It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want To

My birthday is approaching….. rapidly. Like a freight train rumbling off a cliff. It is a “milestone” birthday. You know, the ones that end in 0? One of those birthdays. And, sadly, the first digit is not a 5. (heavy sigh)

My wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her a “KEEP OFF THE GRASS” sign for the front yard (damn kids). Okay, I’m not there (yet). The truth is that I still like the neighbourhood kids. But I can feel it coming and it’s starting to worry me. I just know it. He’s in there somewhere, my inner curmudgeon, and one of these days he is going to come bursting out like the birth scene in Alien and when that happens, well, please pray for my friends and loved ones while there’s still time.

It will be all downhill after that. I can picture myself standing behind the living room window glaring at kids and chasing them out of my yard. I will become the second coming of George – a former neighbor whose sole purpose in life, based on all available empirical evidence, was to pee on everyone else’s parade. When the day does finally come, red plaid Bermuda shorts, sandals and black ankle socks will start to seem fashionable. So will wearing my pants up so high under my armpits that I will have to unzip my fly to scratch my chest. You’ll see me driving in the fast lane at half the posted speed limit with my turn signal in a perpetual state of “on.” And I’ll be doing it all while wearing a really ugly brown cardigan with unevenly buttoned buttons. 

But I promise, and you have my word on this, that no matter how old I get, I will never, ever cut the grass in short shorts and no shirt. We've all seen that guy. Every neighbourhood has one. Sixty-two going on seventeen. He has apparently not looked in a full-length mirror since 1967. You've seen him pushing the lawn mower around his front yard wearing the same shorts that he wore in high school, beer gut rubbing on the mower handle, big hairy man-boobs flapping in the breeze, children throwing up on their bicycles at the sight of him when they ride by. I promise I will never be that guy.

I had a neighbour who used to cut her grass in a French-cut bathing suit and high heels (I am not making this up). It was as if she was a contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant and her talent was lawn mowing. Maybe she thought she’d cut the grass and aerate it at the same time. I don’t know. But I digress.….

So as I take my next step toward membership in the International Order of Coots, I’m looking back at the last few years. It’s been interesting. I’ve learned a lot.

I've learned to (try to) laugh at things that I have no control over, which, in this day and age, is practically everything. This is especially true with politics. The antics of Iron Steve and Crazy Greg really make me want to bang my head against a brick wall. Instead, I just try to laugh (usually the laugh of a crazy man) and then pour myself a nice stiff rye. I am really looking forward to what the federal Conservatives are going to do once they get voted out in the next election. I know it’s going to be something in the area of entertainment because they've certainly done an admirable job of turning the federal government into a 3-ring circus. It’s true what they say: Anyone smart enough to run the country is too smart to get into politics.

I've also learned a lot about finances. One of the great financial truths that I have discovered is that pensions are a lot like hospital gowns – you think there’s enough there to cover you but somehow you always wind up with an exposed flank.

I’m even thinking of writing a book. It will be called Bankruptcy In Three Easy Steps.

There will be a section called The Joy of University Tuition or How to Invest in the Fiction of The Empty Nest.

There will also be a lengthy section on home renovations called How to Spend So Much Money On Your House That You Can No Longer Afford To Live In It. It will showcase all kinds of home renovations you can undertake if you feel your bank balance is too high. And there will be lots of helpful tips, too. For example, when having hardwood installed, always hire the Russian Mafia to do the work. They’re scary, but in an entertaining kind of way. And if you’re thinking about redoing your bathroom, seriously consider a concrete countertop (I love my concrete countertop). But you should first gain an understanding of how much concrete actually weighs and keep the number of a good hernia specialist on speed dial.

The third section will be about my daughter’s wedding – a quick and easy way to empty unwanted savings accounts. For the record, I am so thankful that my daughter understands the value of a dollar and will not be appearing on any of those $100,000 wedding shows that you see on TV. Yet, despite my daughter’s frugal nature, I am still experienced enough to write an entire sub-chapter on the art of nickel and dime and how to turn a $22 meal into $75/plate. If car manufacturers priced their cars the way wedding caterers price their wedding receptions, the average Chevy would cost $1.6 million.

