This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

momus is almost 50

There's a Guided By Voices song about this.

nED AT THE SOCKHOP OH MY GOD

I really, really don't know how to react to this.

weve all reacted by blotting it out

Well I know that you're in love with him,
Because I saw you dancing in the gym
You both kicked off your Keds.
Oh, I dig that rhythm and Ned!

(I thought JBR's suggestion at first was an age progression of ILXors into their fifties and was thinking "oh it won't take much to imagine some of that.")

Ned, all you have to do is put on the socks. That's all. And we need a hardwood floor, and XTC's "Life Begins At The Hop". Now who will film this????

did you at least smoke a lot of pot?

I think the first time I smoked pot was roughly summer of 1970. Didn't do much for me. My friends included several 'heads', but I was just a dabbler. My older brother was into it pretty far by 1971. He still tokes up now.

I didn't really get launched as a pot smoker until college, where I spent most of 1974 stoned. Made my own bong from a glass lab beaker. I quit entirely around 1977 or so. I can't say I miss it.

and at least know a kid like trip fontaine?

Hard to say, because I don't have a clue who trip fontaine is. I did know a lot of druggies and hippies in the 70s. They were as common as daisies back then.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3Pgo2kaznFU/RqsBjrRCKMI/AAAAAAAAARs/7wAJzhaYC3A/s1600/964.jpg

that link 404'ed me

(xxpost) Trip Fontaine is a character from the book/film "The Virgin Suicides"

Start at about 3:30 here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_smJP8oRnE

Btw, Frank Kogan, who posts to a couple of the rolling genre threads on ILM, is 54.

Also:
Most of the time I dwell in a state of unreality, where I have amazing superpowers. And I am 50 years old.

-- Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, February 5, 2007 12:29 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Our cohort is few, but mighty.

abbott being a sexy cold war scientist

OH MY GOD WHY WAS I NEVER THAT

I remember Howdy Doody.

and i thought i was old for remembering leaded gasoline!

madonna, michael jackson, prince and ME -- i am now 50 and 1/2.

sept 1968 was like the gayest time to enter high school

everyone cool in those days were entering college

there is truth lurking here -- people in our sub-generation have a complicated relationship w/our older sibs, the 60s baby boomers. this usage of "gay" is uhm, anachronisitic, or something. (I entered HS in 72 FWIW.)

anachronistic! edgy, you mean!!1!

so is bimble part of this exclusive club?

I didn't expect to get shoulder and back hair this late in the game.

ha was wondering what you meant in the 40s thread

what's up y'all

had a cardiologist call me at 7am to cancel my appointment (snow)

this morning the dentist said that my teeth with metal fillings will all eventually need crowns; seems legit, the youngest of those fillings is 40+ years old

i went to the dentist for lots of work this past year, first time since forever, and it was all space aged nano whatever shit and i think the dentist and his assistant were legit smirking at my one old iron ore filling from when i was a teenager, fifty years ago, in an eastern bloc nation

oh hi, I'm 54 now

peeing takes a long time

backache is a thing

(knocks on wood)

As hinted above, I have a cardiologist now! My primary doctor, who has pretty amazing raw skills -- like hearing -- apparently, thought he heard a murmur in my heartbeat last month. GREAT!

It turns out I have an "unconcerning" prolapse which is a "2" (not a 3 or a 4), so it just has to be checked every year from now on.

Aging is a motherfucker.

all the best morbs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmur_(album)#/media/File:R.E.M._-_Murmur.jpg

i am two years older than william hartnell in this picture :D

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p01hg14p.jpg

(obviously i have regenerated several times: also did not grow up in poverty etc)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

what a feelin'

mainly feeling it in my lower back today

Rapidly approaching Sammy Hagar milestone.

Minutemen?

Can you hear me, Dr. Mu

Imagine my surprise

Just realized that the “ordinary guy” in Pavement’s “Stereo” is maybe a reference to “Dr. Wu.” I still got it!

Oh wait

I just went through all the tests you are supposed to do when you get to 50, only 7 years late.

Anyway, all passed 100%, so hey!

I guess that lower back pain is gonna go in the "what do you expect at yr age?" cart.

Thanks for reminding me. I just did the same with one test, the biggest of all, remaining to be done in the next few months. If the news is bad I will speed post my remaining backlog of screennames.

I was Big C diagnosed about five months after turning 50, so maybe i didn't get the other tests.

(i'm mostly OK now, just medicated)

He got paid five times more per ep than Anneke Wills was, to make up for the poverty stricken childhood!

― calzino

for two months and then he got sacked. quintessential "being in your '50s" experience tbh

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

Definitely another bummer about being in your 50s. If you lose your job, you can't necessarily bounce back. You might never have a salaried position again.

