The Sins of the Cola

The Trackball's kidney stone crisis is over. ToT passed the stone, much like a Logitech trackball spits out that hand grime that collects on the ball itself. Aikido is not really to blame and I will return to it.

But there are two more stones waiting in the other kidney. Their days may be numbered too because my urologist sounds a bit aggressive. The real question is whether more stones will occur down the road or if this was a one time thing.

A one time thing because of cola.

In the ToT's younger days, much cola was drunk but no water was touched. Chocolate and cola were often consumed in great quantities: an oxalate-rich double whammy. This lead to the oxalate-based stones that have been plaguing me for several years.

ToT has not touched cola in about two and a half years and has drank a tidy barrel of water per day. Obviously, the sins of the cola can be punished much further down the line after they happen. This is the way these low-level activities can seem to be having no effect, and then way down the road you're flat on your back wondering why you ever did them.

Like eating frosting straight from the can after frosting a cake is probably the sugary path to type 2 diabetes down the road. Or not exercising enough (it's never enough) can leave you in your 70s with reduced muscle and bone mass, accelerate the slowing down that leads to accidents, illnesses and death. But if those are the only vices I can come up with, this is like calling dust bunnies furniture because they are in an empty room.

Balancing how much effort to put into life and health preserving activities versus the more pleasurable ones is tough. Lifting weights for an hour a day solely to forestall diminished physical abilities when old seems a bit too much (one can die of cancer, heart disease, stroke or Alzheimer's and be in great physical shape and all those hours would be a waste).

But, as the old saw goes, most people would love to have my problems of trying to tweak one's lifestyle to enhance long term health prospects. We all have a lot of control over the behaviors that will endanger our wellbeing and these are to be stacked atop those genetic flaws that will give us another set (like possibly creating kidney stones). The best we can do is to minimize the ones we can control so we can deal with the cosmic hand of cards we were dealt genetically. Because the genetic ones can be a real bitch (more about that later).