The other aspect of life where I have acquired far more knowledge than I ever thought I would (or cared to, if I’m being honest) is how the human body functions and the effects of aging. Ask me about the renal system. I dare you.

As your body ages, you will find that it needs more and more assistance to function properly and, as a result, you will have to bring an ever increasing portion of the drug store with you when you travel. As you traverse the labyrinth called Airport Security you will meet security agents who will look warily at the plethora of drugs in your possession and expect you to explain what each one is and what function it performs. Here’s a helpful tip: if there is more than one security line, always pick the one with the oldest agent. They are far more likely to understand.

I take a drug called K-Lyte which is a tablet that you dissolve in water. They are large, flat tablets, a little bigger than a loonie, and come in individual foil packages. I left one sitting on my desk at work once and someone mistook it for a condom (HR and I had a real good laugh about that, once the inquisition ended). I had an airport security agent ask me about them once and I told him they helped cut down on kidney stones. His eyes lit up and he shouted, “Really? I HATE those things!” (for the record, I've never met anyone who liked them). His exclamation, however, caused all motion in the security area to stop as all eyes turned and locked onto me. A tiny little voice in the back of my head began to shout, “RUN!” But by the end of my visit with security that day, the agent and I had become friends (birds of a feather, I suppose) and he was planning a spirited discussion with his doctor as to why he had never heard of this wonder drug.

As you progress in age there are other medical milestones for you to embrace along the way. One of the most notable is the one that occurs when a man hits 50. At 50, all men get to endure the clearest and most obvious indicator that they have reached the downhill side of middle age: the colonoscopy.

They call it “a procedure.” That’s because if they called it what it really is – sticking flashlights, cameras and various medical implements up your bum – no-one would bother having it and that would be bad for business. So, instead, you have “a procedure.” You lay on your side in the fetal position while the doctor (and apparently an entire film crew from IMAX) go up there and have (and this is the medical term) “a little look-see.” And when they’re done (and this is absolutely true) you are presented with colour, glossy photographs of the inside of your colon. I made mine into a coffee table book.

  

However, something that people who have never experienced the joy that is the colonoscopy may not know is that, in order to ensure that they have a nice clear view, they inflate your colon with compressed air. This introduces an interesting by-product. Farts.

You are heavily doped up for “the procedure” so you have to have someone come to pick you up and drive you home. This honour fell to my lovely and extremely understanding wife. As we were driving home, the drugs began to wear off and I slowly became aware of an unusual sound in the car. It was me! I was farting – long and loud! There is no smell. It’s just air. The stinky stuff left the night before in yet another aspect of “the procedure” which, in my opinion, is simply not advertised to the extent that it should be.

So as I’m sitting in the passenger seat, I start to become aware that I am making sounds that would make any 12-year-old boy howl with laughter. The pitch was wavering up and down and there was the occasional crescendo thrown in for good measure. At one point I remember saying to my wife, “I think I could play a tune!” She just stared at me briefly, rolled her eyes and then the car experienced a noticeable increase in speed.

But think of the possibilities. I imagined the announcer for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra coming out and saying, “And now we will be featuring our tuba section performing an original composition entitled, ‘Flatulence,’ by Mr. A. R. Mechler.” But I digress……

It came to me in a moment of clarity several days later. Ever since “the procedure” I had had this vague recollection of being in a small room with 7 or 8 other people who kept looking at me. Some stared openly. Others kept throwing furtive glances in my direction. And there was giggling. I distinctly remembered giggling. And then it hit me. Once they clear you to go home, they call your designated driver and then take you to a waiting area where you sit and wait to be picked up. I had been sitting in the waiting area in my disoriented, anesthetically-induced fog and the compressed air had begun leaking out of me. Yes! I had been sitting there, apparently playing the theme from Star Wars with my ass, and entertaining an entire room full of people. And I wasn't even aware I was doing it! I never even got to pass the hat and collect tips.

