Post #17

Me and my fucking bones

From the Department of Midlife Affairs · Bureau Assignment: Unnecessary Complications · Departmental Finding: Standards Have Been Lowered

Now don’t you dare laugh at this, because you know I’ll come right through that screen and wallop you. I don’t give a fuck anymore as my DGAF-o-Meter states and this trusty measure is proving more reliable than half the twats I’m surrounded by.

So where was I? Damn brain fog. Ah yes, so I’m at a yoga class. Before you start, I can do the splits. Okay I COULD do the splits once when I was athletic and limber and as floppy as a rag doll. Now I’m more Pinocchio than Raggedy Ann. So I’m in a yoga class, why, I’m not sure. Probably because I got roped into it by the Sister Crones. Tell a lie when I was younger and working in my terrible corporate job, stressed to the eyeballs and wiping all those glued-up corporate backsides, I used to do yoga. It helped calm me down, so when the suggestion came up I didn’t immediately strike it off the list. WELL FUCK ME, I wish I had! Five minutes in I realize, this isn’t the yoga of my youth (30s), it’s a medieval torture session and I’m the one on the rack.

I peer through my legs as I do a downward dog, to see my comrades in cramp, right behind me grimacing. The downwards bit wasn’t so bad but then all hell breaks loose, first I fart, then because suddenly I feel self-conscious – a glitch in DGAF-o-Meter caused by being nose-deep in lithe, young female crack, I cough. BIG mistake because that makes me dribble, (thank fuck I wore dark leggings otherwise the spreading stain of shame would have been witnessed by all like some vicious carnivorous flower). But the yoga instructor, a Boho chick in tie-dye and shell necklaces, pipes up about pushing our bellies down to the mat, noses down. I try but my hip is STUCK.I mean not being stubborn, but downright belligerent, so there I am ass up, legs like a busted tripod, heaving inelegantly. The only thing remotely dog-like about my pose is the ‘bitch in heat’ sweat that’s pouring down into my eyes! I glare through my wet crotch at the nearest Sister Crone Abby who’s managed to get nose down without any issues. In fact as the next instruction dictates, she’s gliding back to ass up like a well-oiled male stripper doing a dry hump. (Well she IS only 47, a young ‘un). Meanwhile I grunt and eventually side flop like a mashed up tent. Luckily my DGAF-o-Meter’s kicked back in and all previous shame has vanished, I curse a few times and creak onto my knees.

So after that LONG-winded and dissatisfying foreplay, we get to the crux of it. My hips are shot, my knees aren’t any better and everything clunks when the joints lock. I sound like a shotgun being reloaded as bits fall into place. I hurt; my tendons are sore as are my ligaments. I ache when I sit too long, or if I crouch down, (twerking is OBVIOUSLY out). I ache when I get out of bed for sleeping crunched up, planes, trains and automobiles, ALL make me ache. My elbows ache, my wrists ache (thankfully I haven’t wanted to jerk off in a while and have toys or Tatter Cloak for that). SO, what is wrong with my fucking bones? Well, you know where I’m going with this. DECLINING HORMONES, that’s where. Estrogen drops cause inflammation markers to rise in the body. As an anti-inflammatory, it keeps everything nice and calm, but once it starts tapering off, tissues and joints start to hurt.

It keeps the cartilage lubricated with synovial (joint) fluid, so its decline means cartilage wears down and the ends of bones can rub, leading to osteoarthritis. The tendons and ligaments are usually elastic due to estrogen, without it, it’s ‘stiff city’ - like my stuck hip. But the worst result of low estrogen is bone density change, since the hormone regulates how bone tissue breaks down and gets rebuilt, without it you’re looking at bone thinning and increased porosity leading to Osteopenia (early stage bone tissue loss) and Osteoporosis (advanced bone tissue loss).

NOT FUCKING GOOD. But there are things you can do to prevent and stall this process and I’m doing it all. Like diet, exercise, HRT, tracking the bone density. But for now I think I’ll stick to less adventurous exercise like walking the dog! Woof woof.

Croning On and On