Staring into the mid-winter campfire

Sometimes I look at the pill box and it’s 13 pills per day and get depressed.  “What would you have done 500 years ago?” I ask myself.  Truthfully I imagine other people judging me in that voice.  Let’s take a look at that question and take an inventory of what my life would have looked like at various ages if I was born in, say, 1824 and came of age in the heyday of the “Wild West”.

Age 0: I wouldn’t have made it to day one.  I have real doubts that my mother would have made it through the pregnancy, and infant mortality was over 10%.

 

Age 10: I might have made it this far.  Being born with a seemingly small yet major heart defect meant that I was small and underweight for most of my childhood, and was susceptible to fatal cardiac infections from cuts unless I was given antibiotics.  Lacking penicillin it’s likely that I would have died before this age, or not long after.  Child mortality rates at this time were 25%.

 

Age 30: On the remote chance that I wasn’t killed by a minor infection by now, 1854 would have been an interesting time.  Mid-30’s is where the periodic mental health issues started to become more regular.  In the 21^st century I was able to manage them with time by myself and time outside, which turned into six years as a long distance runner.  In the 19^th century I would have joined the migration west to get away from the crowds and maybe would have found something similar, but certainly not had the farm and giant passel of free labor / children, and the odds of death through infection would be that much more.  I would also have been more likely to self-medicate with alcohol or opium, and possibly soiled doves. 

 

Age 36: If infection, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases, overdose or suicide hadn’t gotten to me by now, 36 is where it would have ended.  This is the year my heart stopped working, and I had to have my chest opened up, some original equipment taken out, and some new equipment installed.  This surgery wasn’t invented until 1952 and wasn’t common for a few more decades.  If I was born 150 years early in 1824 I would have died of heart failure or an aneurysm as the Civil War was starting.

 

Age 45: Let’s imagine that the heart problem never existed and I managed to not die of infection, this would have been a breaking point.  Even with a healthy diet, plenty of exercise, and clean living I still started to deal with levels of anxiety (and to some extent depression) that were inhibiting daily life.  Some of that is personality, some of that is personal history, and most of it is chemical and treatable today with select serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitors (NDRIs).  By 1869 I would likely have either self-medicated my way to the grave, self-harmed my way off this mortal world, or died violently in an anxiety driven outburst.

 

Age 48:  If I made it this far, this is the year that I learned all the diet and exercise in the world wouldn’t keep my cholesterol from increasing exponentially every year.  My story would, inevitably, have ended in a few years, just before the Centennial.