Which brings me to one last talking point on the subject of aging.

As I have alluded to several times already, everyone has a personal cross to bear and mine is kidney stones.

Over the years I have had periods where I made stones with such alarming frequency that my urologist once pronounced me the most prolific stone producer he had ever encountered. This is not an award you want to win. It’s not even an honour being nominated. In fact, as I’m sitting here typing this, I have what feels like a pretty good sized one sitting in my right ureter. Fun!

The first stone I ever produced was the size of a small grain of sand and it created a pain so far past unimaginable that I couldn't even begin to describe it. I thought my appendix had exploded. When in the throes of a serious kidney attack, it is impossible to find a comfortable position. Mine had me lying in the fetal position on the cool linoleum of the ER examination room floor. I was on the floor because I kept throwing myself off the examination table in the hopes that I would break my neck. But no such luck. So I laid there on the floor, pleading with God to “just take me now,” and this is when I learned my first important piece of information about kidney stones. Morphine is your friend.

Now, twenty years later, I produce stones of sufficient size and weight that, if thrown correctly, they can chip the windshield of your car. And I hardly even notice. I drop them at home…. at work…. in restaurants…. at the grocery store… you name it. I just go into the bathroom and, plink, there it is. Oh, the big ones are still kind of annoying but they rarely involve trips to Emergency anymore. I can even tell you the size of a stone just by the tone of the “tink” it makes when it hits the porcelain. Experience is a great teacher. My personal best for stones passed without the benefit of a hospital (and the drugs therein) is 10mm. That one didn't make a "tink." It was more like a "thud." 

But, just like post-colonoscopy farts, kidney stones are not without their humourous moments. And I have had several.

Over the years I’ve had to have kidney surgery seven times, partly because the stones were just too stubborn to pass on their own and partly because my body had not yet learned how to pass them as efficiently as it does today.

After having surgery, people who have never had a stone will often want to know about the surgery and sometimes they will ask where they make the incision and how big it is. This is when you get to tell them that there is no incision – they use the opening which God has thoughtfully provided. When I was 30, if you had told me that there was a pain so intense and so exquisite that I would not only allow, but I would want, to have razor sharp, surgical steel instruments pushed up my willie, I would have laughed you out of the room. Not anymore.

When you tell them about the procedure used to get the stone out, it may take a second or two to sink in but, when it does, it’s really funny. Especially if you are explaining it to a man. You can actually see the colour drain from his face. His knees will get weak and start to buckle and he will almost always involuntarily reach for his crotch. It’s usually a good idea to have a chair nearby because he’s going to need to sit down.

Something else that I have learned from my seven visits to the operating room is that anesthesiologists are weird. I've never met one yet who didn't think he was the second coming of Shecky Greene. They kibitz, they joke, they tease you about what they’re going to do to you while you’re out. They’re just goofy! By your seventh trip through the O.R., you get used to it. But on your first time, having a front row seat for a performance at Yuk Yuks is really not what you were expecting when they wheeled you into the room.

When you have the surgery, they put in a spinal block which numbs you from mid-torso all the way to your toes. The anesthesiologist injects it directly into your spine after first having you sign a form absolving him of all blame in the event you are permanently paralyzed (kind of an ominous way to start). You then have about 3 seconds to bum-walk two feet further down the table and get your feet into the stirrups before your body goes totally limp. It’s at this point that they’re supposed to put you under but for some reason they never want to. They always try to talk you into staying awake during the operation so that you can….. (wait for it)….. watch it on the big monitor. There are many things that I would like to see before I die. The inside of my bladder, ureters and kidneys don’t even make the list. I did, however, on one occasion with a particularly insistent anesthesiologist tell him that I wanted to be put under but that he had my permission to take lots of colour photos and after the surgery I would be happy to add them to my colonoscopy coffee table book. Then it was his turn to give me the weird look.

