Getting Old Sucks

Man, I knew when you turned 40 your body would start wearing out but who knew it would happen so soon. My jaw seems to be out of alignment. My teeth don’t meet and my jaw aches. What’s up with that?

I’ve been getting little water blisters on my hands, usually on the pads of the palm of my hands but even on my fingers. Little tiny blisters that hurt. My dermatologist gave me steroid lotion and said to use it on my hands but don’t get on your face. That is very hard. Do you know how many times a day you touch your face. The lotion fixes the problem but doesn't solve it. It's treating not curing.

I’ve got a lump on my eye lid or maybe my eye, I can’t tell. I got it the day we returned from the beach and first attributed it to the Red Tide. My eye swelled closed for 2 days and now I’m left with a lump, slightly smaller than a pencil eraser.

I saw my ob/gyn for an annual exam this summer and we agreed to schedule a routine mammogram since I’d soon be 40. She gave me the paperwork and said to schedule it in September so that the insurance company would pay (as I would be “over 40”). I’ve been putting it off. My outlook calendar reminds me daily with a ding and a pop up window, “Get a mammogram”. I just keep clicking reschedule. Well, I decided yesterday to finally make the call for the appointment. The receptionists asks me a series of questions to determine how fast I need to be seen. “No, no lumps or biopsies, no discharge, no anything else.” Then she asks me to read off the doctor’s orders.

Wait, what the hell. Its says “diagnosis: fibrocystic breast, bilateral mammography & ultrasound of right & left breasts, additional views or sono as necessary”. I get an appointment in less than 1 week. None of that sounds routine and yet I can’t for the life of me remember us discussing anything abnormal.

Guess my memory is going too…