Three letter words are what scare me

When I am looking at Facebook on the Internet I get dismayed at the number of four letter words that very nice people use in their messages. I'm not just talking about the misused religious words, but words that to me were considered "not nice in polite company." But lately I have been dismayed at some three letter words.

I guess I should explain that statement a little bit. You see, I have had quite a few medical tests recently and finally went for a consultation with my trusted doctor. I found out that all these tests they have been giving me have discovered that I don't have TB, I don't have HIV, I don't have MLS, I don't have COPD. I have OLD.

When I asked what we could do about that, I was told that it is incurable, but can last quite a while. I was afraid it might be contagious since Lester seems to have some of the same symptoms that I do and I was afraid I might have given this condition to him.

The answer was that it is contagious if anyone stays around you for a long time. Just casual passing, or sharing a soda won't pass it along, but continued exposure over time will cause other people to begin sharing the same symptoms.

That disturbed me because I had noticed that our four children are showing a little of the same problems. They do not have nearly as many as Lester and I do, but there are little signs that they are beginning to contract the same condition.

I began to wonder where I contracted the ailment. Can you believe that I was told that my own loving parents were the cause? When I was born it was known that before long I would share the same condition that they were already beginning to experience. I asked if it was maybe because I was born rather late in my parents' married life, as they were 44 and 42 when I was born. But it was pointed out to me that my oldest brother, who was born when they were still almost newlyweds, lived with many of these symptoms until he was 101-plus.

When I mentioned my diagnosis to a friend, she replied that there was a lot of that going around. I looked at the people who were around us in the fellowship room of the church and realized that her statement was true. Some seemed to have it even worse than I did, but most of them had lesser symptoms.

I have come to understand that OLD affects different people in different ways. Some who definitely show that they have it maybe have had it fewer years than some who have lived with it for many more years. I guess some people adjust to the condition easier than others, but it has been proven that no matter what remedies you take or how you live your life, that once you contract it, you will have it the rest of your life.

There are some unlucky people who evidently weren't around others like me. They never contracted the condition. But statistics show that people who do have it, live longer than those who have never caught it.

I guess I am very lucky that everyone in my birth family caught the condition, and most of them lived with it very well and very long. I've been told it was because of good jeans, but my mother never wore jeans in her life and she lived to be 87.

I don't think there will be any reason for me to take any more tests since we now know what I have. I don't want to risk that they would come up with the condition that is much more advanced than OLD. That's a four letter word I want to avoid by sticking to this three letter one.