Changes in our health
At what age do we start to notice changes in our health? Is it in your 40’s, 50’s 60’s 70’s? My eyesight started to change in my late 30’s. My distance vision got worse first, then in my mid 40’s I started having trouble reading. I know this is normal, but irritating nonetheless. Then in my mid 40’s, I started having symptoms of menopause. I knew the symptoms might happen so I’ve accepted it. However, recently I’ve noticed a difference in just my overall health. What I mean by that is I still feel good most of the time, but there are real changes in little things like aches and pains, energy level, mental sharpness, etc.
My husband and I recently returned from Northern Europe for vacation. We had a wonderful time touring Germany, Russia and Scandinavia. In fact, considering all the health landmines we encountered, we had a perfect vacation. We arrived on a Monday afternoon, so basically because we had no sleep the night before, we ate and went to the hotel and slept. On Day 2 we were in Denmark until our cruise ship left that night. While we were taking a walking tour of Copenhagen, we were walking back to our hotel when my husband Larry rolled his ankle off a curb. Now, my husband is about 6’5” and a big guy. As he was trying to catch himself, he apparently stepped on the foot he rolled and just yelled in agony. As this was happening, our whole vacation flashed in front of my eyes. I had scheduled several tours and instantly envisioned our vacation in ruins. That sounds horrible because my poor husband just hurt his ankle right? I know, I did care about his well being, however, it was happening at the very beginning of our trip and I was freaking out!
Thank God we were close to the hotel and Larry hobbled back in pain. Upon arriving back in our room, I went on a mission to find ice and an ace bandage. His ankle swelled up to the size of a softball! We attempted to fix him up as best as we could and proceeded to walk to the bus station. I suggested we get a taxi instead, but Larry was convinced he was not going to ruin our vacation so we continued on. Mind you, all the sidewalks in Europe seem to be made of cobblestones, so walking with a bad ankle and luggage was ridiculous!
After what seemed the longest drive to the cruise ship, we had many stops along the way because we set up this bus ride originally to see sights along the way. We weren’t really enjoying anything at this point; and just wanted to get to the ship. We finally arrived at the ship to start our 11 day cruise. I suggested that he go to the hospital on the ship to see if it was broken, but he wasn’t having it. He insisted it was just a bad sprain. What saved Larry’s level of pain during our trip was that right before we left, he had got some anti-inflammatory medication for an injured knee that he has. He decided to use that for his foot pain and good thing he did because it got us through many walking tours while there.
Then, after an amazing day 5 in Germany touring a concentration camp and sightseeing in Berlin, we came back to the ship exhausted and content. Sometime during that night though, Larry got really sick. He thought that he was suffering from either food poisoning or the flu. (I apparently slept through all of it.) When I woke up the next morning, he told me how sick he had been all night. We were actually grateful that it was food poisoning and not the flu, because we thought that if it had been the flu, that more than likely I would have got it too and we could have ended up quarantined. (Meaning the ship makes you stay in your room) Again, Larry moved on like a trooper. We didn’t miss a beat. We actually were in Estonia that day and ended up going on a tour of Tallinn.
The next couple days went on without a hitch. About day 7 Larry started getting a cold. He was sneezing and snoring like crazy. He immediately started on cold and cough medication. We still had a week left and I felt horrible that he was enduring so much. He didn’t let it get him down though, he powered through all of it. We had a couple days in Russia that we toured from 7 in the morning until midnight and we were absolutely exhausted, so I was so grateful that I had escaped all the sickness. Well my time was coming…
On Day 10, I was noticing that my tooth on the upper right side was hurting a little. So, as I always do when I have any pain, I started taking Ibuprofen. It helped, but I noticed it was getting worse as the time went on. During the evening when I was trying to go to sleep, I was having increasing pain and I couldn’t sleep. So, I started taking some stronger prescription pain pills we had to get me to sleep. It worked because I made it through the rest of the vacation with little discomfort. I continued to take ibuprofen constantly.
The morning we were leaving, I noticed a weird bump on my face. It was located on my cheek where my tooth hurt. I was trying to deny that it had anything to do with my tooth. However, I knew deep down inside that my tooth had gone bad. I had already had a root canal in that tooth, so I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Then the return flight home happened. Apparently there is a thing called altitude pressure, and my tooth was swelling so bad that it pushed my tooth down, so every time I chewed I hit my bottom teeth and the pain was excruciating! By the time I got home that night, after getting no sleep on the plane, I was in tears.
The next morning I was at my dentist with a diagnosis of an infection and I needed to get either a root canal or an implant. She put me on antibiotics immediately and gave me pain medication. That has held me over for a few weeks until I could get into a surgeon to start an implant procedure. It’s been a rough few weeks getting to this point, but we finally got the tooth out and I’m on my way to healing.
I write all this to let you know that I think it’s important as we get older, to plan more for little emergencies like I’ve just described. I will be traveling now with a bag of tricks. EVERYTIME I TRAVEL!! What that will include is antibiotics, pain medications, anti-inflammatory, ace bandages, sleeping pills, and whatever else I can think of. We have to accept that we are not young anymore and it’s probably more likely that something will happen than not… right?
Stay healthy my friends…
Diana
P.S. My husband went to the orthopedic surgeon the other day about his knee issue and I asked him to have the doctor look at his ankle while he was at it, just for my piece of mind. I was right, it’s broken and he’s been walking on it for 6 weeks broken. He’s now in a boot cast! Lol!