Years running heavy machines wore my body down. What now?

You can run any machine on the site without a second thought, and your body carries the price of every one of those years, the vibration, the hours in the cab, the wear that builds up quietly until you cannot ignore it. That toll is not a weakness. It is the honest receipt for hard, skilled work done over a long time. The years are spent, but how you treat your body from here is still yours to decide. It has been the engine of your whole working life, and it deserves care now more than ever. Pushing through the pain the way you always have is the one choice that guarantees it gets worse. Tending to it is how you keep your independence. Start with one thing you have been putting off, seeing someone about the ache, changing how you sit or lift, taking the recovery seriously between shifts. Small care, done consistently, protects the years ahead. You gave your body to this work; now let some of that same toughness go toward looking after it.