SPEEDING OVER THE HILL

The doctor asked, “Do you want a pneumonia shot?  You know, pneumonia is a Big Danger for older people.”  “Older people!”  I am turning 65 and now, suddenly, am classed in Older People?  I look at her, wondering if she can read my thoughts.  She is young, very young.  

Papering over my reaction to her comment, I say, “O.K.  If you recommend it.”  She has more bad news—osteoporosis, bone density test, low Vitamin D, mammogram.  She thinks I might have to take something for my bones.  I hear, “Looming osteoporosis, dowager’s hump, pain.”  I feel older.  I felt young, alive, vibrant when I came into this examining room.  I feel vulnerable.  I want to put my clothes back on.

I nod my head in agreement.  Inside my head, though, “Not me, Sister!  I took estrogen for years because my then so confident, knowing physician told me it was absolutely necessary to protect my bones.  Now I’m in for a litany of tests for breast cancer because He was so wrong 20 years ago.  Now YOU want me to take a new drug!  FORGETABOUT IT”

I would like to engage this young, self-assured primary care physician in a discussion about the history of miracle drugs.  Remember the women who took the drug that resulted in their daughters getting cancer?  Remember that?  Remember Thalidomide?  Lithium? Did you ever read the article in the NEW YORKER about the life cycle for wonder drugs?  Thirty years, three decades.  The first ten years the drugs are widely touted and prescribed.  The second ten years, questions and lawsuits arise.  The third ten years the poor innocent victims get sicker and sicker.  My mind refuses to go over the cliff that is the next ten years.  I write a book in my head but don’t open my mouth.

She is very busy and professional—too busy for this kind of chitchat.  She types intently into a computer.  In alarm, I flash forward to her typing out my death certificate.  My thoughts go to the fact that this is the young woman who will probably tend to me through my declining years to my death.  My spirits lag further.  She flashes me a smile and says, “Mitzi will be in to give you your pneumonia shot.”   

I lie back on the examining table.  My mind is reeling.  The image of the Grim Reaper appears.  What about my eulogy?  Where will I be buried?  I remember a friend once said the determining factor for funeral attendance is the weather.  I pray for good weather.   My God, I’ve got a lot to do, and I had better get busy!  I wonder if an older doctor might be a good idea, one not so chipper and matter-of-fact, one who knows we all grow older, one who is involved.   Immediately I veto the thought.  Too out-dated.  I need someone who knows about modern medicine.  I feel old.  

Mitzi comes in.  She looks young, very young—16 or 24.  She gives me my pneumonia shot.  Two days later I have a terrible reaction.  I end up in the ER, am admitted to the hospital to the neurological floor.  I am very busy.  I write an encyclopedia’s worth of stuff in my head.  No one seems to believe me when I say the pneumonia shot caused my problem.  Teams of white-coated nodding physicians stand by my bed.  Tests.  A lumbar puncture.  I translate “spinal tap” and rewrite “Miss Evers’ Boys.”  An MRI is scheduled.  My alarm grows.  My inner typist speeds up.  Then, A very big and important man pronounces ‘Bell’s palsy.”  They send me home.  I have aged ten years in a week.