ABSTRACT
In my late 30s I began to be troubled by various aches and ailments. The most serious of these, heart palpitations, sent me running to my doctor. He checked me over and reassured me that the palpitations were not serious. They and the occasional pains in my shoulder, neck, and knee were common with people coming into middle years. I was aging, he suggested, and I had to accept that fact. This diagnosis and advice was repeated a year later by another doctor when I moved to another part ofthe country. I grimly resigned myselfto aging.
