Memories Not Forgotten

We all have memories of our past, of places, people, events, situations, and whatever else we remember. Some memories fade away over time. Some don't and evolve into something resembling reality but not really. Some are clear as yesterday. And some just exist quietly in corners like shoeboxes in mental closest which accidently fall out and spill out into the consciousness.

One such memory is when I was 6. I have a visual memory. I remember places, scenes and landscapes, and this is no different. We lived in Wherry Housing on Mountain Home Air Force Base. We had moved there from Sculthorpe, England where we lived in the country (1952-55) and found ourselves in the southern Idaho desert.

We lived in the end townhouse of a row of them. It was a two-story house with a small backyard and a fuel oil tank in the back near the gate. The townhouse had two bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs and a master bedroom and bath on the first floor with a den and the rest of a normal house with a living room, dining room and kitchen.

My parents decided that my year-older sister and I were a bother to his work and her social life. So they emptied the den and gave it to us to play. My sister didn't want it and used her bedroom. I used to create cities with my cars. I collected those metal cars called Dinky Toys and Corgi Toys, and created cities with books and magazines and anything else I could find (really steal for awhile).

I stayed there for hours. It was then I realized, and really looking back where it started, I like being alone. I hated being in class, in groups or playing with others. I never changed from there, and all through my life have always been most comfortable being alone. I'm rarely lonely, which is a big difference, if you don't know.

In that room it was just me and my imagination. No one to interfer or intervene. No one to tell me what to do. My parents just left me there, and while in later years tried to get me to learn other things, like Cub Scouts, guitar lessons, etc., it always failed and I eventually started stuttering which lasted through high school and is always there which reminds me in some situations.

I still have the box of about 40+ metal cars which I added when we moved to Germany 3-plus years later. I loved Germany but missed that room. Outside the townhouse was a big open field, which was encircled by the rows of townhouses. It was designed to give kids a safe space to play. My brother and I though chose the desert out beyond the townhouse.

We loved to walk endlessly around the housing areas isolated between the enclaves of other developments, the school a mile away, other housing areas in the distance separated by more desert, and the commercial area with the base exchange and grocery and other places for adults to be and socialize, where my Mom went most days.

And out the main gate the long road to the town of Mountain Home where my brother went to high school, only an elementary and junior high school on the base. We often took our dog, Judy, a Boston Terrier, who was dumb as a post but loyal and obedient. He always came back when called so we never worried if he ran off chasing jack rabbits.

But it was always that room I remember most from that time, my world and universe. Everything I needed and wanted, at age 6. I don't miss it but often find myself in my own mental room with the same feeling, where I'm most comfortable, like sitting here writing this about a memory not forgotten.

Waking up

I've always had trouble waking up. Before it took just a few minutes but it's taking longer the older I get. You see, it's not the actual waking up that is the problem but opening my eyes. There are three body processes when you wake up. First your mind becomes alert to your surroundings and you realize you're awake. Then the body slows increases its function to be fully awake so you can get up.

The third, which surprises many people, is your eyes. They're on a separate mental-physical process than the mind and the body. They have to get the signal to open and stay open. Ever notice how you feel awake but just can't seem to hold your eyes open? That's it, but out of a regular sleep, it's the last to come awake.

And that's what's been the problem. When I was young it took only a minute or two. And in my forties, roughly three to five minutes where I'd think about the day ahead and then get up when the eyes opened and stayed open. Now is often 10-15 minutes and sometimes longer. The doctors say that happens with age for some people.

Like me. Gee, thanks. And so I lie in bed most morning, the mind alert and paying attention and the body ready for the day, but the eyes won't open, or they open and quickly close to stay close no matter how hard I try to hold them open. It's strange because this doesn't happen when I take a nap, all three wake up in seconds. Or when I get up in the middle of the night.

Only when it's morning. I lie there trying to decide if it's better to go back to sleep or wait it out for the eyes to come awake. They said it's a innate action so we can't really force it, except of course walking around trying to hold our eyes open which don't want to open yet. And that often leads to confrontations of the body, usually the toes, with immoveable objects and a sudden realization of the impact which automatically open the eyes.

You see the this process has some built-in reaction to open when faced with sudden events. Why we wake up to strange sounds. Why we wake up to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom. And why we wake up from a bad dream or nightmare and get up to relax to get back to sleep. It's the process when we wake up in the morning where it often has problems, and with me, increasing ones.

And yes, I wrote this post in my head while lying in bed with my eyes closed waiting for them to open to the day.

When you lose what you were

All of us over 50 have been there and many people under 50 have already faced this, and that's the reality we can't be and won't be who we were, healthy and fit, ready to do anything we're physically capable. The mental health changes when we discover our bodies don't work as well anymore and won't do what we did before.

Nothing new or news there, just the reality of getting older, and for many, getting sick or injured for life. This recent bout of problems (digestive system infection, or some professionals think but not the specialists) caused me to stop running and hiking. The better, or is it the worse, part of two years I won't get back. I miss running and while I can resume running, it will be with a different perspective.

I now know why I run out of breath quickly past any point of physical exertion. I can recover to some degree, but the body just can't do what it did. And although this problem is nearly 20 years old, I just slowed down or walked until I could breath again and continued running. I kinda' knew this when the walks were longer, I just ignored the reality. Now I know the reality.

