I wrote something on New Years Day 2024 that was looking forward to my 70th birthday. I did reach it, and now it is June 1st, 2024. I had a call a few days ago regarding a reunion of the IT crew from Fayetteville State University. The meeting was going to be at the Mi Casita next to Ollies on Ramsey Street, at 1 pm.
I am so glad I attended today. It was good seeing all the old faces, and so many of them. The three surprising things were that Tommy Williams (a tech) had died of a massive heart attack a little over a year ago. Suzanne H. was no longer ambulatory and her husband was having to attend to her daily needs. And, Marge B. had married to someone who had once worked in the IT department.
I wore my two new hearing aids, but it was still difficult to hear what was being said.
What is interesting to me is how I am viewing my eventual, and much nearer death. Not so much with dread, but with a comforting resignation. After all, there is nothing anyone can do to avoid their own death. And, I think on various things I have done, or experienced or weathered. Twenty-four years of work at Fayetteville State University in their IT department and most or all of it really does not mean much.
Not always, but sometimes just before I am thinking about going to bed, I ask myself if this might not be the last time I lay down to go to sleep. I recall how several years ago, maybe 2019, when I was home on a Monday on a holiday day, planning to spend the rest of the week on one of my short vacations. I had just finished eating some ice cream (perhaps pistachio) and had just gotten up from my easy chair (about 10 am) and had put the tub of ice cream back into my freezer. And I was just sitting back down to watch a new episode of the new Outer Limits (which episode I have just seen again recently). The episode had to do with a small town, somewhere maybe in Alaska, but near a military base which was one of the points of protection for America. Oh, and it was at Christmas time, and the story centered around the local sheriff’s/police station. There was an outsider, oriental, who was dressed in a suit, white shirt & tie, and hat who had come to town. I don’t remember why he was put in jail, but he was, and the rest of the town were up front celebrating Christmas. Seems that each year a prisoner (if they had one) was pardoned for the night. I guess like the President of the United States does for Thanksgiving, and the turkey or turkeys.
But, as they bring this outsider up front and pardon him, he seems to have “more information than he should” about the various towns people. In the end, the visitor turns out to be an alien (not from Mexico or further south) and the aliens are attacking the information grid of the military complex. The aliens have used the local sheriff, or his deputy, to find out where the military data center is located, and the show ends with the realization that the aliens have at least won this battle.
Now, I never got to the end of this episode the first time I was watching it. I got to the point where the “oriental” alien was sitting alone in the dark, back in one of the jail cells. And then, I realized that I was viewing the TV scene with a reddish filter. Not sure if the reddish filter carried over to everything I was seeing. I’m thinking it would have had to. And, I also realized that I wasn’t in control. My body was vibrating, I guess as a result of a mild seizure, and at some point I realized that I had urinated on myself. I’m not sure if I ever actually lost consciousness and within a relatively short period of time, I was back to my normal, but recently peed on self.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do, and I called Jeff Mitchell to let him know what had happened to me. He may have come up with the idea that I should go to the nearest emergency clinic, which I have one just about a quarter mile from me, across from the small strip mall that contains a Food Lion grocery. *I would later also go to this Cape Fear Valley emergency clinic for my series of COVID shots. So I took a shower to was the pee off myself, got dressed and drove myself to the emergency clinic.
It took about 30 minutes before I was sitting in front of a nurse who was taking my personal info, and yes, telling me that I shouldn’t have driven myself to the clinic. At some point I was given a small plastic cup to take to the bathroom to give a urine sample. And as I had almost filled the cup, I saw this reddish light appear in the upper corner of my eye. I knew this was a precursor to me passing out (or at least being out of control of my body) and I quickly looked for some place to sit the filled urine cup down. I did see a handicap railing on the wall. Not sure if I actually placed the cup successfully on the railing, before I passed out. But I woke up, I guess a short time later, laying on the pleasantly cool bathroom floor. My head was located close to the bathroom door. *Normally, when something unexpected happens, I usually try to compose myself and then think of what to do, but this time I immediately started yelling for help. And help arrived quickly and I was moved to a gurney on wheels. They called the hospital and an ambulance was sent over to pick me up and take me to the actual hospital. It was one of the first hot days, and that is probably why the bathroom floor felt so good, being so cold.
