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Suddenly Senior: Boldly going where most men have gone before

By FRANK KAISER
Published December 20, 2005

Take inventory of yourself every five years.

So say gurus like Dr. Phil McGraw. His idea: Be brutally honest, painstakingly assessing good points and bad, and finally, chuck out the bad like garbage. Dr. Phil says that only then will you feel really good about yourself.

When I hit 65 four years back, I decided to take stock of myself.

Here's what I found: I had grown more tolerant (even of fools), more open to new ideas (even if they weren't mine) and more patient.

All my mother's dictates to me as a kid a half century ago were finally clicking in. I wasn't chasing women anymore. Hadn't for years. (Probably more a function of age than any heightened moral standards.)

I was more accepting of life as I found it. And, under the rubric of "body as temple," I ate more spinach and less red meat. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I wasn't sedentary (well, compared with the dead), and did my best to drink lots of water.

Know what?

Even after I had given up all my bad habits, I still didn't feel so hot.

You know how geezers are always grousing about their health, their doctor appointments, their pills and their pains? Well, I hate to whine, but my bladder has shrunk . . . drastically.

I had always heard it's the legs that go first. Not true with most men I know. Turns out our plumbing rusts and springs leaks long before our legs think about folding.

I considered the cliche: "You'll know that you're old when your back goes out more than you do; when your knees buckle and your belt won't; and when an all-nighter means not getting up to go to the bathroom till morning."

It was that last part that troubled me.

So I did what every geezer does when he or she first goes mano a mano with old age: I visited my doctor. Who sent me to another. Who sent me to a third, who said, "We'll just stretch that bladder of yours like we were blowing up a balloon. No more yellow eyes for you."

A little urological humor.

Enlarging my bladder promised to be a simple in-and-out procedure. The doctors would fill it with water, stretching it to a manly size again.

"You'll be out by noon," they told me.

Three days and nine painful catheterizations later, I was still in the hospital. My bladder may have been new and improved, but the tail of the system was far from healthy.

Turns out that the stretching procedure made things worse. My prostate now takes center stage in my life. I now see that unruly gland as being larger than a 20-year-old's ego. The surgeons, on the other hand, see it as a chance to make another buck or three.

I have to wonder: Is all this a suitable reward for giving up all my sins, repenting and currently leading a pure, dull life?

When I see God, I'm going to ask about this. In the meantime, excuse me a minute. I've got to go.

- Frank Kaiser is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in Clearwater. His Web site, www.suddenlysenior.com includes nostalgia, trivia, senior humor and 111 Best Senior Links. Write Frank c/o Seniority, the St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail features@sptimes.com

Question: How many Americans suffer from an overactive bladder? a. 10-million b. 17-million c. 23-million

Answer: b. 17-million. According to recent estimates, at least 16 percent of the population over age 40 has chronic, troublesome symptoms of an overactive bladder.

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 12:40:06]