From the Diaspora...YOU KNOW YOU ARE GETTING OLD WHEN…

From the Diaspora…YOU KNOW YOU ARE GETTING OLD WHEN…

Aug 19, 2012 News

By Ralph Seeram
I could not understand what was going on. I was in a squatting position doing some work, then attempted to stand up, but found myself stuck. I could not stand up; my knees would not allow me. “What’s going on here?” I asked myself.
I felt this sharp pain in my left knee. Looking at it, it seemed larger than the right knee. After some effort I made it up. Looks like arthritis. I will have to get another tablet for this.
I recently discovered that I was taking some seven tablets a day; I did not realize that until I decided to add another tablet to my collection, one for joint pain. I wondered when I reached that stage. It was gradual over the years; you never take stock of this thing, until the small corner where I store my medicine became crowded.
Did I say seven? That is not counting any additional prescription the doctor may order for any illness. I started with the usual multivitamin which most of us take on a daily basis, and that was okay. We consumers are constantly bombarded with advertisements on how to keep yourself healthy. So we are told to have an aspirin daily to prevent heart attacks and so forth, so aspirin was added to the daily intake.
About ten years ago I had a heart surgery, so anything that can keep the heart healthy is an easy sell for me. Omega 3 was added to the daily intake. Now our grandparents were ahead of western medicine on this one. Remember we had to take our Cod Liver Oil, only it was by spoon. The taste was not pleasant. At some point it was also being given free in schools in tablet forms.
Then you had to strengthen your resistance for cold, you must have your vitamin C. It did not matter that it is already in your daily multi vitamin. That we are told is not enough, you need a 1000mg dose daily, so I added Vitamin C.
But Vitamin C and E going together, you have to get Vitamin E. Even my doctor said to use Vitamin E, so I had to make some more space to store Vitamin E. Vitamin E is added to the daily diet. Now don’t forget I had heart surgery; my doctor said I cannot do without cholesterol medicine, that I must use it. Now I hate to take prescription drugs; they have more side effects than cure. Nevertheless I must have my daily intake of statin.
Fortunately, that is the only prescription medicine I am taking. There would have been a few more, but I refused to take them. Some months ago my elbow was in pain; I hardly could have lifted anything, and I went to the specialist who promptly informed me that I had “tennis elbow”.
Now I never picked up a tennis racquet, so I asked him how I can get “tennis elbow”. The nearest I came to a tennis racquet was when I was growing up in New Amsterdam. I was about 12 years old, when my friend, Harold, suggested that we go to the Government House in New Amsterdam at the corner of Water and Vryheid Streets to pick up tennis balls.
It was all expatriates playing there in those days, they were too lazy to go pick up their balls so they paid us six cents to pick them up. Now six cents was a lot of cash for a “small boy” in those days. I could get a glass of mauby and buns for two cents. Anyway at that early age I found that demeaning, I never returned after the first day.
The tablet the doctor ordered had so many side effects that I decided against using it, and resorted to the old Guyanese method of “hot water” and a “rubbing”. Recently, on a visit to Guyana I was enjoying some cool breeze at Seawell on the Corentyne, watching some coconut trees swaying to the wind. I was admiring one particular coconut tree that was probably a hundred feet in height. It was very tall, but what caught my attention was the angle of the tree. It probably was leaning about thirty to forty degrees.
I thought to myself back in the day I would have climbed that tree barefooted; I loved the challenge of climbing difficult coconut trees in my youth. The last time I climbed, or more accurately got up a coconut tree, was at the famous Fraser farm on the #19 Road. It was by way of a ladder and that tree was not more than fifteen feet.
So now with my arthritis pain I have added Glucosamine with MSM to my over-the-counter collection of tablets. I often wonder if I stick to my Guyanese roots using fresh “greens”, chicken and fish, if that cannot do the trick, instead of all these tablets. But then I discovered I will be taking some more drugs. The “greens” have too many fertilizers, the meat is laced with hormones, and the fish has mercury. You can’t win.
I think it was “The Mighty Sparrow” who said age is just a number, but I’ll tell you this, your body will let you know when you reach that number, just look in your medicine cabinet.

Ralph Seeram can be reached at email: [email protected]