This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

Hahaha. Morbidity survival kit: enema, blue chew, hip flask, the Book of Disquiet, the complete works of Lester Young, my slippers.

i have an increasingly frequent morning awareness of my own mortality, yes.

was talking about it just last night in fact.

partly my dad dying young-ish, partly a natural emotional inclination that way, and partly reading the wrong philosophy at the wrong age.

two or three times in my life i have been sitting in a chair and been overwhelmed by a fear of death - almost sensory, like vertigo, and totally paralysing. lasted each time for about ten minutes.

I had that in my mid thirties - for me it was fatherhood which made it grow in my mind. Sporadically overwhelming for a couple of years and then receded - I’m just glad to be alive and will accept it when it comes.

that should have read “increasingly frequent awareness”. it didn’t happen in the morning. that just tends to bring an awareness of the agony of being still alive.

i should add that i don’t fear death itself. not particularly looking forward to it, but don’t fear it. is the not being. tremendously egotistical i know but there it is.

absolutely - and it’s the one subject you can’t not be egocentric about!

I find myself less morbid of late, honestly. I used to think a lot about death, but now... I don't know, I guess it's a cliche, but I'm busy being born. We'll see how I feel if/when ("if" because some people do just die suddenly in their sleep) I have to deal with it on a practical level.

I was contacted as a bone marrow match a few weeks ago, and in a couple of weeks I will be (surgically) donating marrow to a young girl I don't know. At every one of my appointments leading up to the procedure I've been told/reminded of the potential for complications, including, given the use of general anesthesia, my death (however remote). This hasn't really given me any pause, because all sorts of things can go wrong to and for any of us on any given day, but I have been thinking of the recipient. I know what her illness is, and without a marrow transplant she will likely die. There is a chance, leading up to the transplant, that she could die. There is still a chance, after the transplant, that she could die. And there is a very good chance that if I back out, she will die. Without a doubt this experience has made me think about a lot of things, but mostly about how thankful I am to have made it this far, how thankful I am to (hopefully) have a lot more ahead of me, how scared I would be if it was my child in dire need of a transplant, and how grateful I would be (and what I would do) to significantly extend their life.

(I've also learned that being 44 puts me on the "young" end of the donor spectrum, albeit at the upper end of "young.")

rush otm, and good on you Josh!

yeah Josh big ups

Found out recently an old friend's daughter has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It doesn't hit me as personally hard as it does the friends of mine with kids, but I know that seeing something like that happen to your child is one of the absolute worst things you can go through. It also makes me think of the Captain Beefheart song "Bill's Corpse"; it does seem like the only time we get together these days is when something awful happens. Well, you know, I did deactivate my Facebook account.

And yeah it's a good thing you are doing Josh.

I hope medical advances will keep advancing - its the best use of technology

absolutely! at this point, i am just wondering how many of the cancers I am going to get in the next ten years or so

I meant to say at the time: that's an amazing gesture, Josh. I hope it all goes well.

xp

I'll keep you all informed. Procedure is ... Tuesday.

Good luck Josh. Did I miss the backstory of what led you to donate?

wrt nurses, yes they are the best. My generalization is that nowadays nurses choose their profession because they truly love helping others while doctors do it for the ca$h. (of course there are many many fantastic, caring docs)

It was just a donor drive back in 2013. Got my cheek swabbed and forgot all about it.

I just now joined the donor registry because I was "Inspired by a donor story" (you have to say why).

Ah. Well, specifically, our synagogue had a drive because a family member of a temple member needed a marrow transfer.

Update, if anyone wants it. I've been in the hospital since about 6:30 this morning. Marrow harvest went well, my marrow is on its way to the recipient. I'm just hanging out here for the all clear, Waiting for my hemoglobin levels, waiting for a little bit of bleeding to stop, waiting to pee again. Literally hanging out, too; hospital gowns do little for the ego.

good on you for volunteering; hope you have games on your phone
they're basically all that make life worthwhile

Hope the glow of righteous, selfless action exceeds any pain - what a fantastic and life changing thing to do. Huge respect.

The PACU where I've been stuck has so many video game like noises going on anyway, I did think it would be hilarious if i comically added to the din. Honk!

I actually did overhear a nurse talking about her pet duck, which was highly entertaining.

http://themotionpictures.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/ybyl.png

pics or it didn't happen.

Just kidding. well done and take care!

hello. i'm new here

fuck, i remember my uncle, and various friends of my parents, turning 40. i'm not their age.

Welcome. It's not all bad. I find I only feel my age when I remember how old my kids are.

I used to belong here, but now, y’know ...

...you can’t find the 50s thread?

Come on along

I’ll yet be over there in March. Having my 49th year literally be a year of COVID is weird — my birthday was one of the last classic fun days before lockdown — but in a weird way the enforced calm is probably what was needed given everything else in the world.

Hey, dog. Pay no mind to the fact that your birth is now closer to The Blitz than it is to the present day.

Or that if Austin Powers went back in time thirty years ago now, he'd land in 1989, just in time for your ninth birthday.

Forty is a great age, to be honest. Why? Because it ain't 41.

1990. Thirty years ago was 1990.

^^ Get used to crap like that too.

Oh crap, I'm actually 41 now!

1990. Thirty years ago was 1990.

Watch any TV news report from 1990 and it'll feel like it was even longer ago.

Both of my kids have in recent years needed to dress "'90s" for something and they ran their duds by me. My reaction was that, first, early 90s were very different from the late 90s. And second, the hell I remember what anyone was wearing, that was years ago.

The sudden realization that socked me in the gut earlier this year was that I'd graduated high school twenty five years ago. That can't be possible. A quarter century? No, no, that's not right. Try the math again, please.

xpost Next time, tell them to do an image search for TLC.

Tanky jeans, tanky sweatshirts.

Watch any TV news report from 1990 and it'll feel like it was even longer ago.

I dunno. A lot of it holds up!

https://i.imgur.com/k7WTP1M.gif

also, flying cars

Xpost to the absentminded thread
My favorite part of being in my 40s is the realization, maybe once a month, that I’ve been walking around all day, going to bars and shopping etc, with my fly open

over the summer I watched a couple documentaries about the LA Riots and then the one about the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings ... and I thought, this is middle age, this is like my parents watching documentaries about the Civil Rights movement and Mississippi Burning

Same way my granddad used to lay on the couch and fall asleep to kamikaze attacks on batteships in the Pacific theater, I'm certain my grandkids will come into my den to find me snoozing away to ash-covered stockbrokers stepping their way through fallen rubble and drifting paper.

Lol

I’ll yet be over there in March. Having my 49th year literally be a year of COVID is weird — my birthday was one of the last classic fun days before lockdown — but in a weird way the enforced calm is probably what was needed given everything else in the world.

i don't want to alarm you, but this is actually your 50th year

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/898/402/48d.gif

i don't want to alarm you, but this is actually your 50th year

Guy at the liquor store venting a little about a woman who came in on Saturday night, wanting to buy vodka even though she didn't turn 21 until Sunday.

I mentioned the same thing you just said and got the blankest stare, before he mumbled something about tell that to the ABC.

This is his 50th year, but he’s still 49.

This is like when people ask how old a child is and parents say something like “he’ll be 4 in December.” Is there some shame in being 3? Just say he’s 3!

/rant