On Aging

I am afraid of becoming a monster—bloated and blind, with twisted limbs fumbling painfully towards remembered pleasures that cannot be seen and might not even exist anymore—like some kind of horror game mini-boss that must be put out of its misery before the game can progress.
Everything hurts somehow. Food is indigestible. Cold is pain. Motion is pain. Television is stupid, books are formulaic, music is derivative. Video games jig me to go on, to keep forever chasing the sparkling lure that is always just out of reach. Just one more run.

I can’t play music, if I ever could, because my hands hurt too much when I try.

I write things that are just more pieces of useless trash to be swept aside with a formula rejection email. “We are sorry that we can’t provide feedback, but we receive too many submissions.”

A while ago the sight went in one eye: it was as if that eye were looking through dirty glass, making everything grey and smeared. Was I having a stroke? Apparently not. Detached retina? Not according to the Internet. I called 811, the health information line, to ask whether this is something I should go to the ER for. I was on hold for so long that it went away. I hung up without speaking to anyone.

I have a doctor. I called the clinic she works at to set up an appointment. The machine said “Bienvenue à le Centre d’Urgence de — —, Press 9 for English.” I pressed 9. There was a bell, then the voice said “Bienvenue à le Centre d’Urgence de — —, Press 9 for English.” I tried a couple more times, then just let the French version continue. I couldn’t understand it well enough to know what to do. I hung up without speaking to anyone.

I went to their website. I filled in my name and Health Insurance information. I picked the name of my doctor and was not sure what kind of appointment I was looking for since the French choices seemed incomplete. I changed the site to be in English, entered all my data again and found that the choices were Emergency, Followup, and Pregnancy Followup.

Man, I don’t know. It didn’t matter, though, since apparently my doctor has no open slots for the foreseeable future.

When I get over it, I will call the Clinic and make my best guess about what buttons to press until I get an actual human on the line. My French is good enough to make an appointment even if the person does not speak much English.