Shocked by aging process

@msmarymac
First, I want to say you are an inspiration to me and I’m sure many others! 🙂

On my pain: Not sure what caused it but started with low back pain about 20 years ago from herniated disc. From that and with age I have DDD, severe stenosis, debilitating sciatica which led to a failed back surgery in 2017.
4 different neurosurgeons have told me that another surgery will not ease my pain but could make it worse so have been told to learn to manage my pain and live with it. That’s what I do.
Also, now have arthritis in other joints, fibromyalgia (which I refused to accept for many years), CFS, menopausal (which is a hell I wish on no one), horrible hormonal issues, depression, anxiety and now a pituitary adenoma.
Despite all this I stay active. Try to get my 10,000 steps in daily. Do a few other exercises and stretches. I suffer every night from doing all of these but I know they are the only things keeping me going so I will continue as long as I am able to move.
Have 2 wonderful children and 4 wonderful grandchildren and a very supportive husband so I am very blessed and I know it.
One of my best friends and I go on some kind of trip every year which I love. We are going places we’ve never been before and love the new experiences so I will also continue this as long as I am able.
Sorry for the book I just wrote but felt a need to explain myself. I am fully aware of how many people are so much worse off than me and how lucky I am for the support system I have.
I am now going to research the products you told me about right now. Thank you for that. Have a great day!
One more thing. I had to edit to add this:
Your husband was correct! I think we can learn and grow from every experience, good or bad!

Agree thoroughly with msmarymac! We are stronger mentally than we think we are! By challenging ourselves to raise our goals a little higher each day it is surprising how much we can achieve! Too many times when physical or mental crises arise, we tell ourselves “we are sick, too weak, not able, and resigned to suffer”. Instead of this self-pity, we have a choice to “try a different approach, push ourselves a little harder, use creativity, and lift our spirits to achieve more than yesterday”. We have a choice each day.
Be aware of all the people who have it soooo much worse! Be grateful for the abilities you can use each day, both mental and physical to ease the burdens of others. I try to use these thoughts when I have my “sinking spells” and self-pity creeps into my day. We are just humans all trying to make it through this life and result to “trial and error” as our learning tool.
None of us will make it out of this world alive!
Be happy, be creative, be the Best You!

@lukekee
Ya know, it really is getting old, having doctors tell us what is wrong with us, and when asked what can be done about it... nothing. If you only knew how many times I have heard that from so many different types of doctors. We just dont want to be diagnoised, we want to be healed, but that seems to be asking a little too much.
Want to laugh? I had two different doctors in two different states tell me I was ment to be a reptile having 1 1/2 extra coxics bones on my tail bone. Well, I am a Pieces. 🐟 When I asked for the xray to have, he said, no, this is going in a medical book.
I'm very glad you and your friend have a yearly travel date, to explore and unwind. I wish more people did that. It's important to change our surroundings periodically.

@msmarymac
Oh Lord! So far you're all making me laugh - THANK YOU! I'm 71 and probably have all the risk factors for a heart attack or stroke within the next 12 hours. I have 2 knees and a shoulder that can be replaced anytime. Hammer toes are my new challenge - in my feet with neuropathy.... I don't plan to take anymore drugs than currently prescribed, and after 75 I may not see a doctor again. I love to cook and haven't planned to exercise in at least 3 years. Hoping to get in my garden tomorrow. I laugh at the products to buy because we're OLD, and I'll answer my Medicare question GOOD no matter what. God has chosen a time for me and I just hope to still have my mind, be able to see, and hear. For a bonus if I can still play the piano some, I'm good to go. I am quite pain free fortunately. Just slower. I think much of our illness is from stress in this totally insane humanity of ours. So I have few shoulds or musts. I prefer to hug children, watch birds, meditate on flowers, and listen to the wind. I love the Cherokee story above. Interestingly I learned recently that I'm the healthiest of my 6 sister siblings. Now that's actually pathetic by "today's standards." But today's standards are based on medical miracles and TV commercials. My standards come from prayer, listening to the advice and lessons I catch, and doing whatever I want. For 35 yrs I raised kids, a husband, and had a career that, probably like yours, exhausted every fiber of my being. My mother and Tony Bennett taught me to SMILE. Of course I'd NOT love to do it all again. I'd rather have back some people I've lost. I believe we have the power to heal ourselves some. Much much much of it is a mental game (along with the crapshoot of genetics.) There are definite limits to crazy and unsafe to be alone or in a job. But OLD is just ... a frame of mind. And very bittersweet. It takes getting used to. Put it on like a bright royal cloak. Wear it like Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci wear Prade. You've won! The rest is a continuing homerun. But thank you all for being here with me.