HI DERE. Raise your hand if you have been rendered depressed, rudderless, and without direction because you've structured your life around a eight-hour, salaryman working schedule for so long that when you were inevitably disrupted out of your career you've become addicted to the anxiety and panic of not being able to focus. oops TMI

raises hand

in my case it took several years to work through the trauma of being ejected and to figure out other ways to live ... I won't trivialize the difficulties involved, but now the only thing I miss from my salaryman days is the income

I'm finding this particularly difficult in the bitterly cold Minnesota winters! Not to mention the bitterly(?) hot summers.

I ache. I wake up too many times in the night and if I see biscuits, I eat them.

my doctor gave me a big bottle of gabapentin for some reason, he didn't really explain what it's for... but my lord that's a powerful sleep aid; you don't really dream, you don't get up to pee, you just sleep super hard...

xp I've literally just been stuffing my face with biscuits.

my doctor gave me a big bottle of gabapentin for some reason, he didn't really explain what it's for... but my lord that's a powerful sleep aid; you don't really dream, you don't get up to pee, you just sleep _super hard..._

yeah, 600mg! a horse pill... maybe I can split it in half, I've only taken them a couple times tbh

but what if you do have to pee.

we're in our 50s! It's just a dribble anyway

the results of my shitposting were clear, will be happy to have a two year break from mailing faeces

My college kid got a summer job at the place that runs the poop-by-mail scheme. Wisconsin!

My brother turned 50 today. I texted him:

Happy birthday. 50 is the beginning of your DGAF era. You may think you were a DGAF person before, but you have no idea. From now on, anybody under 35 is gonna sound like Charlie Brown's teacher to you. I've never felt more free than the last 3 years.

I really felt in my 50s last night when I was trying to remember the name Janeane Garofalo but kept coming up with Johnette Napolitano

I really felt I was 50 when I was at a concert and heard it dismissed by someone as something mostly for people in their '50s and '60s.

Best to take that as recommendation rather than dismissal

as if you need another reason (I did mine last year)

Taking advantage of a unique public health policy in the UK, a new study has found that receiving the shingles vaccine reduces dementia risk by 20%. The findings bolster a growing body of research linking the vaccine to lower numbers of dementia cases...

So I'm 'mid 50s' and have never had a colonoscopy... I see that some people start in their mid-40s

So I got the courage up and reached out to my HMO primary physician.. I asked if the home tests ('poop on the paper') are sufficient, or if I should go in for my closeup... here's what he responded:

Hi Andy the Grasshopper,

At 55, it is recommended to begin regular colorectal cancer screening. A colonoscopy is the most comprehensive method, allowing for direct visualization and removal of polyps. However, stool-based tests, such as the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), are also effective for detecting early signs of colorectal cancer. These tests are less invasive and can be done at home. If the FIT results are abnormal, a follow-up colonoscopy would be necessary. Sometimes a colonoscopy would be indicated with patients who have a more family history of colon cancer as well. Please do let me know if there's any history of this.

I've done the home test every year for awhile, and always got back a 'normal' result.. What do you guys think? Should I push for the real deal, or let it ride?

I have a family history so I get the knockout jelly-finger. My cousin is a butt-doctor and according to him a colonoscopy can detect precancerous things that won't show up on a poo test. If you have any reason to suspect that your chances of cancer are higher than average I would go all in. Family history? Drinker/smoker? They can also tell you if you have any noncancerous butt issues.

I am not yet 50, so take that with a grain of salt.

Here's where I stand/sit. When I turned 47 my primary care told me that they've started to recommend earlier screenings, because iirc treatment for colon cancer is relatively successful if caught early. (Fwiw around the same time I had a friend treated for colon cancer, though she was in her '50s.) Anyway, you get the option of poop in a box or the full deal. I went with the poop in the box, which is easy. But (heh) the previous year, my wife went with the colonoscopy, and while they didn't find anything cancerous or anything, they did find a couple of polyps, which can become problematic, so they got rid of them. Subsequently I read that, per Cow_Art, the poop in the box test is only relatively accurate when it comes to detecting anything, and if detected, you have to get a colonoscopy anyway, and insurance often categories and charges for them differently, prevention vs treatment. Also, the poop in the box is recommended every three years, but colonoscopy only every 10. So it's now been three years and I am now 50, and I got a reminder about the poop in the box, but this time I am going full colonoscopy. I figure, if I'm going to do it, I'm going all-in (so to speak), for peace of mind.

Downside is I couldn't get an appointment before September. I'm also getting an upper endoscopy, because I have low iron, for some reason.

