"You'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life."

Dear reader, the odds are good that at some point in your middle age, your doctor will diagnose some condition and tell you, "You'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life."

Surprisingly, this means you'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life. When things break after 40, they tend to stay broken. We learn this every day, yet denial remains one of the most powerful forces in the universe, stronger Peet's coffee or the under-car suction force that attracts Frisbees and dropped keys.

I'm typing this with one very tender left hand. I had a lymphedema flare-up last week, and my knuckles and fingers are still as puffy as if I had punched a wall. Which, frankly, sounds like a good idea right about now. I don't really know what sparked the flare-up -- maybe my lymph system reacted to the touch of flu I seem to have acquired, maybe I overused my left tipping books off the library shelves at my daughter's school for the end-of-year inventory. Maybe I put too much stress on my left side doing the physical therapy for my right shoulder -- the right shoulder I strained last spring trying not to overuse my left hand.

So I've spent the past nine days doing two sets of physical therapy exercises a day, one for my shoulder, one for my arm. Plus walking my daughter to school every day -- gotta get the aerobic exercise in to control my estrogen levels. Plus having the flu. I'm telling you, it's a good thing I don't have to go to a 9 to 5 right now, because my boss would be pretty close to firing my ass. As it is, I'm behind on household projects and I haven't even started to think about prep work for my fall classes.

My husband, trying to be helpful during one of my freakouts, said, "Don't worry -- you won't have this forever."

I just about snapped his head off. Because that's what I realized last week: Yes, I will. Yes, I have lymphadema. And I'm going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life.