One of the things that sucks as you get older is when the “wheels literally begin falling off the vehicle”. Part of that is inevitable (biology). The other might be genetics/hereditary. The other is self-inflicted (like years of damaging headbanging where I know the only solution is going to be surgery to deal with the nerve damage).
Yes, taking care of your health (both mental and physical) is important early on (and self-inflicted ones including poor diet or other bad habits are things within one’s control to deal with since the choices we make, eventually have consequences). That old phrase “life is too short”, really begins to hit home when you are faced with your own mortality.
X JAPAN drummer Yoshiki recently completely his 3rd neck surgery (he was diagnosed back in 2009 with cervical foraminal stenosis requiring surgery in 2009 and then 2017). Initially, I thought the neck brace he wore while drumming (when the group reunited in 2008) was performative, but I can now see it was something that resulted from years of going hard on the drums.
It’s a common problem with hard rock/metal band members; former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted put it more succinctly; he gave himself “chronic whiplash” from years of intense headbanging resulting in spinal cord injury and nerve damage. It’s also a common problem for people who just attend concerts and end up partaking in that ritual.
I have occasional pain (neck, back, and left arm) but it is obviously nowhere as debilitating (I normally can get some relief via acetaminophen) as what these professional performers experienced. Strapping on a guitar (having that guitar strap putting pressure on my left shoulder) for too long does send pain through my neck and shoulder though while hand/fingers normally start feeling stiff (only occasionally do I experience numbness but some of that is from past RSI). But this self-inflicted pain isn’t a life threatening one for me in comparison to other wheels on the vehicle.
Backing up a bit, I suffered from a hypertensive emergency back in early 2023. That emergency revealed I had previously suffered a “silent myocardial infarction” which left me flabbergasted. The ER doctor said it happens often (just that many don’t make it). I therefore consider myself lucky to be alive to write this. It’s why I am thankful when I do wakeup and am able to experience another day even if I feel absolutely shitty (you know you are conscious/alive when you feel things good or bad).
This is nothing like the chronic fatigue/health issue I had back around 2001-2003ish (wrote about that somewhere on my old blog) where I literally thought I was going to die. In this case, I have a solid diagnosis. My heart unfortunately is operating at only 30% (and I have no idea how many years prior it has been that way because I honestly never felt the fatigue one would expect to experience if their heart wasn’t operating at 100%). I’m also very much aware and know there is an increased probability that I may not wake up one day (not fatalistically negative, I’m just a realist considering the medical condition I have). Being mentally strong does help with being able to handle the challenges that life throws your way.
A full body MRI was done as part of the tests the hospital ran on me; the MRI revealed a “dark” spot in my head which was indeterminate until they could do a more specific MRI. Terrific… something else to deal with. All that radiology could say is that it was a “lesion” (meaning a cyst or tumor) in my jaw (when it rains, it really does pour). Around a month later, I was able to get that head scan done which also revealed that a large portion of my right jaw was hollow (the lesion was preventing bone from forming and calcifying).
That isn’t good because for one, your teeth require that jawbone to root into. The other was a portion of the jawbone was so thin that the oral surgeon was surprised it hadn’t been fractured yet. My main concern was whether or not it was a cancerous growth because my father’s side has had some history with cancer. I therefore decided to prioritize the biopsy first (kind of tough decision since my heart situation is also priority).
That required an actual biopsy with an oral maxillofacial surgeon (the biopsy would also reveal if the growth was cancerous or not). What was supposed to be a routine biopsy ended up being a bit more complex since they had to extract an impacted wisdom tooth first. The surgeon attempted to remove as much of the lesion (but it was difficult due to its location). A week later, I learned the results that it was a non-aggressive non-malignant cyst (good news: non-cancerous).
The downside is the recovery period for the incision site has taken much longer than expected (around 2 months in, an infection occurred requiring re-open and cleaning it out, then having a penrose drainage tube inserted to keep it open to allow for drainage and self-flushing it out). That remained in place for nearly 10 months (the last 2 months of that were a bit of a hell with pain since the tissue was trying to find ways close the incision site). This impacted the timeline for when I can have my heart surgery done (risk factor the cardio surgeon does not want to deal with is having an oral incision not fully healed).
While bone growth/calcification has begun filling it, there’s a portion where it is still hollow because the oral surgeon surmises that the remaining parts of the cyst is trying to re-establish itself (to get to the rest of it would require removal of a couple of teeth but I want to do that later). I have been on a menu of medications since early 2023 to help mitigate the potential for an MI or stroke (but yes, closing in on 2 years of not having this other pressing procedure is like playing with fire).
Bottomline, I do need this heart surgery (while it is a normal routine procedure now, it does have the usual risks with both general anesthesia and that period when they have to place you on a heart/lung machine when they have to stop your heart). It’s currently in a holding pattern while the oral surgeon discusses this with the cardio surgeon.
In the meantime, things like traveling requiring a lot of flight time (6+ hours) are not recommended (I can but I would then assume the risks/consequences). During the time I was waiting for the oral incision site to heal, I was hoping to get an ok to fly back to Japan. I didn’t get that “sure, go ahead” response I was hoping for (I occasionally did weigh the “just go because life is too short”, but there was this multi-week period in July where I had this arm, back, and leg pain where just sitting for an hour was uncomfortable).
It’s been 5 years since I left; the COVID shutdowns overlap those years of course when it wasn’t possible. Kyushu is at the top of my bucket list since I sadly ignored it before. Am just hoping the wheels don’t completely come off the vehicle before then. 😵
