I just celebrated another birthday. January must be the worst month for a woman to have a baby – especially if you gave birth in a farmhouse in rural Ohio. I’ll never know who was in attendance at my birth. My mother or father never spoke of it. January is a drag. I set the alarm each morning for 6:30 am and sometimes I just rollover and go back to sleep to await the arrival of day light. The sun has not been co-operating very much lately even though I know that the days are slowly becoming longer.
Jeanette noticed that I have become sort of lethargic and suggested that I see my doctor. It isn’t that I am sick or anything like that; it’s just that I lack any “get up and go”. I picked up the phone and called for an appointment; perhaps he can figure out what’s wrong with me. After signing in with the office staff and then being weighed by one of the office personnel, I could hear her emit an audible groan when I stepped on the scales. She directed me to one of the empty waiting rooms where an assistant took my blood pressure, measured my heart rate, and asked me why I had come in today. I tried to explain to her that I just wasn’t myself and that I really didn’t have any “get up and go”- as if a thirty year old female could understand what I was talking about. After about 10 minutes the doctor came in and said, “well, what can I do for you today Mr. Bupp? Everything looks great on your chart except that you could lose a little weight.” I told him that I just wasn’t my old self and that I seemed to have very little energy. The doctor said that he’s seen at lot of this going around, especially in men my age.” “A lot of what?” I asked. “Unintended low speed ABS activation”, said the doctor. “You mean there’s something wrong with my brakes? I asked. “Well sort of” replied the doctor, “in medical terms, ABS means aging body syndrome”. “I see. Is there anything that can be done?” “To answer your question, I could prescribe all sorts of pills; blue pills, yellow pills, vitamin pills, testosterone injections, but for someone your age, I doubt that they would work.
“Am I hopeless?” I asked. Then the doctor said, “Perhaps you would best respond to a little exercise therapy at the Y. I can write you a prescription and the government will pay for three months of therapy. All you have to do is go to the Y three times a week and get on one of those exercise bikes behind some young woman and keep peddling your bike till you catch her!” “That sounds easier said than done”, I replied. And besides, for the last 10 years, you have been giving me medication to slow down my heart rate, and keep my blood pressure low. Won’t all of this exercise raise my blood pressure and my heart rate?” I asked. “My cardiologist says that I might have a heart attack or possibly a stroke if I overdue it.” “Well, said the doctor, there’s hardly anything that I can prescribe that doesn’t have a few minor side effects.”
I thought about what the doctor told me for about 5 seconds, and then said, “You know doctor, I am beginning to feel better already. I think that I am going home and take a nap!”