Ever notice that the older you get, the more the injuries linger? Yeah, I know. Stating the obvious. I was thinking of all those times I was hurt on the job, so many times I've lost count, not that I was counting. Minor lacerations from crossing barbed wire fences, tripping and breaking my thumb, getting my other thumb smashed in a truck door due to 40 mph winds, landing on my ass on black ice while carrying an old T1 and and some supplies and somehow avoiding damaging the equipment, myself of course the exception, smashing my fingers with the maul, increasing discomfort and pain of arthritis in the old joint wounds and now the hands in general, ruining my shoulders digging for corners in frozen graveled county roadbeds and through asphalt lifts, taxing a chronically bad back beyond its diminishing capacity, sandblasted eyeballs, blistering sunburn, stickers that stay in your skin for weeks, contracting colds from arctic blasts, drenching rains, .... Blah blah blah. Not that I'm complaining. No one likes a whiner. 
Whine on while you can. I guess that's all us old farts can do about it.
Other than wimpin' outa the killer heat, the hard ground this year killed my wrists. Slamming the sharp-shooter or grubbin' hoe into this brick hard clay makes my wrists ache and throb. Trompin' around on uneven rough ground is a killer on my ankles. When I get up outa bed in the morning I sound like a '49 Buick backing out of a steep driveway.
I'm glad everything justs hurts, but still works. I hate to think what the next 'level' is going to bring...
Pills. They have pills for all those things now. You may rattle when you walk, but, just add pills and you'll be fine. Be sure to take one of those big ol' happy pills daily. Then you won't really care how you feel.
I always heard the old folks at church say that "old age isn't for sissies". I am beginning to realize more every day, that they were much tougher than I thought I was.
my fingers, my whole right arm especially my elbow and shoulder, not to mention my knees, and my right foot has planter faciatis, a sorry joke for a surveyor...
Between the thin skin and daily baby aspirins, sometimes my arms look like a leopard's.
Between the Plavix and daily baby aspirins, sometimes I bruise in a stiff breeze
Ailments of the old solo surveyor
2003 was a bad year for this solo surveyor. Hernia in March, broken foot in November. About went belly up, financially. Only positive in that one was I got the hell out of Michigan and it's friggin snowconomy.
Eight years later, still at it and hopefully a bit wiser for the wear. Now it's dodging snakes instead of swattin 'skeeters. And I don't even know where my ice scraper is, let alone my snow shovel.
Life's pretty good when you approach it right.....
At the end of a long day the old surveyor walked into the ice cream parlor and slowly, painfully, hoisted himself up onto a stool at the counter and ordered a banana split.
"Crushed nuts", asked the waitress?
"No, arthritis" answered the surveyor.
Last couple of years I've been gettin creaky. Hips, shoulders etc, etc. Just gettin old I guess.
The other day I was watching a TV program when someone mentioned "Polymyalgia Rheumatica". I looked it up and what do you know? All of the symptons fit me exactly.
A few steriods and I will be good as new! Now I can repeat the last 40 years of abuse.
Lets see 60+40 = I think I will be too old for this line of work.:-)
that there was funny....
Stiff sore hands... chronic shoulder pain... bad knees...torn tendon in right ankle that acts up now and then...
scars...
Beats being dead, I reckon.
We've adopted an old adage from the hardrock miners around Kellogg, Idaho: "Any day above ground is a good day".
Last Sunday morning I couldn't tell which was creaking the most, me or the stairs but I creaked my way out to the kitchen, with a groan nuzzled my wife's neck and whispered, "your stallion is here". Now, a chuckle would have been rewarding but the hearty laugh was not.
The Baby Aspirin Thing
My doc told me years ago -- 10? 15? -- to take a daily baby aspirin, so I did. For years. Then about 5 years ago I had a mole (which turned out to be benign) removed from my back. Following instructions, I discontinued the baby aspirin 2 weeks prior to surgery.
The mole was pretty deep, and the surgeon had to lay in some subcutaneous stitches in addition to surface stitches. Nevertheless, as he was sewing me up and cauterizing vessels, I heard him mutter "Jesus Christ!," so I asked what was going on. He said, "You're bleeding like a stuck pig; have you been taking blood thinners?" I told him about the aspirin, and he said, "You'd better think about stopping that for good. If you were to get in a major accident, you'd bleed to death before the EMTs could get to you."
I told my GP about it, and he advised me to keep taking the aspirin. I have no heart, BP or cholesterol problems, so I decided not to follow that advice. I figure I'm more at risk of an accident in the field than I am of heart trouble.
That is so funny and could be so true also.
