I hate waiting for the blood test results. They used to come in quickly; now, they trickle in, with the first couple being of no real consequence, starting 10-12 hours after the blood draw.
My GP had left at least one test intact for my quarterly blood draws, for testosterone… a bit of a surprise when that came up first, unexpectedly. Along with the B12, which I had actually been curious about.
The good news, so far, is that my B12 level is now rising, no longer falling, measuring 531 this time. The testosterone, at 766, was considerably higher than expected at nearly 69 years old. Still within the normal range (240 to 899).

Waiting for the two that matter; Hematocrit and Platelets. Hematocrit because I’m athletic and low hematocrit is a definite issue for me, slowing me down. Platelets because, well, platelets! It’s Essential Thrombosis that I’m being monitored for, a rare bone marrow cancer that causes me to create too many platelets.

It’s been quite the journey since My 24th, 2017, when a routine test, done while looking for something entirely different from ET, scored 1.2 million at 61 years old. The most amazing thing is how scared to death I used to be of blood draws, so much fear that I’d collapse my veins and become a pin cushion as they’d stab me multiple times trying to find a usable vein, which created a downward spiral that made things worse and worse. Fear of blood draws actually kept me away from routine medical exams for decades at a time.

I even remember, nearly 40 years ago, feeling terribly bad, inadequate, worthless, because my fear of needles and blood kept me from donating blood when my father was dying from MF.
When I was diagnosed with ET, I knew the era of avoiding bloodwork was over. I initially dealt with it through dissociation and telling myself it’s only time, nothing else, 5 minutes from now and it would all be over. With first daily then weekly bloodwork for a couple months, I resigned myself to the grim reality that I’d just have to get used to it.

Eventually I turned my thinking around and started to look forward to the then-monthly now-quarterly tests. Valuable, actionable data, something I could sink my teeth into and research. I found that, if I looked forward to it, I could actually relax and the process would go more easily, more quickly. And this morning, 9:50am, I didn’t even feel the needle as it went it. I’m almost, not quite, to the point where I watch it.
Will update when the CBC comes in.

It’s a bit of a surprise how easily life goes (although you don’t necessarily see it that way at the time) when you’re younger. You might complain that you’re not as strong as you used to be… the hills are getting steeper, it’s harder to stay on the wheel of the person you’re drafting, that sort of thing. And of course, the eyes are a gradual source of issues for many, starting in your mid-30s.

But I got to tell you, something happened around 64 or so, about 4 years ago, where the challenges start to come fast & furious. And not just physical; dealing with things like signing up for Medicare gets you questioning both your own intelligence and the insanity behind the system. Should be simpler than it was to figure out.

As for work, it never occurred to me that continuing to work would involve pushing against physical limitations that didn’t exist just a couple years ago. I never thought that retiring might happen because you might have issues dealing with basic day-to-day stuff in your work. In my case, the arthritis in my right thumb, which causes a lot of trouble using the tools of the trade (in the bicycle business) and a decline in hearing. At home, not as big a deal since my wife and I discovered closed captioning on the TV, but customers don’t have closed captioning, and the worst thing is the phone, trying to hear through someone’s accent that, just a few years ago, wouldn’t have given me much trouble.

And in my usual stream-of-consciousness style, the hearing issues, as people get older… wonder if that feeds into the division we see in this country? It’s really frustrating when you can’t completely understand someone, and you might become a bit defensive and more interested in what you think yourself than what the other person is trying to say.

Mortality. Can’t escape that, because, as you get older, it’s happening all around you, bringing it home to you, in an accelerated fashion. My wife’s stage IV cancer and the bandwidth that consumes as I try to make sure she gets the best-possible treatment (I was going to say “care” but that word has an ominous tone to it as “care” starts to become that thing that’s left after “treatment” is no longer an option). Having a customer come in mentioning he no longer rides outside because he’s the full-time caregiver for his wife, who has early-onset Alzheimers.

Finances. That’s actually how I got started on this topic, as I’m dealing with the complexities of figuring out how to get by without income from the bike shop… brick & mortar retail is a very tough business, especially in the SF Bay Area. There’s no fat left in the system, no room for mistakes, and the new definition of success is keeping your customers happy and the doors open. The post-Covid world has been absolutely crushing to the small business. Dreams of not collecting social security until 70, to get maximum benefits, made sense back in the day, especially because social security benefits are both taxable and, prior to “full retirement age” (FRA), your income (above a certain level) from working reduces your social security benefits. Fortunately (not!) my income is no longer in danger of crossing that threshold.

But cycling actually seems to be a bright spot in all of this. Yes, it’s taking me longer getting up the hills, but I am getting there, and there seems to no issue with how far I can ride. France this past July went much better than expected. The main thing that will change, going forward, is less time in the rain and extreme cold as the circulation issue in my hands progresses year by year. The arthritis in the thumb really isn’t much of an issue.