This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

i did the cologuard test thing. but that was a while ago.

i was happy to do that instead of a colonoscopy.

I am good now until my early 60s, after two scope sessions plus one surgery to remove a difficult polyp

pro tip for drinking the stuff: aromatherapy! I was taking big sniffs of crushed fresh mint in between gulp sessions

If I'm shitting in a box it's getting mailed to a politician, not a lab.

Xxps lol @ eephus

Pretty much as soon as I turned fifty two years ago I got both my shingles vaccine and first colonoscopy booked. Strictly speaking the latter was a poo test first, being blunt; as some blood was detected the colonoscopy was ordered up on the safe side, and all was well aside from one minimal non-cancerous polyp. (TMI, granted, but these are the practicalities of the situation, and frankly I will always take the opportunity for tests, vaccinations etc. if offered or recommended -- though of course it doesn't hurt at all that I always had solid insurance coverage.)

I'm not sure there can be TMI at this age. Only going to get MI from here on out.

I still gotta do the shingrix. Keep putting it off because of the reports, being sick for two days etc. But if I get shingles I’ll be kicking myself.

do it, way better than shingles

The vaccine was terrible for me, but you gotta do it.

It's €250 here! Astronomical!

I'm intrigued by all the colonoscopies in this thread. In the US do you all get regular colonoscopies once you hit 50? Definitely not the case in Australia, unless you have some specific reason.

Yeah that was my experience. I have a family history of bowel polyps so was urged by my mother to ask for one, which I reluctantly followed up, only to have the hospital gastro dept say to me "why are you asking for this, you're too young?". This'd be when I was about 46 or 47 I guess? I did get it done after mentioning the fam history and in the end I did have polyps that I had to get removed (its been 5 years and they hounded me for a follow up recently but I honestly cant be arsed, too much other health crap going on).

Ha.... can't be "arsed" roffle roffle.

I finally got a colonoscopy at 59 and they found two polyps, both benign. They said come in in 5 years for the next one and here it is 7 years later (but I'm gonna do it, I swear!).

Also have an enlarged prostate (and higher than normal PSA readings) so have had that biopsy too - negative.

Prostate screening is complex and erratic in the UK. The NHS website tells you this:

There's currently no screening programme for prostate cancer in the UK. This is because it has not been proved that the benefits would outweigh the risks.

This thread is rough compared to the last one I was in.

First post by a deceased ilxor. Second post namechecks a deceased ilxor. Third post asks, What if we got lost in the 50's amirite.

I guess I'm not used to being the baby in the room.

welcome little bro <3

wow i was only 40 yrs young then, and i had so much optimism. ooh, and my teeth, i had those, too! ahh, what a time.

See, I'm like What's mookieproof doing in this thread? Weren't we just teasing him about looking like Jason Giambi?

You know... in 2005?

i was never that sweaty

dag

On a good day, like today, I feel so very on top of the world. Life is on cruise control. Nothing to prove, nobody to impress, just being me.

Safely married and housed and gainfully employed. Kids thriving and on their way to something resembling independence.

Then I remember that two weeks ago I was trying to get through a day without having a nervous breakdown, from the sheer pressure to keep up the appearance of being a functional adult.

For me it's really very binary: either everything's great or I'm a complete dumpster fire. Wish I could set a comfy middle.

is lowerbck pain the price we all pay in our 50's from being the upright vertebrates instead of horiozontal like nature seems to have intended

tis why i walk at least 3km a day.
i used to go swimming a few times a week,
but then the pandemic kicked in,
and i realised that a good-n-fast walk helped just as well, and such options were free.
if i don't head out for a few days then yeah, my lower back begins to lock up.

Yup, my morning walks, on top of my walks to work and back, are key things for me.

my family keeps tryna get 50+ me to stop my 10+ hrs/wk of outdoor shit (i mean, i broke my right clavicle for the 4th time this summer).

but i’m like- if i quit i might
1) die
2) drink harder
3) start smoking, it sounds relaxing and pleasurable and i do like a pipe
4) see if i can gain 100 lbs in a year just to piss you off and i like feeling accomplished

Nearly 54. I spent a few hours on my knees sanding and refinishing the hardwood floor of my dining room last weekend and i could barely walk on Monday. Finally starting to feel ok again but I think I'll hire contractors for home improvements from here in out.

i have walked an average of 15km every single day for the last 3 years, which i know seems a mad amount and is probably too much, but the benefits have been huge.

Doing 20 mins of walking a day is a miracle for me, I've become quite infirm and my knees are developing a smidge of arthritic pain now.

I mean, I can walk fine, I dont need a cane or anything. I'm just saying - use it or lose it is DEF a thing.

I walk ay least two miles (or bike at least five miles) pretty much every day.

It's not like a huge GET SWOLE kind of workout, but I find it both sustainable and salutary.

On days when I don't do one or the other, I feel the lack of it.

I walk or bike a few miles most day, that's how I commute and get around, but I can't say I feel any different when I sit all day

That said, I'd almost always prefer to get high and watch history documentaries in my underwear and/or eat nachos and drink pinot grigio while playing a mandola.

I am a simple man.

daddy told me: be a simple, mandola man!

I'm actually enjoying going to the gym more than I ever have before, just doing cardio and some basic weight stuff, nothing crazy, but pretty regular when I can. Been super busy with work/family stuff the last few months and have had fewer opportunities. I really feel the difference between when I exercise regularly and when I don't, physically and psychologically. Feel a bit better about everything when I'm exercising more, everything seems more doable and manageable.

Absolutely. I've been limited the last six weeks due to travel, work, and illness. This week is the first time I've been able to go and start getting my legs back and it makes such a difference.

My boss bikes to work every day - she uses an ebike. Maybe a 3-mile, 15-minute ride, along a very established and popular bike trail.

I'm 15 miles away, which would take a an hour-plus even under ideal conditions. So I do bike/train/bike. That is, I bike (or scoot) about half a mile from home to my nearest train station. Then I take my bike (or scooter) on the train, then bike (or scoot) a half mile to the office.

I can do this twice a week in good weather. Not sure I want to be doing this in February or August, but November is perfect.

i did the bike/train/bike thing every day, it was about like ymp's and it was pretty easy and great. and still way less time or frustration than driving and parking in the city, even with reserved parking. recommended. also recommend ebikes, but not from personal experience.

from one who knows, until you live in amsterdam, wear a damn helmet eh? no guarantee but worth it. if you're accosted while riding without one by some shitheel, i support severe abusive language. but if you're in traffic wear one FOR YOU.

Hunt3r speaks wisdom.

So many people use the app-based temp bikes/scooters here, and almost nobody wears a helmet. They almost all ride on the sidewalk, they often put more than one person on (frequently a minor), and they are generally a menace.

Tangentially, I know a head injury expert, who broke it down like this: imagine something goes terribly wrong and you, as a pedestrian, are the victim in a car accident.

Let's say you start with a settlement of a million dollars. If you weren't in a marked crosswalk, cut that in half. If the walk light wasn't in your favor, cut it in half again.

Since hearing that, I strongly prefer crossing streets at designated crosswalks and with the walk light in my favor. No, it will probably never become an issue, but I'd rather be in a strong position if it should come to pass.

Ditto helmets. Do I always need a helmet? No. Do I always wear one? Yes. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

try having your partner of 15 years, at the then-latest moment of extreme stress and disappointment, tell you "you're not the person i married."

some things are not recoverable. no insurance will make you whole.

you're not the person i married

To which one plausible response is "well, neither are you." I have been married 22 years and it would be very surprising if we had remained the same. Sympathies to you Hunt3r

Thanks. Yeah, we are now at 22. I can assure you she is the same lol. It’s kind of annoying.

One of my romantic criteria has always been "generous capacity for change, but general lack of capacity to become evil."

I am okay with my wife cganging and surprising me - in fact I find that prospect exhilarating. But I want the surprises to happen within the context of the basic goodness we perceived in each other from the beginning.

Like, over time, people change. Take up yoga or needlepoint. Learn to play the oboe or ultimate Frisbee. Embrace Islam, or Goth culture, or go vegan. Okay. Cool cool, we can adapt.

A change toward incompatibility - or, conversely, a refusal to accept that your partner is allowed to change? Different kettle of fishies.

My wife and I are at 21 years of marriage. I have now heard of several couples in the last couple of months having had issues at 22 years. Fingers crossed.

you know what I miss is healing after you get hurt, or getting well after getting sick instead of having things just drag on and on and on

is lowerbck pain the price we all pay in our 50's from being the upright vertebrates instead of horiozontal like nature seems to have intended

― | (Latham Green)

not in my 50s but god the back pain is hitting hard this week

they wanna do an MRI and a DEXA to check for bone density

all i can think about is those TERFs who keep saying that i have the "bones of a man"

i fucking wish

apparently they don't do back braces anymore, they've found it can cause muscle weakness. we'll see what the physical therapist suggests... what with the scoliosis i'm not sure what "sitting upright" actually looks like

at least since starting estrogen i've been able, for the first time in my life, to understand what people mean when they say "relax"

A change toward incompatibility - or, conversely, a refusal to accept that your partner is allowed to change? Different kettle of fishies.

― don't let days go by, Listerine (Ye Mad Puffin)

it's weird. i am, in fact, demonstrably not the person my ex married... that causes problems for a lot of marriages, but not for mine

what caused the problem was that i _kept changing_. she said, i wish you would just stop changing.

it took me a year to figure out that, contrary to her insistence, she _had_ changed since we married. we all change, all the time. sometimes people grow together, sometimes people grow apart. we both knew that, both agreed on that, going in... people change and they're not compatible anymore and that's not a failure, that's not anyone's fault.

there was, of course, more going on in our relationship. there were a lot of things left unspoken, a lot of fucked up things we didn't acknowledge

thinking about this:

some things are not recoverable. no insurance will make you whole.

― digital chirping and whirring (Hunt3r)

i was... i was relying on her to make me whole.

i was thinking today about the old jimi hendrix song "51st anniversary". and hendrix meant it a certain way, it wasn't something he wanted, but i always thought it was a romantic song. i wanted that, not just the "happy ending" but the pain hendrix sings about too. i wanted to reach my 51st anniversary with someone, to go through all that with someone. i wanted the life i saw my ex's grandparents have, feeding each other when they couldn't feed themselves and whispering sweet nothings to each other.

it might have been possible with her. i was 33. it's not possible now. and yet... i don't see that as a loss. i'm living on my own, have been for a year, for the first time. i was never able to take care of myself, before. always needed some woman or another to take care of me.

the last two years have been really hard, really painful. those two years cost me a lot. hurt me a lot. i'd never felt that kind of pain before. people i loved - not just my ex - are gone from my life forever. i loved those people, many of them, more than i loved myself.

so now i'm whole. there's nobody i love more than i love myself. i used to expect people to care for me in ways that... nobody can care for me in those ways, really, except me. i have four more years - three and a half, really - until i reach my 51st anniversary with the person i love most in the world. i feel like i got a good shot of making it.

the nhs obviously monitoring this thread because i have now been asked to shit in a box

Stop throwing up on the carpet too, while you're at it.

i'm a-shittin' in a box
i'm a-shittin' in a cardboard box

Sorry, I prefer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt0spqQtMKg