Making your way in the world as you age can be difficult. The pain of getting up in the morning can be devastating.

 

Moaning and groaning are signs you are still alive. But what would happen if you could receive a . . .

 

 

Full-Body Transplant

 

     “Oh, my god!” I screamed.

     “Can’t you keep it down over there. I’m trying to read my book,” an old codger, reclining in a plush velvet chair, complained.

     “But I’m in pain you idiot. Can’t you understand that?” I shouted.

     “What? That you’re making my life miserable,” he replied.

     “My life is falling apart. How does that affect yours?” I asked. He just ignored me.

     The Jolly Achers Retirement Community could be anything but jolly. It also was known as “the land of pain and suffering” brought on by the torment that comes with aging.

     Eighty was not the magic number it was made out to be. From head to toe, I suffered in pain every day. Arthritis in my knees, elbows, and fingers kept me from enjoying walking, dancing with the pretty “young” ladies on dance night, and shuffling the pinochle cards on Wednesday evening. And my lumbar spine X-rays looked like a scene from a war zone. There wasn’t a part of my body that shouldn’t be replaced.

     The conversation with my doctor during my annual physical last week went like this. “Well, Dr. Lewis, what are the next steps I need to take to live a long, painless life?”

     When he stopped laughing, he looked me in the eye and stated, with a lilt in his voice, “Mitchell, your blood tests are better than mine, and I’m twenty years younger than you. You’re a healthy guy.”

     “But, Doc, I’m talking about my muscles and bones. Nothing’s working right. I hurt all over.”

     “Well, you do have osteoarthritis, bursitis, degenerative arthritis, and tendinitis. And, in a not so serious voice, he said, “I’d recommend back surgery. After reviewing your scrapbook of back pictures, I would suggest a total spinal replacement, if such a thing existed. But, honestly, surgery is the last resort.”

     “What are you saying? I have no options.”  

     “No, not exactly.”

     “Then what?”

     “There’s something new on the horizon. Let me do some research and I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, cut out those activities that cause the pain.”

     “If I do that, I might as well be dead.”

     “Okay, then let me give you the business cards of two mortuaries I’m familiar with,” he stated, with a smirk on his face.

     “May peace be with you,” I replied. I finished dressing and left the examining room.

     Back home things didn’t get any better. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared off into space. Then I tried to get up and couldn’t. My back was frozen stiff. I tried to move over, without bending, to my nightstand to get my emergency buzzer, but making such an effort didn’t work. So I yelled, as loud as I could, “Help! My door is open, I need help.”

     I was expecting one of the home’s workers to come running through the door to assist me in getting my life back on track. However, as the door slowly opened, a woman with a walker shuffled into the room

     Not being able to turn, I moaned, “Who’s there?”

     “It’s me, Arlene, Mitchell.”

     “Arlene, I need help. I can’t move. Please, get somebody.”

     “There’s nobody on the floor. See if holding onto my walker can help you get up.”

     Believing this might not be the best move, I did it anyway. The next thing I knew, the walker rolled away, and I found myself lying on top of Arlene. She was pretty cute for a seventy-seven-year-old woman and, under any other circumstances, this might have been enjoyable. However, we just stared into each other’s eyes, both frozen in place.

     “What do we do now?” Arlene murmured.

     “I have no idea.”

     “Mitchell, I think I hear somebody in the hallway,” Arlene said.

     Before I could respond, a young woman called from the hall. “May I come in? I need to clean your room.”

     “Yes, come in. We need your help.”

     Well, God was on our side. The young maid helped both of us up off the floor. Although I’d landed on top of her, Arlene appeared to be all right. With the help of the maid, she and her walker were reunited.

     “Will you be okay?” she asked.

     “I think so. I don’t believe I’ll be any worse than I was before the fall. I’m just a broken old man.”

     “Oh, come on. You’re a sexy ‘young’ guy. When you’re feeling up to it, maybe we can have a meal together.”

     “That would be nice. When my doctor finds the magic cure for all my body ailments, I’ll give you a call.”

     When would that be? I wondered. Maybe I should contact my mechanic. He does a great job on my car.

     A week passed and I heard nothing from my doctor. The pharmaceutical advertisements on TV said that taking one or more of their magnificent drugs would take all my pain away. However, the side effects of all of them indicated they also could cause death. Well, that certainly would rid me of my pain.

     The following Monday, I decided to reach out to my doctor. But before I could do this, the phone rang. I picked it up off the kitchen table and said, “Hello.”

     “This is Dr. Lewis’ office. Are you Mitchell Sanger?”

     “Yes, this is Mitchell.”

     “May I put you on hold? Dr. Lewis would like to speak with you.”

     “Sure, I’ve been waiting for his call.” The silence on the other end of the line was unbearable. And then . . .

     “Mitchell, this is Dr. Lewis. I have some great news for you.”

     “Okay, let me have it.”

     “Remember I told you there was a new experimental procedure being tested. It was groundbreaking. Nothing like it had been done before 2017. It was tried with some success, to save a man in his thirties, whose head and brain were functioning, but whose body was ravaged by cancer. It was done in South Africa, where ethical issues were easier to overcome than in the U.S.”

     “I’m listening. What are you saying?”

     “Doctors attached his head to a body of a twenty-one year old male whose brain was no longer functioning.”

     “I’d love to be twenty-one years old again.”

     “Well, your situation is a bit different. You’re not dying from an incurable disease.”

     “Old age is not an incurable disease?”

     “Not from a legal standpoint.”

     “However, it can be done. Can’t it?”

     “Yes, I’ve found a surgeon who will do it, but he wants to do it with a couple,” Dr, Lewis stated.

     “A couple. But my wife died years ago.”

     “There’s nothing I can do to change his mind. He wants to see if the elderly couple in their new young bodies can have a child.”

     “A child? What! And, if I agree, will I have to travel out of the country to make this happen?”

     “No, he’ll do it in the operating room in the basement of his home upstate, just three hours from here. And he promises you’ll be free of all your pain.”

     “Then let’s do it!” I bellowed.

     “But what about the woman?”

     “My neighbor, Arlene, wants to go to dinner with me. This will just be a little more than dinner.”

     “Will she agree to do it?”

     “Does she have to know?”

     A week later, a driver, in a limo, picked Arlene and me up at the front door of the Jolly Achers Retirement Community main building and whisked us away.

     As we were chauffeured upstate, everything went dark. Two weeks later, we were returned to Jolly Achers—two young bodies ready to take on the world. However, the surgical procedure had taken its toll and Arlene and I were moved from our independent living quarters into memory care, I think.

     “Where are we?” Arlene asked.

     “I don’t know. Home, I guess.”

     “Let’s dance,” Arlene chanted.

     We pressed our young bodies against each other and listened to the music playing in our heads. We didn’t know where we were, or, for that matter who we were. But, as a “young couple” in love, we were beginning a new life together.

 

 

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