They got me to the hospital on Owen Drive in Fayetteville. I stayed there until Friday, when they “let me go.” And after a bank of tests, including the quite uncomfortable & claustrophobic MRI (or is that CAT Scan?) and a stint of using a CPAP device while trying to sleep, I was back home without a clear reason why I had passed out. May cardiologist had an idea, and eventually he would have me in to “shock my heart” to try and get rid of my afib. Now, I have know I had afib, an irregular heart beat, since I was in my teens, and it has never caused a problem. In fact, I don’t think it was usually mentioned, all the years that I visited various doctors. I didn’t feel weak, or dizzy, through out the years. And, in my twenties, I played a lot of tennis until when at almost 40 years old, I “blew out the ligaments” in my right knee, during a city league tennis match, and had to have major surgery (a 4 hours ordeal during which I was pleasantly knocked out) to correct the problem.
Oh, and I had the surgery and I think it was just a few days later that I had to start teaching an introduction to computers (PCs) at the local community college, Coastal Carolina Community College. Fortunately, someone loaned me their station wagon, and I was able to drive myself to and from the college, and get the wheel chair in and out to be mobile. And Jim Kelly and his family went out of their way to take care of me, in their home, for an extended period of time. *Sorry I ate a “left over” fast food hamburger, that was yours, and in the refrigerator, Ben.
So, all of the above to say that as much as I don’t want it to happen, and the alternative is a quick death, at some point in my “relative” near future (maybe today, or a month from now, but probably by the time I am 82 years old — if I should live so long) something catastrophic will happen to me. I don’t know if it will be painful, or quick, or if I will even be aware of it, but it will happen. *And if I survive, it will drastically change my life… for the worse. Afterwards, I might not be able to cook for myself, or bathe myself, go to the bathroom on my own, go shopping for groceries, or drive myself for fun or necessity. I might have to leave my apartment to survive in a nursing home.
I never expected to live to be 70 years old, which I am, but if you live long enough it happens, and just like peeing on yourself when you are young, you may come full circle and have to provide yourself with that warm, but unwanted feeling once again as an adult.
The mother shown above, won a $3 Millions law suit as the result of her daughter being killed in an automobile accident caused by a drunk driver.
[NOTE 06/11/24]: As I re-read this blog posting title, “I Did Reach My 70th Birthday…,” I laughed a little, to myself. There are plenty of people that never reach their 70th birthday, and quite a few that go on to 80, 90 and even older. But, through my life, especially in my 20’s and 30’s I never thought that I would actually live to be 70 years old.
I’m in relatively good health, and don’t feel bad in any major way. No, I’m not going out to play several sets of tennis. That is gone, long ago. I don’t walk very much, and when I start to, I soon start to ache in my calves, and my joints and bones begin to ache some. And, from standing briefly in line, waiting for the last “Friends of Cumberland County Book Sale” doors to open, I became uncomfortable and wanted to sit down after only about 10 minutes. Although I do think I actually stood for about 25 minutes, and read through my daily Bible reading, on my phone, as I waited.
No, what is fantastic is that my mind is still relatively sharp and perhaps I am fooling myself into thinking that I am no different from when I was 20, 30, 40, 50 or so on.
I play multiple games of online chess against the computer, and every so often, even win. However, I do see that I am nowhere near as diligent as to my opponents possible moves, as I was most of my life. However, there were many years from about my mid-twenties until about 65 that I rarely played. Now I have become complacent and often move a piece, without thinking of all or even the most obvious consequences… and then my opponent moves a piece, to take mine.
So, I see the skin discoloration on my lower legs and feet. It’s not painful, but does look bad. I feel the partial numbness in my feet and toes, and sometimes there is a deep burning. I have found that rubbing some rubbing alcohol on the burning, actually causes the pain to go away, at least temporarily and for a good period of time.
I think about my nearing death as inevitable. It may not be today, or even next month, but I would doubt seriously that I will make it past the age of 82 years old, and that is only eleven years from now. And, I know that eleven years will zip by as almost nothing. [end NOTE]
Bill Gibson, II 