BY ED JONES

So much for boasting about never having an ache or pain at the age of 64.

In the month since I bragged about my fitness in the début edition of Live Well, I have struggled with an ailment my wife, Peggy, immediately, and incorrectly, described as an “old man’s disease”; hung out in a doc-in-the-box for a couple of hours on a Friday night after my cat Zachary Taylor chomped down on my finger, thinking it was the telephone cord; and hopped around town to get pills and shots for everything from malaria to typhoid as I prepare for a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

At one of these stops, the doc looked at my chart and said: “My goodness, you’re on a lot of meds.”

I am? Like I bragged last month, I don’t think of myself as medicated. But when you add it up, you do begin to see that the doc may have a point.

Let’s see, there’s Lipitor for high cholesterol, Tricor for high triglycerides. And then there was Dexilant for acid reflux (there, I named it—and it turns out it’s not just an “old man’s” ailment), and some humongous antibiotic pill for my cat bite.

Oh yes, and there’s, of course, a baby aspirin a day, a cream for a skin condition on my face that often has people asking “have you just returned from Florida?” and another one for nail fungus.

Maybe that is a lot of meds. But who doesn’t need a crutch or two, particularly when you’re (let me say the dreaded title) an active adult?

Fortunately, despite all this pill-popping and ointment-applying, I’m still feeling just fine. And I was relieved to discover that one or two of my far-younger colleagues in the office suffer from that “old man’s disease.”

My doctor quizzed me about my acid reflux after several days of my feeling downright punk. “What caused this?” I asked.

The answer was, as you might suspect, indefinite. “Was there any stressful event that preceded this?” my doctor asked.

Let me think: It came on the afternoon after a three-hour regional spelling bee where I served as the pronouncer.

Could it be? Could a couple of dozen preteen and teen spellers, who behaved beautifully under the stress of the bee, have put this active adult in a doctor’s office?

Let’s just say I’ll not be boasting about my fitness any time soon.

Ed Jones: 540/374-5401
edjones@freelancestar.com