July 1, 2025—one year ago today—I became an old person. For some, aging may be an incremental process, and I sometimes discern creaking facility over time. But last July 1^st, a seemingly innocuous event triggered a cacophony of health issues, which I now measure as the divider between before I got old…and after.

I had a lab appointment to draw some blood. No biggie. The nurse mentioned I was due for my COVID booster. Sure thing. Since 2021, I’d had my initial COVID pair and four boosters. I was accustomed to feeling punk the next day, maybe register a low fever. But this time the fever persisted, and I spent the July 4^th weekend in bed at 102 degrees. The fever dwindled, then spiked. My hands swelled. Then my belly. Every few days I seemed to develop some new symptom. I couldn’t raise my right arm. Then it became numb. I stopped sleeping. I was a mess.

A visit to urgent care. More bloodwork. A spinal x-ray revealed a curve that reflected a graceful vase, but a precarious backbone. Over the course of the next three months I was diagnosed with: a UTI; Lyme disease; a fully detached rotator cuff, a neural tangle in my right chest, polyuria, and sleep apnea. No one knew how this cavalcade of unaffiliated travesties befell me in such short order, and even the most ardent anti-vaxxer would be hard pressed to equate a COVID booster with a detached rotator cuff. However, my intuition suspects that the booster triggered my immune system, which then went rampant stirring up all kinds of previously sleeping dogs. I’ve always been very sensitive to medications (one Tylenol can vanquish the worst headache), while simultaneously warned that I’m insensitive to pain. Perhaps that helps explain how I’d never experienced any Lyme symptoms, or missed many gym reps as I tore my rotator cuff to shreds.

I’ve had more doctor’s appointments in the past year than all my previous decades combined, and the overlapping conditions make treatment plans a challenge. My right hand is perpetually numb, and the nerve damage in that arm precludes the shoulder replacement that could restore mobility. Good thing I’m left-handed. I’m too weak to effectively go to the gym, can’t raise my arms to do yoga, and am still building up bicycle endurance. Instead, I have a ninety-minute PT/exercise regimen I do at home four times a week. Thankfully, my legs are okay, so I can still walk four miles a day.

The reason I say I’m old is simple: what I once could do ain’t coming back. For over seventy years my physical health was excellent (mental health being another story). My body’s had a good run, so I can’t really complain. But there’s a wistfulness in remembering when I moved with grace and ease. Such fluidity will never return. I don’t really mind being old. There are blessings that come with diminished expectations, and I might easily enjoy my reduced capacities for twenty years or more. But youth and vigor? They’re delegated to pleasant memory.