making me feel like a total unadulterated idiot.  I have always had a tendency to slight hypochondria
and Google is NO  place for hypochondriacs I can tell you.  I have decided, that for my own self protection, I must shut down my practice as medical intermediary or risk being stricken down before my time by somebody else's ailments.

I'll be very honest....I did not envision having these particular weird problems in my old age.......but I guess that is precisely the crux of the matter.....hardly anyone bothers to picture themselves in their old age and no one can imagine what old age is like till you are sunk into it up the the armpits.   Worse yet, there isn't a single damned book out there to properly describe or warn you of what to expect.  I guess that is why it still remains an adventure of some sort or another.........