Staying alive trumps vanity
I’ve spent the past two years dealing particularly with my health, which seems to have deteriorated faster than normal. According to not a few people who have had more or less the same experience, the culprit was probably either COVID, which I myself got twice, although in its later and less virulent form, or the vaccines themselves, which I took in three sets of different brands and to which I may have reacted badly.
I had a mean bout with flu, but the more serious case was two stents planted in me in 2021. My internist said the stent procedure saved me from an impending heart attack. She also suspected that, because the blockage had not yet hardened considering my age, it must have developed only recently, very possibly from stress caused by the anxious times.
After a few months in cardiac rehab following the implantation, I had my cataracts removed, a comparatively small but, to me, itself an important, long-waiting health procedure.
I also went to the dermatologist at first chance this year. I had neglected my skin since the pandemic, and nothing dries faster than old skin. I needed repair and damage control, I have been told, before anything else.
I was quite upset at what was happening to my facial skin in particular—as surely everyone will understand—and I started to point out the specific areas of concern to my dermatologist (the daughter of a dear friend, a dermatologist herself, who had taken care of me until she retired).
She very calmly and sympathetically waited for me to stop talking before giving the all-too-familiar response to all my aches and pains, “Tita Chit, these are all part of aging, and, to make matters worse, you stopped all the antiaging treatments. It’s time to get back on them. But we first have to clean up and cauterize.”
Medical clearance
For that, as a heart case taking all sorts of maintenance medicines, not least a blood thinner, I would need a medical clearance for the procedure.
And then came, again, the inevitable side diagnosis of doctors who had seen me before. She noticed my drooping eyelids. Eye work is needed, not so much as a cosmetic aid, but to deal with my hampered vision. Those lines on my forehead are not necessarily age lines, but the result of the strain I put on myself trying to see better.Alas, I may have waited too long! Now, even for mere cleaning and cauterization and eye job, all otherwise simple outpatient procedures, I need medical clearance. My heart problem takes precedence over everything else.
I immediately texted my internist for the clearance and she reminded me of my scheduled stress test for early February. Everything will depend on its results. ”I don’t want you to stop the blood thinners twice in close succession,” she said. I had done it for my cataract removal. That means I cannot have young eyes as my birthday gift to myself on my 84th, on Feb. 7. It is looking more and more like a luxury I can no longer afford—for my dear heart’s sake!
I guess at my age and condition, nothing can ever be taken lightly anymore. Staying alive definitely takes priority over looking my best in old age. Vanity, I realize, may have paid off health-wise if practiced early in life.
I guess I’m left with no choice but to draw from the depths of my soul for inner beauty, which hopefully I have developed along the way. I may just have to live the rest of my days unaided by surgical repair for wrinkles and saggy eyelids, which nobody will notice, anyway, for my blinding inner glow. INQ
