We all grow brittle with age as for various physiologic and medical reasons our bone become more porous as we loose calcium from our bodies. For those of you concerned about osteoporosis, here is the following poem.
Bone Density Scan
You make flesh disappear, as death
will do less gently; make me of mineral
like the moon, waxing or waning.
I feel nothing as your hail of rays
glides over. I’m reflecting
belly-up, though it probes my backbone.
It will find how hard my hardest parts are, measuring the shadows.
So much of me is fluid, easily
stretched or gathered; the heart squeezing
returning blood, alveoli thinning
their films against air, the liver embracing
sugars and toxins, the surging circuits
packed in the brain. But bones sustain
their shape, unyielding as belief.
From density the risk they take
is known, the grief if they should break.
Beverly Greenspan, PhD, MD
Medico Musings 