Our family has a Nintendo Wii game console and we have a game called Wii Fit. When you first start the game, it asks for your age and height, then it weighs you on a board that you can buy for the console and you go through some balance exercises. The purpose of this is to determine your "Wii Fit Age" to see if you're at your ideal level of fitness. If you've seen pictures of me on this blog, you'll know I'm not an obese person. It's true that I have some balance problems, but I figured my "Wii Fit Age" wouldn't be too bad compared to my actual age (I'm in my 30s). So after going through the balance tests and answering the questions, do you know what my "Wii Fit Age" is?
85.
Eighty.
Five.
So, I think the Wii is really concerned about me now. Whenever Grace plays the game, it asks her when I'll be exercising again. I think if it had the ability, it would have called the paramedics or put me in a rest home. This is part of the reason why I really identify with old people these days. I'm an 85 year-old stuck in a 39 year-old's body. Everybody else in my family is all about keeping active and always being up and moving. Not me though. I'd be perfectly content doing nothing. Whenever I visit my grandparents at their retirement home in North Carolina, I love sitting with them reading the newspaper (did you finish the crossword?), reading books, playing Bridge, hearing their stories, and watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every night.
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| Jeopardy categories are really hard sometimes |
I also love chatting with their neighbors and comparing notes on our various infirmities.
We talk about doing water aerobics. "I can't stand it when they make the water too cold!! I don't know about you but it needs to be like bath water for me."
We talk about our balance problems. "Ooooh, I love your cane! Check mine out! Got it from my father-in-law!!"
I can discuss hearing issues. "Yep, my hearing is a little bad. I don't need a hearing aid yet, but I've got that ringing in my ear too."
We can gab about hospital stays. "I've been to ERs in San Antonio, Knoxville, Lompoc, Birmingham, Nashville, Denver, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, and New York. My favorite hospital would have to be Vanderbilt. Least favorite? Birmingham. They wouldn't even give me a pillow in the ER!"
And I can talk endlessly about drugs.
I could compare notes on blood thinners: "How do you like coumadin vs. heparin?"
Pain meds: "Yeah, I tried it all because nothing really worked. Percocet, vicodin, shot glasses of morphine, pain patches; they even gave me narcotic "pain suckers" when I went through radiation. If I had teenage kids, that would be a great thing to have around the house." (Note to any addicts reading this blog: I don't have any narcotics now, so please don't break into my house looking for drugs.)
Steroids; I've got a lot of stories about steroids. prednisone vs. decadron. I was on the max dosage of decadron (24 mg a day) and got so sick of it, I decided to quit taking it all at once without my doctor's knowledge. I soon discovered that quitting steroids without gradually tapering off them is a good way to get yourself killed. Steroids made me so moody, I used to cry during sappy Hallmark commercials. I was on wellbutrin to deal with depression from the steroids. Then, the wellbutrin caused me to have a grand mal seizure in front of my wife and sister-in-law. I was also taking stool softeners, laxatives, and eating as much fiber as possible because the steroids made me extremely constipated. My constipation got so bad that I developed hemorrhoids so I can talk to elderly people about that too. Plus, the steroids made me think about food. Nothing but food. I woke up wanting to eat and the craving never stopped. I gained sixty pounds and got stretch marks all over my stomach that never went away (so I guess I can talk to women about pregnancy stretch marks too. Yea for me).
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| Damn you and your corny commercials!!! |
I'm comfortable discussing nausea meds (zofran vs. phenergan; IV vs. oral).
I can talk crazy side effects (reglan and haldol give me panic attacks).
I can share my opinion on sleeping drugs (I saw a million tiny bugs on my sheets after a particularly high dose of ambien; I never felt very rested after nyquil; melatonin works but not if I take it every day; valium or ativan are ok for sleep, though that's not necessarily how they're intended; really the best medicine for me to get to sleep is tylenol and listening to classical music).
Do you want to ask me about reflux? (Apple cider vinegar is great if you have slow motility; nexium always clogs up my tube; tums never worked for me; I think lemon alka seltzer tastes pretty good; perforated ulcers are loads of fun and now I have enough carafate to drown in the stuff).
How about Eczema? I've tried all types of steroid creams. Triamcinolone cream works great.
Medical marijuana? Never smoked it but after radiation made me lose a bunch of weight I was prescribed a THC pill called marinol to give me the "munchies." Not only did this drug not make me eat more, they made my mouth and throat so dry that I vomited for 30 minutes and felt miserable. The doctor said this is a very rare side effect of THC and "maybe if you smoked marijuana as a kid, your body would be more adapted to THC and wouldn't have had this reaction." So, THANKS A LOT, MOM, FOR KEEPING ME OFF DRUGS! Kids, please don't use this as an excuse to smoke marijuana. It's a "very, very rare" side effect.
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| I swear the label on mine said something like, "WARNING: MAY CAUSE EXTREME HAPPINESS" |
Antibiotics. I've had bacterial meningitis, MRSA in my brain, and multiple bouts of pneumonia so I've had every type of antibiotic out there; IV antibiotics, antibiotic capsules, tablets, liquids and direct shots of antibiotics in my ass.
Constipation meds. Metamucil, miralax; having your wife administer dulcolax suppositories has been the best part of our marriage!
Supplements. You want to talk vitamins? I'm a bit of an expert on B, C, D, E, and K. Or, we could debate the merits of iron, calcium, magnesium, fish oil, probiotics, and low dose aspirin.
There are still plenty of drugs I haven't been prescribed--and I'm thankful for that--but I bet I can comfortably speak with your grandparents about most of the meds they're on right now. A little over a decade ago, the craziest drug I ever took was motrin (or "vitamin M" as we called it in the military). Now, I need pill cases and bring excel spreadsheets to doctor's appointments to keep track of the drugs I'm on. Target pharmacy loves me so much as a customer, that I get gift baskets for my loyalty. This is what I'm on right now and this is actually much less than what I've taken in the past:
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| I just ignore the drug interaction warnings. Is that wise? |
So yeah. I'm an old, old man.
Wait...did I take my neurontin this morning?
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