I Want That 36 Days Back!

It seems that good news never comes around during the holidays...oh, sappy, imaginary stories like It's A Wonderful Life make their annual return, and we all feel content for a few moments, knowing that if we don't have any money, at least we have friends. That lasts about ten minutes until we realize that while money can't "buy" happiness, it CAN buy food, and pay the mortgage and keep the house warm enough so the mice don't freeze. And the not-so-good news continues. Politics? no...that's NEVER been good news to start with. I just found out that I've lost 36.5 days of my life!
Really.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report this week that indicated that the average life span has fallen in this country! I was stunned. I used to be able to count on living an average of 77.9 years, but now, according to the CDCP, I can only realistically expect to live 77.8 years. What a disaster!
If there was ANY good news out of the report, it is that stroke is no longer the third-leading cause of death in this country. After a fifty year run in the three hole, stroke has slipped to fourth behind perennial numbers one and two (heart attack and cancer) and the up-and-coming chronic lower respiratory disease! What a relief. I almost had a stroke when I saw that someone had taken more than a month of my life, so I am somewhat relieved to note that a stroke is lee likely to kill me.
Of course, being the stats geeks that most of us are, I wondered about the rest of the top ten and discovered the following conditions at five through ten:
5. accidents ( Mom said I was one, but I don't think that killed her)
6. Alzheimer's Disease.
7. Diabetes.
8. influenza/pneumonia
9. Kidney disease
10. Septicemia

Well, there you have it: the first of the bad news for the holiday season. The next think you know, the snow will be falling, and I'll finish the driveway just before the plow comes through again...and the wind picks up and fills the driveway again.
Oh wait, that happened already tonight.
Dammit.