Twas Three Nights After New Year
It is 2:20 in the morning of the 4th of January, 2025. I am sitting at my computer in my underwear because sleep eludes me. I have two slices of bread, butter and peanut butter and a Mason jar of hot decaf tea. This early morning reading is a new activity I am trying to foster; I don't write enough anymore and what I do write does not impress me.
Actually,it is not that I can't sleep; it's that I get to bed stupidly early and of course wake up in the middle of the night. This particular night is hampered by a tube coming from my left kidney and ending in a plastic bag clipped to my underwear. This was done two days ago to save my kidney. A brownish liquid, urine and blood, fills the bag in about two hours depending on the amount of liquids I take in.
I will soon be 79. I have gained two pounds every year over the past half century and now weigh--no, I cannot bring myself to type the number. I am officially obese which seems quite unfair considering my weight gain is only a couple of ounces a month.
Aging is frustrating. In my case, it seems as if everything has decided to fail at once. My eyesight is waning and my left eye is officially blind. I am losing teeth, hair, and memory. For the past 12 years I have been dealing with bladder cancer and have had 40 surgeries to deal with it. It's a nasty disease which killed my older sister, Florence and Jim, one of my close friends. My oncologist has ceased trying to talk me into having my bladder and prostate removed. I am stubbornly attached to my organs.
I have had chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The long-term side effects of these treatments include peripheral neuropathy, which causes a loss of feelings in both feet and affects my balance. I've had rashes, lost hair, been exhausted and nauseous for days on end and dealt with cancer related depression and insomnia.
Insomnia has some advantages; I think a lot in the dark. I make lists--what do I need to do tomorrow; how will I do it; in what order.
I list names I struggle to remember. For the longest time, I could not recall John Updike’s name or Bonnie Raitt’s. I am not sure how memory works. Arthur Conan Doyle thought the brain was a limited number of pigeonholes which, when filled, needed to be emptied if new memories were to be added. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I don't know how many memories one incurs in a lifetime--millions upon millions, I suspect. Sometimes a name will elude me for a week or a month and then suddenly reappear as if it had gone on vacation and decided to come home. I keep forgetting the word lavender. I forgot the name of a man I worked with for years, recalling only that it started with an M. I kept coming up with Morton, which wasn’t correct. I could remember his girlfriend’s name, Ann, where he was born, and what he ordered for lunch every Thursday. One morning, his name, Martin, popped into my head. I forgot it the next day and decided the next time I came up with his name, I’d write it down. I now have a list of 15 proper names and objects.
I’m sure the list will grow.
Actually,it is not that I can't sleep; it's that I get to bed stupidly early and of course wake up in the middle of the night. This particular night is hampered by a tube coming from my left kidney and ending in a plastic bag clipped to my underwear. This was done two days ago to save my kidney. A brownish liquid, urine and blood, fills the bag in about two hours depending on the amount of liquids I take in.
I will soon be 79. I have gained two pounds every year over the past half century and now weigh--no, I cannot bring myself to type the number. I am officially obese which seems quite unfair considering my weight gain is only a couple of ounces a month.
Aging is frustrating. In my case, it seems as if everything has decided to fail at once. My eyesight is waning and my left eye is officially blind. I am losing teeth, hair, and memory. For the past 12 years I have been dealing with bladder cancer and have had 40 surgeries to deal with it. It's a nasty disease which killed my older sister, Florence and Jim, one of my close friends. My oncologist has ceased trying to talk me into having my bladder and prostate removed. I am stubbornly attached to my organs.
I have had chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The long-term side effects of these treatments include peripheral neuropathy, which causes a loss of feelings in both feet and affects my balance. I've had rashes, lost hair, been exhausted and nauseous for days on end and dealt with cancer related depression and insomnia.
Insomnia has some advantages; I think a lot in the dark. I make lists--what do I need to do tomorrow; how will I do it; in what order.
I list names I struggle to remember. For the longest time, I could not recall John Updike’s name or Bonnie Raitt’s. I am not sure how memory works. Arthur Conan Doyle thought the brain was a limited number of pigeonholes which, when filled, needed to be emptied if new memories were to be added. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I don't know how many memories one incurs in a lifetime--millions upon millions, I suspect. Sometimes a name will elude me for a week or a month and then suddenly reappear as if it had gone on vacation and decided to come home. I keep forgetting the word lavender. I forgot the name of a man I worked with for years, recalling only that it started with an M. I kept coming up with Morton, which wasn’t correct. I could remember his girlfriend’s name, Ann, where he was born, and what he ordered for lunch every Thursday. One morning, his name, Martin, popped into my head. I forgot it the next day and decided the next time I came up with his name, I’d write it down. I now have a list of 15 proper names and objects.
I’m sure the list will grow.
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