I've had scopes every 5 years since my early 40s, recommended because of some family history. The prep is no great joy, but it's OK. I dunno, my out of pocket cost for them is fairly low, if it cost me a lot more it would be more debatable. But there is some reassurance there. I think somewhere up in this thread (or maybe another?) there's discussion of propofol for the procedure. It's the only kind of anesthesia I've ever had, it's kinda wild. Doubly so to wake up from a nap with this guy in a white coat showing photos from the scan.

Here's something I came across on some medical thread that made me go colonoscopy over cologuard:

From the manufacturer, the cologuard had a 92% sensitivity, which in patient impact terms means that nearly one in ten patients WITH CANCER will have a NEGATIVE result, leading them to put off further screening for at least three years. There also a 10-13% false positive rate, which concerns me less as that will lead to a followup with the gold standard examination.

This is compared to colonoscopy which has about a 95% sensitivity for cancer, which means 1 in 20 patients with cancer will have a negative result. This is usually due to operator error, unfortunately. However, this is nearly a 50% reduction in false negatives for cancer, which is meaningful.

Further, consider the declining CRC rate. This is almost certainly due to early polypectomy eliminating benign polyps which could undergo transformation to malignancy over time. Stool based tests do nothing to eliminate these polyps early and thus serve no role in prevention, only in detection. Also, when you back away from looking at only malignancy and consider these premalignant lesions, Cologuard has only a 62% sensitivity for polyps with high grade dysplasia, which are at high risk for malignant transformation, and a 42% sensitivity for all polyps. Colonoscopy sensitivity for polyps is over 90%.

Yes, the negative predictive value is very high, but that is because it is a screening test and we are testing many many MANY people who don’t have the disease. For a catastrophic illness like colon cancer, the sensitivity is far more important, and I’m unimpressed by Cologuard. Yes, the best test is the one a patient will actually do, but we should be careful as physicians to properly counsel our patients as to the actual sensitivities and risk reduction aspects of their options.

The person followed up when asked about Cologuard's pretty high NPV (negative predictive value):

What I’m saying is that NPV is a great number for them to sell the test, but doesn’t tell the real story. This is a screening test. NPV is the likelihood that a negative will be a true negative in ALL PATIENTS SCREENED. The problem is that we test an enormous number of patients without disease, so OF COURSE there will be a high rate of true negatives. A 99% NPV can mean that I tested 100 people and all tested negative. 99 were true negatives, 1 was a false negative. That hypothetical test would have 0% sensitivity despite a 99% NPV.

Cologuard’s 99.94% NPV and 92% sensitivity means that in the total population if I test 10,000 people there will be 9994 true negatives. However, if I test 10,000 people WITH CANCER there will be 800 false negatives.

All that ignores the very poor sensitivity for adenomas and the loss of risk reduction through polypectomy.

I would argue that what patients care about is “if I have something, will this test find it?” The answer to that question is that if you have a premalignant polyp, the test will miss 3 out of every 10. If you have an existing cancer, the test will miss almost 1 out of every 10. That is the number that an individual patient cares about, in my opinion. NPV and PPV would be great if you were going to go straight to treatment or ‘make the diagnosis’ based on the test result. However, Cologuard is really a ‘rule out’ test as what you are trying to do in practice is rule out the patients who don’t need colonoscopies. For that purpose the sensitivity is not high enough. In my opinion.

I am deemed to be at high risk for cancer (immunosuppression messing with cancer defenses) and had some "precancerous" polyps a few years ago, so the medical profession has had a couple good looks up in my undercarriage.

Agree that the anaesthesia aspect is really very pleasant. I find myself wishing there were more experiences like that in life. Get ready Get ready Get- oh wait, you're done? Um, okay. Bye.

that is weird. last colonoscopy i had was like the best sleep ever. today i am wired up with the 24hr blood pressure machine. i have popped my back somehow and am struggling to get in and out of seats

The place that I go for colonoscopies is kind of amazing — big sleek office park building that is basically a colonoscopy factory. You get moved through it with dazzling efficiency from one room to the next, just this constant churn. Everybody is super nice and good about answering questions, so I don’t just feel like another slab of meat moving through. But I can’t imagine how many they do in a day. (Or how much money they bring in.)

xp Sorry about your back!

But I can’t imagine how many they do in a day. (Or how much money they bring in.)

Can't speak to your colonoscopy factory, but the fact that the soonest I could get mine (at a hospital) was end of August/beginning of September shows that they must have plenty lined up!

just this constant churn

lol

Re-reading that note from my primary physician (above), it sure looks cut & past if not AI generated.. and has a gatekeeper vibe (the home test is cheap for the HMO, colonoscopy is expensive)... I don't think I have any family history, but I just thought it was expected that everyone gets one, he kinda paints it as an option

in the UK, everyone from 54-74 gets a screening kit in the mail every two years. for free obv.

i don't believe colonscopies are offered unless something comes up in those, or if you're in a high-risk group