I’m 70 now. It is with something akin to shock that I realize it has been four full years since I entered into retirement. Paradoxically, I’ve done a lot and yet not enough in the areas that needed something to be done. I’ve lived along with everyone else in the world through the COVID pandemic, the lockdown, the lockdown aftermath, and finally, all the political sturm and drang produced by the inflated Orange One to arrive in the year of our Lord 2024.

The year 2023 was a real personal shock on a very personal level. My father passed away along with an aunt on my mother’s side. Three more deaths rounded out the year, one of them both a co-worker and engineer as well as a great friend who I met back in 1985 at a local computer club meeting in downtown Orlando. His small company was critical to me surviving a layoff that lasted essentially from June until October of 1989; he hired me as a consultant to help write some important embedded software for a system used on draglines, one of them a machine in central Texas I helped him work on. Many memories, many projects. In the end he seemed to slip away.

My wife is also experiencing some serious medical issues. In May, the day before Mother’s Day, she wound up heading to the hospital in an ambulance. Right before the ambulance came I injected her with an epinephrine pen because she was “presenting” all the symptoms of anaphylactic shock. The head of the ER where she was taken stated I probably saved her life with that action. While I’m certainly glad I did, it still shook me up quite a bit to realize how close she might have come to her own death. That in turn forced me to consider what to do if she were to pass from me, and ways to watch and prevent the May episode from happening again. I’ve been thinking of it ever since.

She spent a week in hospital. We still don’t know what happened to her in May. The medical system here in Florida has messed up one critical test after another, and let one important opportunity after another slip by. We’ve traveled to specialists all over, one down in Fort Lauderdale, and she’s scheduled to see another at the University of Miami mid-January. She’s found one local doctor who is actually sympathetic and is trying to get to the bottom of what is happening, and just doesn’t dismiss her out of hand.

I’ve also lined up two different work opportunities I hope open up this year. To be blunt I need the additional income. Expenses have come up that need to be taken care of, and there are more in the future. The idea that retirement is some golden paradise is a farce, especially for mere mortals such as Judy and I.

The good news is that I don’t have the genetic predisposition for Alzheimers, and my health habit (I never drank nor smoked, and was never a “recreational” drug user) also bolster my health and considerably lower the chances of my developing Alzheimers. There’s also a report out now showing a strong link between gingivitis and Alzheimers, as the bacteria P. gingivalis is found in the brains of many who have died of Alzheimers. The amyloid buildup in the victim’s brains was a symptom, not the cause, and was the brain’s way of trying to trap the bacterial invaders. I go to a dentist every six months and my mouth health is in very good shape. I have all my teeth and no cavities.

This year is a major election year with the Orange One running again on the Republican ticket and threatening democracy everywhere in this country. Now’s not the time to shrink into a hole and pull it in after me. I need to take a more alert, and if possible, a more politically activist stance.

A lot of challenges face me to be sure. This coming year won’t be boring, that’s for sure.

Links

Scientists May Have Found the Cause of Alzheimer’s Disease—And How to Reverse It — https://www.thehealthy.com/alzheimers/common-disease-can-actually-kickstart-alzheimers/