On Deterioration
Status report on my body:
Right shoulder — painful when lifting or reaching; likely partially torn rotator cuff.
Left foot and leg — regular numbness and weakness; possible nerve impingement.
Lower back and right hip — frequent, occasionally severe, stiffness with deteriorated spinal vertebrae; MRI needed.
Ears — profound hearing loss in right ear; hearing aids on the way.
Throat — voice hoarse more often than not.
Heart, left anterior descending artery — blocked; stent implanted; recovery continuing.
If it seems like it’s one thing after another, it’s because it is indeed one thing after another. That’s the deal when you get old.
It’s the deal even though I run, I lift weights, I do pushups, I hike. I’ve pretty remarkably come back from an almost-fatal heart attack. All in all, I get around pretty good. That is, for my age. Which is, of course, the problem.
On my next birthday, next spring, I will be 80 years old. I am among the older baby boomers, the first wave born right after the war. So, when I ask, which I do frequently, why is my body deteriorating, I know the answer: I’ve gotten old.
Our bodies deteriorate with age because of long-term, gradual accumulation of damage at every level — cells, tissues, organs and the systems that coordinate them. When we were younger, for decades the body was much better at repairing that damage, but if you’ve ever used duct tape you know this: repairs are never perfect. It’s sort of like patching a pothole over and over. Eventually the patches wear thin.
So, now the damage is piling up faster than it can be fixed while the repair mechanisms have weakened. According to what I’ve read, the mitochondria in our cells — whatever they are — are slowly getting less efficient while the DNA damage has accumulated, our hormone levels are lower, our immune system is weaker and we’ve lost most of our stem cell reserves. It means more things go wrong and when they do, healing is more difficult, recovery takes longer and regeneration is increasingly incomplete.
By the time we reach our 70s and 80s, the rate of damage and the rate of repair, which had been roughly balanced earlier in our lives, has broken down and fallen below a critical threshold. While we might have been generally OK in our 50s and 60s, a decade or so later all the different deficits begin to compound each other, making aging feel like it has speeded up. So, much less margin for error.
Which is why the partially torn rotator cuff, something I’ve lived with for years, seems sort of suddenly more painful, more restrictive. Which is why my friend Mitch had a cold recently that he couldn’t shake for weeks. Which is why my wife’s given up our traditional ice-skating outing because her bones have become more brittle and she can’t afford another fall.
Undoubtedly, the deterioration will continue, and even accelerate, and that — let’s be frank here — sucks. But it still remains so much better than the alternative.
And after all, while I may not be able to lift weights with my right shoulder, at least for the moment, I still can lift with my left one. And I will.