People our age

When you’re past your prime, younger people will be sure to let you know.

The other day at cheerleading practice my cheer squad recited a cadence that did just that-

“I don’t know, but I’ve been told…”

“That Mr. Mallory’s really OLD!”

Sure, you have people like Dara Torres, 41, becoming the oldest swimming medalist in Olympic history. You’d think she’d make me see how young I still am and how much potential I still have, but instead, she just makes me feel overweight and unmotivated.

It starts off with psoriasis and mild arthritis in the knees. The next thing you know, you’re calling people in their mid to late twenties “kids.” That could come from teaching. It’s hard to think of anyone who’s young enough to be one of my former students as a full fledged adult. Of course, now that I’ve been teaching more than fifteen years, that means that there are people in their thirties that are just mere kids.

Next came the heartburn and the chronic dry eye. Then comes the gray. It never bothered me too much. My hope was that it would make me look more distinguished. I was just glad to still have my hair, a lot of guys my age aren’t so privileged. So I still have the corny Alfalfa cowlick I had at ten, only now it’s grey.

It’s one thing to get to keep the hair on your head, but why did God decide I needed so much hair in my nose and on my ears?

I’ve endured ridicule from my wife and children about my snoring for years and students and colleagues are always concerned that I’m sick or need to quit smoking. I don’t’ smoke. So this summer I had an appointment with a specialist. He listened to my breathing and ruled out asthma. Then he forced me to endure a battery of tests involving needles on my back that revealed that the only things I’m allergic to are cockroaches and needles.

Next thing I know I’m getting a CaT scan. They inserted me into the science-fiction looking tube and before long had an interactive digital x-ray of my head. It’s a little unnerving to look at your own skull.

Fortunately I didn’t have a chronic sinus infection or a deviated septum. Rather, I’m just a meat-head. Basically these spongy bone things called turbinates in the middle of my nose are too big. The doctor called them sausage looking things and my little sausages are just as big as the big sausages so my nasal passages are too small. Since my sinuses have to work harder, they produce way too much snot. “It’s like an escalator with too many people on it,” he explained.

Bottom line is, I cough all the time because I’m a meat-head.

After a year or two of “borderline high blood pressure,” I decided I had to give up regular coffee. As traumatic as that was, it wasn’t going to be enough. A health screening revealed that all of my cholesterol levels were fine except for triglycerides.

“Do you have a history of diabetes in your family?” the nurse asked. The blood drained out of me as the realization sank in. (Which is ironic because I had to track my blood sugar levels every morning for the next month.) Triglycerides are kind of a sugar/fat thing where your body has broken down the food and needs to deliver it to your cells.

As Doctor Crabb explained it (different doctor, more analogies), insulin is the button that opens the elevator doors so that triglycerides can enter the cells. He said that we used to think that fat was just stored energy, but come to find out it can act like a gland that produces insulin-blockers that prevent your cells from absorbing what they need to, leaving the triglycerides out in the blood stream. In other words, I didn’t have high blood pressure because of clogged or narrow arteries, but because I was too thick blooded. Not to mention just too darn sweet.

By eating better and eating less and hauling by carcass out of bed at an ungodly hour to walk every morning, both the blood sugar and blood pressure are under control.

Dr. Crabb, bless his heart, told me with empathy that “people our age” just have to work harder to take care of ourselves. I could’ve swore I wasn’t his age. I’m obviously much older than I thought. I’m also a very sweet, thick blooded, meathead who’s allergic to needles.