So I've gone back to walking, 5-6 miles for starts to the local commercial center near where I live. It has a lot of places including several cafes to get a reward of a coffee drink before buying carryable stuff and walking back. Once I get my legs back under me I'll resume the weight training which I stopped because first I realized I reached my maximum muscle development and second the problems made me too tired to even try.

I read where we're born with the genes which controls our muscles more than previously thought. That's common sense, but having almost all slow-twitch muscles, not the fast-twitch muscles necessary to develop muscles, I read that our genes also determine the maximum muscle we can develop (meaning more strength training doesn't produce more muscle, just more exercise), I simply couldn't get stronger and won't get stronger than I was. I can get back there to some degree, just not any better.

And that's my lot in life now past 60. Not fun but I can't complain. I do and will still complain but it's really meaningless and useless except to waste energy. But now I can simply walk it off while my physician and the specialist argue about the cause of the problems and find a treatment, if one exists. It's the old adage, "It sucks getting old."

A Heart is a Heart

A heart is a heart. Or not. All of us have a different heart, physically and figuratively. Well, last Friday I had a second echo sound of my heatt, the first in July 2005, and a radionuclide rest and stress test. Since the early 90's whenever I run or hike I get short of breath very soon into the exercise and my heart rate goes from normal to over 180.

I usually have to stop for 1-2 minutes so my heart can slow down to exercise rate and I can catch my breath. And I often have to do this again during the exercise or hike if it's an exertion, usually a hill. This has been my normal pattern since my mid-40's. Well, I didn't get it tested and the doctors didn't see to get me tested. Until now.

And low and behold I have a 20% blockage of my pulmonary artery which worsens with exertion. The surrounding arteries help during the stressed periods but they reach a limit where my heart just can't pump any more blood into the lungs, which are fine, willing and waiting with lots of air. It's just the blood can't get there.

So, with that I will be (when I get the prescription filled) on an agressive dosage of statin and the health supplement CoQ10 for a few months to get my cholesterol down where the body will absorb some of the blockage and increase the blood flow. Or not and it will be what I will live with for the rest of my life, like it's already has been since it started.

Fortunately the heart itself is fine and health with a small murmur from Rheumatic Fever at age three where there is a small area of damage to one valve, but nothing significant anymore. There are no blockages of the arteries on the heart and the heart muscle is sound and strong. That's cool to know.

Five years ago they discovered my heart has an "extra" connection to the brain which quickens the heart rate faster and higher than normal. It can increase from normal to 180+ beats per second in a few seconds, like a breath or two. They saw this on the 24-hour monitor during my exercise workout. They think the heart is correcting for the lack of oxygen with more blood flow, except it simply can't with the blockage.

So, that's my future, lower my cholesterol, which will be difficult if not impossible as my cholesterol level has never been normal, always above. But I have a high (good) HDL count which keeps a lot of stuff in suspension in the blood, but that's also high and needs to come down. I need to get the body to rid itself of most of the floatsom in of the blood.

In the end, the best we can do is keep things from getting worse and work to get it better a little at a time, with lots of hard work, meaning drugs, diet, exercise, and whatever else. And then keep track of this small abnormality so it doesn't spread to my heart or other places herein my body. Like I want that to happen.

So a heart is a heart, and is my heart. Now and until it decides differently. And the best I can do is help it.

Alas being found

This is more about credit than life, but I've had the same credit card account since 1984. The bank has changed hands over those years, where I think I'm on the 3rd or 4th bank and card from them, but it's been a continuous line of credit. Don't tell the bank that because each time I've had to rebuild my credit rating with them. For some reasons, the new bank in takeovers erases the old credit history of the old bank's customers, or so it seems.

But over the years this time I've built the credit back up. Until this last week when they called to ask if I had made some charges to the account, all in the amount of about $100. This seemed unusual until I checked the charges themselves to discover they were to an on-line porn site. It explains why they caught it. And so they automatically suspended the account, pending my decision, which I agreed to close the account and start a new one.

So after 36 years, I'm one of those who's credit card information has been stolen. I have a list of companies, one really, who stole it, and likely some employee using it to hide his (rarely are these porn-loving people women) obession, and likely addiction, to pornography. He'll find the money wasn't paid and the credit card is useless. But now I have to watch if something else is stolen from my identity.

So, alas, I've been found and am a victim. Small and just a minor inconvenience to get a new card, but still found. Is that what's normal anymore, when you can say you're one of the many who's had their credit card stolen, kinda' "Been there, done that." At least, so far anyway, it's not worse. And what I've learned is how such a few things about yourself are hung off your identity and credit.

I won't say what company I suspect one of their employees of stealing my credit card number, yet. I have to wait to see how they handle a refund. I bought a piece of computer equipment from them, except the first one didn't work at all and the second was a knock-off (not a real company product) of the wrong model. They owe me $130 and I'm still waiting after sending the second mouse back (USPS tracking) nearly 3 weeks ago.

First they offered store credit, except there's nothing they have I want to buy and not from them anymore. Then they offered to credit my account, except it's now closed. And so they're stuck writing a check, which I'm not holding my breath for. I'm not positive this was the company an employee stole the card number, but it's the most obvious one since all the rest are companies I have used before without problems.

I hope he gets caught and fired. I notified them the number was stolen and they're on the very short list of suspect companies.