"I'm Too Young for This!"

The woman on the phone said she was a nurse. “Ms. Barber, I’m calling from your HMO. I just wanted to let you know we’re writing a prescrip­tion for you—it’s a bone-restoration medication. Your scan results show that you have osteoporosis.”

Clunk. I dropped my laundry basket, heavy with one more load before our vacation to Colorado. “Osteoporosis?” I sputtered. She must have the wrong Karen Barber. No way I could have osteoporosis! I was young—well, not old, anyway—the picture of health.

The nurse, apparently unaware that this was the first I’d heard the news, launched into an explanation of how to take the pills. “In the morning, on an empty stomach…” Her voice faded in my mind. Osteoporosis?

Yes, I’d had a bone-density scan a month before, but only because my general practitioner insisted—something about standard procedure after menopause. But osteoporosis? That was an old person’s disease, right? I power walked two and a half miles each day!

The only reason I’d even been in the doctor’s office was to get checked out for an upcoming mission trip to Honduras. Frail old people did not take mission trips to Honduras. Surely there was a mistake.

The nurse, however, referred to the exact date I’d had my scan. She asked if I had any questions. Too stunned to think, I mumbled no and hung up. I stared at the laundry, piled high in the basket.

Every year my husband, Gordon, our three boys and our daughter-in-law spent a week at a cabin in the Colorado mountains. Everyone else skied—I didn’t know how—and I took long walks on the mountain roads. What did this mean, osteoporosis? That I was too frail for trips like that?

Come on, I was only 54. Gordon and I had so many plans now that our youngest was about to leave for college. I exercised every morning—walking and praying—drank plenty of milk, ate yogurt, took calcium supplements. I hadn’t broken a bone since I was five years old. Not fair, God. I’m too young for this!

A few days later we left for Colorado. I didn’t fill the prescription and barely mentioned the nurse’s call to Gordon. No sense worrying him, especially if this all turned out to be a big mistake.

Besides, the nurse had said something about stomach upset as a possible side effect. I certainly didn’t want that on vacation. I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind.