This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

I recall it being a miserable time as a kid. I had to have baths in this foul smelling pine wash. I had the mumps too, and whooping cough. Man the 70s were another time.

Now I'm thinking I should get this shingrix thing, though its only free for over 65s here.

If you get chickenpox, the virus that causes it hides from your immune system in your spine. Shingles is what you get when that virus reactivates.

My aunt breaks down in tears when she talks about how painful shingles has been. Probably worth the cost of the shot.

As explained on this cdc webpage (https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/transmission.html) shingles is caused by the reactivation or re-emergence of the varicella-zoster (chicken pox) virus that has lain dormant in someone who had the chickenpox early in life.

If you didn't have chickenpox as a kid, then you need that vaccine.

Yes! Apparently, getting chicken pox for the first time as an adult is often a far more serious disease than going through it as a child. Among other things, it can induce sterility in adult males. I'm sure there are horror stories on the web about adult chicken pox that match the many shingles horror stories.

Almost died in 1989 when he contracted chicken pox from his then four-year-old daughter Lauren. He went into a coma and spent months recuperating.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428851/trivia/

Shingles suuuuucked. I had it a few years ago.

i expect it’s upthread but a colleague who got it in his eye/facial nerves with complications was very clear upon return from hospitalization/recovery: “do. not. fuck. with. this. pay whatever. do anything to avoid it.”

something like 99% of folks have had chicken pox, even if they don't remember it

But if you get shingles, you're actively contagious to the 1% that have never had it, including people with compromised immune systems

I feel better now, but earlier today I was forced to drink two hot toddies just to stave off the vaxx side effects

People in their late 30s and early 40s are apparently more at risk for shingles currently. The thinking is they had chickenpox just as the varicella vaccine was made available, so have experienced fewer environmental exposures due to younger people not having chickenpox due to having been vaccinated. So their immune systems aren't reminded enough to fight the virus and shingles hits earlier. My son was unfortunately in this cohort and got shingles up and down one leg a few years ago at 37.

I had shingles this year at 43. It was terrible, my shoulder ached for like a month.

how dare you bring tales of shoulder aches into the 50s thread

I’m just preparing myself.

I got shingles when I was 29/30 about 20 years ago.

Hardest job I ever had was hauling roof shingles up a ladder during the summer.

ooh srsly respect. when i think of horrible terrifying stupefyingly dangerous jobs, roofer is about tops, and yes it is shingles adjacent

I got shingles on my honeymoon (ages 28). Way to start married life. I still have the scars and I hate the thought it's just lying about dormant waiting to come back and get me again. Get the shot if offered.

I got shingles vax #2 last week and had 24 hours of bizarre non-nausea nausea, the shakes from feeling chilled, and a complete loss of appetite. Just sitting around wondering “am I going to heave from being sick or not? I can’t tell…”

Anyway, I still remember getting chicken pox on my 17th birthday and recalling that now was plenty of motivation to ride it out. The next day I was fine. Get the vax and give yrself some recovery time.

Yeah, I got #2 on tuesday and I was a fifty-something wreck... not so much nausea, but just every other flu-like symptom known to man

I feel fine today

formally joining this thread in 4 days

It's not so bad.

once you're over the shingles

just got invited to an upcoming celebration of my high school basketball team's championship. that is, the 35th anniversary of it

i tend not to think about such things, but ffs that's a pretty high number

At some point it just becomes numbers on the odometer that you can just shrug off. My high school graduating class just had it's 40th anniversary (I didn't go)

Mine too! I didn't either. If I make it as far as the 50th, I'll probably go.

Never been to any of mine. It'd be a "fuck all y'all" Romy & Michelle scenario if I ever did.

I hit 50 a couple weeks ago and I felt fine. I got my mid-life crisis at 35.

I missed my 25th college reunion due to Covid but really wanna do my 30th. I actually have self-confidence now!

My best years are ahead of me! *instantly expires from coronary”*

I am in very distant touch with a couple of my high school classmates. Not surprisingly, several of us ended up at the state's largest university, but we all pretty much scattered afterwards.

i am at week 8+ as primary actor in clearing, cleaning, and organizing the real and personal ppty of a suddenly deceased friend (age 58). i’m not even his pr, but i’m trying to help everything move.

direct grief of loss was relatively brief. but the overall psych burden has surprising breadth.

choose your pr wisely, make sure they have the key information and access to the things they will need to keep things orderly and manageable. also if you live solo, CLEAN THAT FUCKING SHIT UP DON’T BE A FILTHY SWINE.

I will as soon as my back stops hurting, I promise.

:)

I get perhaps too much contact with my childhood / high school / college friends. Because I live where we grew up, I get visited a lot.

Moreso now that their parents are aging and dying. They come to to look after their parents (or, increasingly, bury their parents) and they call and want me to hang or go get a drink or play some music.

A reunion for me is unnecessary because I can barely get away from my school friends.

I love them and we have a lot of shared history, so I have a hard time saying no. Especially if it's someone who just flew into town for a few days. sometimes I am just not in the mood.

Most of us who could fled Pueblo, Colorado right after graduation.

I just spent a weekend in Vegas with one of my college buddies who's 23 days younger than me.

Had a good time, but at one point, leaning over a dinette table in his suite, I was all, "Man, we shoulda done this years ago when we were younger... like when we were in our 40s."

It is so strange to be hanging out with peers who are grandparents, older than many U.S. senators, with gray hair and baggy eyes.

Because I look in the mirror and see Young Indiana Jones wink and point at me. I definitely understand why there are so many old guys my age running around, acting like assholes. We haven't gotten the memo yet!

Know why middle-aged dudes wear their pants with their waists practically six inches above their belly button? It's because somehow our legs have shrunk, but we refuse to acknowledge this or buy new pants.

I am okay with looking middle-aged, and the prospect of grandparents, but the reaper's scythe hitting my peers' parents is bumming me out. I knew it would happen, of course. But it seems to be accelerating lately.

When my own personal parents were distracted, I was raised by a village. So those moms who were surrogate moms to the whole neighborhood were important in my upbringing, and we just lost another one yesterday.

Meanwhile my bio father (who is a major penis) appears to be immortal.

First of all, I am not looking forward to my parents dying.

But secondly, they're in their mid-70s. I go back and forth thinking, Are we going to wrap this up soon, or drag it out for another 15 years?

The waiting is worse on their part, sure, but whenever my step-dad's name makes a rare appearance on the Caller ID, I'm like is this going to be about Christmas or is it on?

Other than my Dad and younger sister (childless), I have almost no family outside of a few aunts (childless except for one cousin). My wife and I have no kids, so we are preparing ourselves for a fairly lonely life in the next ten years or so. We are pretty well suited for it I guess, but the thought can get to me a bit if I think about it directly.

Meanwhile my bio father (who is a major penis) appears to be immortal.

Man, am I familiar with this one. I guess being untouched by remorse, worry or even a thought for another person adds years to one's life.

After my Mom had a recent health issue that put her in the hospital, me and my siblings started really leaning on our parents to move to be close to one of us. They live in a rural/suburban area, pretty far from everything, and the closest one of us is a 5-6 hour drive away. It was just very clear during my Mom's illness that it's going to be harder for them to take care of themselves if there's no family close by. So after much hemming and hawing and a lot of resistance from my somewhat-in-denial 79-year-old Dad, they are apparently going to move to be close to me, possibly within the next 6 months. Now of course having advocated for this I'm coming to terms with what it's going to mean for me — a lot of work probably! — but also I'll get to see them a lot more and who knows how many years I have to spend time with them. They do drive me kind of crazy, and my Mom has mild cognitive impairment that could develop into something more acute, so I have no rosy glasses about any of it. Fortunately my wife is supportive, not least because her parents already live near us (like, 2 miles away).

So now we're going to have four parents between the ages of 75 and 79 all getting old right close to us. The next however many years should be interesting.

(Some crossover here with the Aging Parents thread, but that's a reality for any of us in our 50s who still have our parents.)

Meanwhile my bio father (who is a major penis) appears to be immortal.

Man, am I familiar with this one. I guess being untouched by remorse, worry or even a thought for another person adds years to one's life.

The Henry Kissinger Syndrome.

My parents have acres of land in the middle of BFE. I hope they move somewhere else while they are still functioning, because I have no idea what the fuck to do with a bunch of old tractors and ancient welding equipment and spools of barb wire and so much more.

IME, let an auction company sell it all for pennies on the dollar and take most of the pennies.

^ This solution has the virtue of having others haul the stuff away.

Thanks for that, jimbeaux.

I was talking to various siblings and nieblings recently (after maybe a bit too much mimosa) and I said the quiet part out loud. He's a dick and apparently he cannot die.

In a more decorous world, people might have blanched or been offended or changed the subject, but everybody was like, "yep."

Haha, yes, my siblings and I have had many moments like that. It's OK, we understand.

my insurance just texted me to let me know they're sending me something to poop in

so i've got that going for me

Not sure if I posted this before but I try to deal with aging by clowning my mother. Each time my brother (58) or I have a birthday (51), I always hit her with my jokey line ‘Your children are SO old. I can’t imagine how embarrassing that must be for you!’
But she just dryly replies ‘Yes, it really is.’