There was one surgery, though, that, when it comes to “tales from the trenches,” stands out above all the others.

It started simply enough. I definitely had a stone, it definitely hadn’t passed but the pain had gone away suddenly and I didn’t know why. I went and saw my urologist who did some tests to find out what was going on and discovered that my kidney had shut down. He just looked at me and said, “You’re having surgery tomorrow morning.”

And so I did.

It was the next morning. I was on the table. The spinal block was in and I was waiting for the anesthesiologist to put me under when I felt a tug down there. I looked down and said, “Are you inside already?”

A head appeared between my knees. It said, “Yes. Why?”

“I can feel it,” I replied. (This is another reason why you want to be asleep)

“Does it hurt?” he inquired.

“No. But it feels really weird.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” replied the head. And then it disappeared again and the “tugging” resumed. 

That is not the memorable part. That part came next.

As he was “inside,” he jiggled the stone which allowed the urine to start flowing again, relieving the pressure on my kidney and it started functioning again. Unfortunately, it had become infected while it was shut down and the infection quickly started to spread through the rest of my body.

Educational moment: One of the ways your body fights an infection is by generating heat. One of the ways it generates heat is by making your muscles spasm. And that’s what happened to me.

I was lying there, minding my own business, waiting to be put under when my body began to tremble. And then shake. And then really shake! I was literally bouncing on the operating table. The nurse gave me a stern look and told me to stop moving. Apparently, she missed the class in medical school when they talked about spinal blocks. I just looked up at her and said, “How?”

So you have to picture this. There is a man crouched down between my knees looking very much like Johnny Bench behind home plate waiting for a fastball. He has been sticking all kinds of sharp, pointy, metal things that I’d rather not list in detail into, well, I’d rather not say where. A nurse has climbed up on top of me. I am wearing her like a blanket as she straddles me in a futile attempt to hold me still so “Johnny” can finish the operation. And there is an anesthesiologist standing beside me staring blankly at the scene unfolding in front of him. He no longer has any intention of putting me under. As for me, my adrenals have shifted into overdrive and I am WIDE awake. 

And that’s when the phone rang.

Apparently the operation was taking longer than expected (DUH!) and someone was making inquiries.

Shecky, the anesthesiologist, answered the phone, listened for a few seconds and then said the words that no patient lying on an operating table should ever have to hear.

He said, and I quote, because the words are burned into my brain, “No, we’re going to be in here for a while longer. Everything that could possibly go wrong, has.”

Everything?

Oh my God! I’m dead!

I looked up at Shecky and said, “Tell my wife I love her and I’ll be watching over her from the other side.” Nothing. Oh sure, you can kid around all you want. But I make a joke? Not even a chuckle. Tough room.

But I didn't die. Instead, I got to spend 3 luxurious nights in the lovely Grace General Hospital and Mineral Baths where I enjoyed the best antibiotics money can buy while having the evil toxins purged from my body. And now, whenever an anesthesiologist asks if I’m sure I don’t want to stay awake and watch, I can look him straight in the eye and say, “Been there, done that.... UNNNN-DERRRRRR.”

And there you have it. My own personal saga on the trials and tribulations of growing old. They say that sixty is the new forty. Great! Forty is when I produced my first kidney stone. I can’t wait to see what the next twenty years have in store for me. Hip replacements, dentures, hair implants… the list goes on and on.

But while everything I've written here is absolutely true, I also have to admit that I am being just a little cynical. The first 60 years have actually been really good. I have a wonderful life – a great wife, two amazing kids of whom I am intensely proud and a career that I really enjoyed. What more could I ask? And now, for the icing on the cake, I am retired and I get to sleep in on those cold, snowy mornings when all of the working stiffs have to drag their butts out of bed and find their way to work. Yes, life is good.

And speaking of cake, somewhere, someone has just finished baking one. I can hear it calling to me. So I must go. And while I’m gone, KEEP OFF THE GRASS!