Post Mid-Life

Although I’m “only” in my 40’s, I feel like the ravages of old age are really catching up to me recently.  Particularly on the physical side, though I’m hardly in the best of mental health either – I almost take the fact that I suffer from depression for granted now, though I don’t think I’m anywhere near as depressed as I have been in the past.   On the physical side, it starts with taking medication for my high blood pressure, the side effects of which are really causing me issues.  I’m about to start a new medication, as I just cannot tolerate the one I’m on now as the leg and feet pain/cramping it causes is giving me fits.  My main forms of exercise are walking/hiking and table tennis, and when the medication is hampering my ability to do both of those then I am not in a good place.  This couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time – I’ve had to bail on the work step challenge as I can’t get anywhere near 10,000 steps a day at the moment, and although I’m still in the work table tennis tournament I am severely hampered by my pain and discomfort.  And just when I was in the form of my life and probably the #1 seed entering the tournament – typical for something like this to happen just before my best ever chance of winning a trophy for the first time EVER in my life.  I suspect this will be one of many changes to my blood pressure medication as the search for the most tolerant but most effective drug continues on – medication I’m going to be on for the rest of my life.  The other disheartening sign of old age is my increasingly thinning hair – the number of hairs I seem to be shedding is quite alarming at the moment, and my scalp is becoming increasingly visible under my hairline.  No buzz cuts ever again – I need to keep my hair relatively long in the hope that it provides some kind of cover.  Before long, I suspect I’m going to have a comb over like an old man.