My Motorcycle Injuries

Over time I have griped on this blog about the subtle but steady decline of my various motorcycle injury aftereffects. The various issues that I face daily aren't a huge deal when compared to the things that other people face in this life, but they are often a source of physical annoyance. They often leave me wondering what these things will be like in the coming years as I continue to age.  I've been busy with things these past couple of weeks, and they are the type of tests that help me to assess where it is that things stand within my body. I've been cutting and trimming trees, moving Christmas supplies (don't ask), and doing general maintenance things around my house and the church. I haven't had a problem with any of the labor, and I feel pretty good when I finish each chore. Tired, but good. I've felt fine with all of the busy work over the past weeks, and I'm convinced that the best way to see where things stand is to get busy living. These are the ty...

Time marches on. I had slacked off a little over the past several months concerning my exercise routine, but I’ve been back on track with all of it over the last month and a half. I started slowly, but I’ve been methodical about how I advance with it all because I’m no longer just a guy with a bunch of old motorcycle accident wounds. Yeah, I’m also a guy who turned sixty this summer. I feel that physically I’m pretty much fit and capable, but I find myself sometimes describing my abilities now with the term “for a guy my age”. Next up is me finding the need to use the term “in my day”. Uh-huh, there better not be any neighborhood kids wanting to mess around on my front lawn or I’ll go all Clint Eastwood on them. I still walk roughly five miles a day while also doing upper body work with weights, pushups, stretching, and some boxing equipment. None of it is very complex, but I try to keep things going for myself in a way that keeps the aftereffects of my injuries under control. It will ...

 Today is the last day of my “full time” duty with my niece. I’ve taken care of her Monday thru Friday, early morning until late afternoon, since she was six weeks old. She is now four, and will begin attending pre-k in the late summer. Her mom is a teacher and school ends for her today, so my time with my niece will now be far more limited. I’ll get her for a couple of weeks in August as her mom reports for staff days, and then she’ll begin attending school later in the month. From then on I’ll only be taking care of her on school half-days and teacher work days (along with any sick days). All in all it will only add up to a few days each school year. I’ve spent the past four years watching her grow up while joining her in playing with a multitude of different toys, playing every game that she learned or made up, walking her around my neighborhood, watching her play with my tools in the driveway, taking her to various places as a sort of field trip, playing various chase games a...

I was speaking to a guy at church who is about twenty years older than me. We were talking about various things and the topic of body pain came up. I told him what I was feeling at the time and he said somewhat lightheartedly, “yeah, that’s age”. He set my mind on overdrive with that statement. I’ll be 58 at the end of next month. With that said, I’m someone who remains fairly active physically. I exercise with weights and boxing equipment, walk several miles daily, and work with things around the house that involve a decent amount of physical effort. I remain in pretty good shape, although I am at a point in life where I can finish that statement with the words “for a guy my age”. Still...you know, active and all. When this guy made the lighthearted comment, I began to evaluate what’s going on with my body. So yeah, I admit freely that I’m not as young as I used to be and my body, by nature of the aging process, is not what it once was. But… it’s too big of a coincidence that the so...

                                                                  The dude in the photo above is called Ultraman. I watched movies that included him as the central character when I was a kid. Back then my brother and I thought that he was uber-cool as he fought against all kinds of evil entities with a hint of martial arts mixed in with ray blasts that he emitted from his arm when he stood in the pose above. I’ll be 57 years old soon, and now all I see is an actor dressed in a corny outfit that dates back to old Japanese films similar to the Godzilla movies. Yeah, the times they have a-changed. I had gotten a little slack in my exercise routine over the past year or so, and it was becoming evident through the condition of my body in the way that I was able to handle the various injury aftereffects. It hadn't hurt my A1C leve...