“My fondest wish is to keel over one day, rather than rot in an armchair for my final years.”
I fondly wish that you never experience pain of a severity that keeps you in that armchair.
Thanks. I've come close on a couple of occasions, including just earlier this year when I went through a month and a half of sciatica that followed some other medical problems I was having. Utter torture. The only pain meds that would work were things like Hydrocodone, which doctors used to toss around like candy and now don't dispense even if you're dying.
I've always stayed in shape; I feel out of sorts when I'm not. At 60, I've got it worked out to a standardized routine that covers all the bases. Keeps me operational, and avoiding many of the minor and not so minor medical problems that creep up as we get older.
I've been thrown from vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles both street and dirt, fallen from trees (hitting branches on the way down), fights, etc. That was when I was young and indestructible. Now it seems it's three times easier to get hurt and it takes five times longer to heal.
That sciatica episode did get me some x-rays and an MRI which shows my lumbar spine is a bit of a wreck, but through persistence, discipline and testing the limits of my pain tolerance, I have worked through it all and am back on track, I'm glad to say. No, there's no guarantees that all that effort still won't see something happen that lands me in a recliner anyway -- such is life. All we can do is our absolute best, and then let the cards fall where they may.
Be well.