So I’ve been tryin’ ta slow it down
I’ve been tryin’ ta take it in
In this here today, gone tomorrow world we’re livin’ in
– Kenny Chesney’s Don’t Blink
A year has now passed since that day I walked in and found my wife sitting at the kitchen table and she calmly told me that her doctor had found a lump. You would think that will all of this upheaval that this is the year that could have seemed like it would have taken forever but it hasn’t. While it has been filled with surgeries and hardships, we’ve tried to fill it with other events and highlights to mix it up. The journey was tough but before we knew it we were through a surgery, on to recovery, back in to surgery, more recovery, etc. Three surgeries later and we still have at least one more, but we are moving on.
It is hard to move on though, because we have to respect where we’ve been. As part of our 15th anniversary, we spent some time away and took the time to reflect on the past year. You’d think that in a lifetime that this would be a throwaway year and one that you would want to chalk up as one you sweep under the rug and forget, but we agreed that our love grew for each other and our respect for each other and for ourselves grew as well. When your relationship takes a step forward you don’t throw out that year. So while in some ways the scars are still fresh and the dull aches are right there to remind us of what we’ve been through, the year has gone by some immensely fast. We’ve actually have done quite a lot and accomplshed quite a bit. I think it is because we didn’t procrastinate and sweat the little things. We just went for it even if we had to stretch a little further to get there. That said, time might have flown but we must have aged somehow.
I had to laugh this morning when I went to grab one of those Sunday-Saturday pill boxes to take a Centrum cardio pill. My wife told me I was grabbing the wrong one. I was grabbing the PM pill box and not the AM box. Last year we had no pill boxes and now we have one for AM and for PM! We sure get old and become our parents in a hurry! We had just had this conversation with some old classmates at a 30 year grammar school reunion. We were all complaining of aches and pains (everyone looked pretty good quite frankly) and it turns out several of my classmates also had gone through breast cancer recently. At the same time several others were now in their early forties and still having babies. Amazing. early 40s is not too young to be having breast cancer and still not too old to be having babies. Makes you scratch your head.
Meanwhile the beat goes on. My wife is prepping for another follow up surgery at the end of the summer yet stiill undergoing her monthly examinations and her clinical trial. They found some small indications of early osteoperosis but luckily her clinical trial has her taking medication to increase bone density. This is so crazy what they can find these days.
Speaking of aging I spoke with Dr. Ken Dychtwald, the reknowned gerontologist, today. We were talking about the recent rash of celebrity deaths and he reminded me that in previous generations these people would have died 15-20 years earlier but with the extended lifespan we are all enjoying through the miracles of modern medicine and science that instead of deaths happening ‘in threes” we will be seeing deaths in larger groups. “There are just simply going to be more people dying every day,” he said. I nodded and he smiled and continued, “That is why we live life harder every day. The secret to living longer is to live happier!” That coming from a man who gets remarried to his wife every year. to renew his vows.