I’m 33 today but it’s not a happy birthday. Each birthday reminds me and those around me of my ailment. As I sit in my wheelchair, facing the two melting candles, I feel unable to muster a deep enough breath to blow them out.
My wife stares sadly at me, and my few friends gathered do the same.
I know what they are thinking, “is this his last birthday? he looks ready to kick it.”
To describe my problem in the simplest of terms: I am old.
My face is wrinkled like that of a 90 year old, my body is spotted and the skin hangs off it in the most unattractive of places. I’m losing my eyesight, my hair is white, and I’m barely able to walk on my own. I’m so fucking old my boney, vein-riddled hands shake as I try to raise a spoonful of cake to my mouth. I mash the cake around my mouth with the few teeth I have left.
And all this biological ageing has happened to me over the last seven years. The doctors had many theories, but no solutions. Some said Progeria, the premature ageing syndrome, but that starts when you are young, usually just two years old. I was in my mid twenties when my ageing accelerated.
The doctors were not only useless they were suffocating. When you have an ailment as rare as mine there is an overwhelming pressure from the science and medical community to “discover” the cause. You might think this a good thing…. a glimmer of hope that my condition could be halted or reversed - but no - they are fuelled by greed. If they could figure out the cause of my ageing, they could potentially gain insight into all human ageing, and how to slow it and ultimately how to profit in the billions.
So I called a halt to the daily testing and life of a lab rat. And now I plan to live out my newfound old age in private, with my wife and friends.
I’m 33. I should be traveling the world, snowboarding, dancing, getting drunk with friends and staggering home yelling obscenities at five in the morning. But age has descended on my now frail body like an ever shrinking prison cell.
For six years I’ve turned to reddit for help on many varied topics. Troubleshooting houseplants, DIY car repair and even how to brush my dog’s teeth. I write this in a last ditch attempt that someone, a doctor, a psychologist or biologist, can identify what’s happening to me and help.
I think I was 26 when I started losing track of time. The scary thing is, I find that it’s really hard to remember the second half of my 20’s at all. It went by so, so fast. I have to look back at old emails, entries into my calendar and text messages to remind myself of where I was and what I was doing over the past few years.
But I do vividly remember when I first noticed time slipping on me. It was 2016, a year of many forgetful films and very few good ones. As a film buff I was always at the movies or reading the trade mags. I was at the cinema with Sammy (my girlfriend) watching one of the only good films of that year, Arrival.
Sammy and I shared a love for films and we sat in the very front row of a late night screening, so as to have the screen to ourselves. About 30 minutes into the film, it became tense, Sammy and I held hands. In a blink the credits were rolling. As the lights came up Sammy turned to me to get my thoughts on the film, but I had missed almost all of it. I was so embarrassed at having apparently fallen asleep, that I just agreed with everything that Sammy said about the film and then returned the next day to watch it alone.
This sort of thing started to happen more and more, and I thought I was losing my mind. There were times when Sammy and I would be in bed spooning after an evening love session, and suddenly it would be morning and I would feel completely unrested.
Other times my loss of time was welcoming. Like the time we flew 13hrs to Australia, in cramped seats with crying babies on either side. That flight which was bound to torture me for hours felt as if it was just ten minutes long.
But I wasn’t really scared until I noticed the physical effects of lost time. It started with the crows feet around my eyes, then the grey hairs began to appear, the back pain and eventually the liver spots. All of this before the age of 30.
The hardest part was the reaction of those around me. My friends teased at first, about the grey hair and the wrinkles but as my condition developed most of them became concerned or disappeared from my life entirely.
At Christmas when a family photo was taken, I was devastated to see I looked older than my own parents.
And yet Sammy stayed by my side, never seeming to notice, never seeming to be concerned or bothered despite me constantly unloading my despair on her. Sammy just continued to smile, her youthful smile, a smile that never changed over the seven years we’ve been together.
And now as I chew my cake and Sammy happily enjoys hers and laughs with our friends, I wonder why she stuck with me so long. She hasn’t changed a bit from the day I met her, she was 21 at the time and doesn’t look a day older now. When people see us together they think she’s my granddaughter. When they find out we’re a couple they are then disgusted and think she’s a gold-digger, the sad part is I’m far from rich and she is now the sole provider for our household.
I fall asleep in my chair, which is common these days as I have little energy, and by the time I awake my friends have all left. Sammy wheels me out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. She gets in the shower and I ease myself out of the chair and change into the pyjamas that are folded on the corner of the bed.
I’m determined again tonight not to lose track of time. This is something I do every night now.
I lay on my side, the covers pulled up to my chin, and I stare at the clock on the bedside table.
The time is 9:48 PM.
As the clock ticks I count the seconds in my head. tick. tick. tick. tick.
I’m not ready to die.
tick. tick.
I have my whole life ahead of me.
tick. tick.
I’m terrified.
tick. tick.
I count every second and every minute until Sammy comes out of the bathroom ready for bed.
The time is 10:28 PM.
Sammy lays down beside me, puts her arm around me and grabs my hand. The time is 7:15 AM.