The Blood, Sweat and Tears of Anti-Aging
To celebrate yesterday’s launch of my book, COUNTERCLOCKWISE: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging, I offer this little excerpt…in hopes of leaving you wanting more.
I know I’ve crossed the line when I call my husband, all excited, and practically yell into the phone, “I’m getting a muscle biopsy!” Yes, this is good news. Very good news. A respiratory physiologist I’ve been sweet-talking has just agreed to do the biopsy, which means I can discover the state of my mitochondria. Almost as important, it means I have a potentially entertaining way of writing about one of the geekier subjects in this book (the aforementioned mitochondria) – because after all, who doesn’t want to hear about a muscle biopsy?
The line I’ve crossed is what I will do (to myself) to turn back the clock and, incidentally, to get a story. Having my face computer-aged to seventy-five and subjecting my fragile ego to viewing the result? Harrowing. But sure, okay. Intense pulse laser treatments? A little painful, but no problem. Breathing into a mouthpiece connected to a plastic hose connected to a computer while cycling full-speed as a good-natured but inexperienced grad student draws my blood every three minutes? That’s close to the line. But a biopsy? A procedure defined as “the medical removal of tissue from a living subject”? I’m looking at that line in my rear view mirror. ….
The next morning, bright-eyed and empty-stomached, I present myself at Hans Dreyer’s lab. It’s in a medical research building attached to a major hospital, and it looks, feels and smells like a hospital: band-aide-colored walls, fluorescent panel ceiling lights, the whoosh of central air conditioning. I feel my blood pressure rise. I hate hospitals. As I wait for Dreyer to gather what he needs for “the procedure,” I have time to think about just how much I hate hospitals, and just how much time older people spend in them. One of my goals in life – and certainly a long-term goal in this counterclockwise journey – is to spend as little time in them as possible as I get older. I’m all about that “rectangularization of morbidity” thing: healthy, healthy, healthy, dead. That’s the way to do it. ….
I am directed to lie down on a hospital bed and roll up my sweat pants to expose my left thigh. I crane my neck to watch Dreyer prep the site, draping, swabbing, etc. as if, well, as if something major is going to happen. All the while I am asking mitochondria questions, scribbling notes in my reporter’s notebook held overhead using one of those pens NASA developed that can write upside down.
“This will feel like a bee sting,” Dreyer says, holding aloft a Lidocaine-filled syringe. He injects carefully. “Followed by a little burning,” he adds. Unnecessarily.
Here’s what the New York Times had to say about the book yesterday.
5 comments
Just finished reading Counterclockwise. It was great reading and just what I needed. I turned 60 this year and even though I am very active I felt like the number 60 was telling me to slow down and give it up. All that anti “long lived ones” info out there was getting to me. Now I feel so much better knowing it’s “them” not me. So, I’m not a size 2 with flawless skin and perky boobs I still have lots of living to do. Thank you Lauren
Biological age is what’s important, not chronological age. And mindset — above all — mindset. It is hard to maintain a sense of truth about one’s youthful, vital self in a society obsessed with chronological age. But we must!
Thank you for this book. I’m waiting for the library copy (many holds,I can see why.)
I have friends in their 60s and early 70s, and I see them talk themselves into infirmity. I call it “telling themselves the Old Story.” I’m 62, and this winter I started Boot Camp gym classes to get back into shape after a four-year lay-off. And I am getting back into shape. If I had kept up with my exercising, I wouldn’t be overweight and weak now. Well, I’m not, *now* because I am a gym rat and a pool rat.
I figured that my refusal to “get old” was because I’m a Boomer. But some of my Old Story friends are also Boomers. My older sisters are more active than I am, the 69-year-old in Boston runs, bikes and swims and does occasional small triathlons. The 66-yer-old in Santa Rosa exercises and generally buzzes through life. It doesn’t occur to either of them to think they are too old for whatever. (Though the Boston sister does deal with some overuse injuries. She doesn’t attribute that to age, but to improper form while swimming, for instance.)
So I am thrilled to read this, and I will pass it along to my Old Story friends who can receive it. And I do hope to buy it. Thank you.
Nan Roberts
Newport, Oregon
Oh yes, the “Old Story.” If you didn’t catch this previous post, take a look:
http://www.counterclockwisebook.com/old-talk/
Yes, I did see that a few days ago. I used to work for The Humboldt Senior Resource Center’s Senior News, a monthly newspaper. And my editor and I collected “old” words — used almost always for old people. Spry is one of them.
As for the fat thing, I do it, too. It is taking second place to the getting fit story, but it is part of it. I get frustrated at not being agile due to bulk. And I mind how I look. I want my body back, is what I think. And I’m getting it back. But I was formed by this culture, and still am, speaking of being a Boomer. Though I don’t worry so much about swimsuits anymore. Suits are for swimming in, so mine are all tank suits. But still, it bothers me when the seams begin to stretch.
Anyway, thanks for all this. It’s great.
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