@msmarymac
Wow! Well at least you can say you are published even if it is in a medical book! That’s more than most people can say!
You are so right about doctors! They know if we were healed they would not have that steady stream of income from just treating people and prescribing drugs. I know that sounds cynical but after years and years it’s hard not to get a little jaded about it all. That’s ok though. I take what I have to and just keep on going!
I am fully aware that there are so many people way worse off than me and many that never made it to my age so I may grumble a bit about it but I’m very happy I am still around to get older.
Yes, my friend and I decided a few years ago that if we wanted to go places and have new experiences we better get started while we still could and we love it!

@pegcmke
I laughed at saying you raised kids and a husband. My kids are grown now and I’m retired but I still say I’m raising my husband. It’s a work in progress even after 30years! 😂

I woke up early today because my husband is off having his 13/14 mose surgery! Ouch! This is just one in a string of medical appointments for each of us. Your conversation above was needed. I feel like a hamster on a wheel doctor for this doc for that and no one has an answer just another pill! The roller coaster of life at least we are all still riding!!

@lukekee
I love your enthusiasm about life, "take what I have to and just keep on going". Having the ability to turn the negative into a positive, is challenging at times, but you have seemed to master it! I have traveled 98% by myself (introvert) but my husband came with me at times when he could (traveling when you are dying can get tricky). So after his death, cremated in a biscotti jar (he liked cookies), I put him in a wee vegan gel cap, and sprinkled a bit him everywhere to continue his travels. Like in the pool in front of the Taj Mahaul, in the Alamo, on Samuri Warrior 47 grave site (born in '47) in Koyason Japan royal cemetary, when I spent a few nights with Bhuddist monks in their temple on top of a mountian. He's going on another trip soon, and some of my service dogs ashes will accompany him. Baklava is in a basset hound cookie jar next to him.
Btw, I did publish a wee children's book/illustrated it, on a local endangered species, I'm sure not half as exciting as extra vertibras on an xray.

@msmarymac
I love the sprinkling of your husband's ashes at different travel spots. That's what I'd like with mine but doubt I could find an agreeable traveler to do it. In the meantime, I'm going today to purchase a final resting plot. At least that can come off my list. I find aging to be quite challenging and full of medical surprises, but I do the best I can to keep moving and socialize.

Tip, get the plot(s) as soon as possible, prices got up!
Years ago I volunteered at a local cemetery, updating dates and such, then I stopped and said, why can't I have a plot? So I picked out two next to eachother, on a road for easy access. Four cremations can be on each plot. City hall let me put $100 down on them and I paid monthly $50-150 a month till paid-off in a finished lump sum. They were $500 each, price doubled after that! I designed a tomb stone to put my husbands and my urns upon, but never had it made. Too many projects, but I did design and had made a stainless steel memorial statue for Stevie Ray Vaughan (dated him in the 70's, he wrote, Pride & Joy, for me). The welder did an amazing job, that is in the center of both plots, and I made a peace shaped stone garden around it. Still not done with that project. Once at a funeral, I was shown a closet that had boxes of unclaimed ashes in it. So sad, I decided to make wings on both sides of my tomb stone with three urns on each for unclaimed ashes. We should give back even after we are gone from this beautiful earth, no?