The Joys (?) of Aging...

Lately, I’ve been feeling old. If I didn’t think I was old, Medicare is doing its level best to remind me.

 

Not only did I receive my Medicare card in the mail recently, but I’ve gotten so many unsolicited mailings about Supplemental insurance plans that I know we are down several trees from the process.

 

Besides that, I’ve had numerous instances where this age thing has reared its ugly head.

 

Notes from a new doctor visit: “Female appears stated age…” What?? I have always been told I look young for my age. Guess time has caught up to me. Probably this is why Botox and facelifts were invented. Not that I’d ever go that route because (a) who has that kinda cash lyin’ around? And (b) I really don’t want to look like the Joker at this point in my life.

 

No, I guess I’ll just age naturally and do my best to cover up my turkey neck.

 

Oh, but even worse than looking old? Having aging body parts fail on me.

 

Yikes!

A couple of weeks ago, I chipped a tooth while eating a sandwich. A sandwich!  In my tooth’s defense, I think there may have been a tiny piece of an infinitesimally small olive pit in there. That’ll teach me to go all fancy trying to turn a plain ham and cheese into a muffuletta sandwich.

 

I have a friend who is a mere three months older than me – and she told me she has long since stopped eating hard, crunchy foods. I don’t know what she subsists on, but it’s a sure bet she’s not snacking on granola, carrots or crunching on any toffee-coated almonds.

 

But more on my tooth problem later.

 

Something as simple as sleeping has also proven to be detrimental to my health. A couple of months ago, I went to bed feeling just fine and then woke up the next morning with my left hip and knee hurting so badly I was thinking it was time to get fitted for a walker. I spent a lot of time alternating between icing and heating my left appendage, sleeping with specialty pillows – and even boycotting the offensive bed altogether. The other bed seems to have alleviated the pain, so I’m now sleeping in my spare bedroom until my new mattress gets delivered. Maggie Minx is oh-so-confused as she trots to the old bedroom every night and looks back at me questioningly with her adorable little head tilt.

 

Also, for the past year and a half I’ve had an incredibly sore neck. Injury or stress, I don’t know. But I figured it’s a symptom of aging, so I hadn’t done much for it except to occasionally slap an ice pack on it and pop a couple Tylenol.

 

Then a few months ago it got so bad, I went to a massage therapist. And that has helped, which is great. Walking around in constant pain is not conducive to feeling young and energized.

 

But when I moved beds, I also slept on the pillow in the spare room. And – wonder of wonders – my neck wasn’t as sore in the morning. Hunh. How awesome was that? Of course, you should also know that I’ve tried every new pillow gimmick out there for relief of neck pain. The particular pillow I had on the spare room bed was one of those weird looking pillows that was supposed to help whether you were a back sleeper or a side sleeper.

 

I hadn’t thought it worked when I originally purchased it (thus, the reason it was relegated to the spare room bed), but perhaps it just needed some “seasoning” before it worked well.

 

I try desperately not to appear to be of the Boomer generation, but sometimes my doddering “oldness” simply manifests itself. Like when confronted with payment options at the checkout line. I’m constantly reviewing whether or not the card I’m using has “tapping” abilities – or if I have to swipe or insert the card into the machine. It doesn’t help that every machine operates differently.

 

When I’m confident I can tap the card, I’ll try 2-3 times – and then the clerk will tell me their machine is glitchy and I’m better off inserting the card. Or I end up tapping it too soon or too late. Or I’m not holding the card at the precise angle for the reader to catch those all-important 16 digits. NOW I understand why my dad had so many problems paying for gas at the pump and preferred using cash.

 

So, back to my chipped tooth problem. Since it really wasn’t bad, I figured I’d just wait for an upcoming dentist’s visit to bring it up. I was scheduled to have a “porcelain onlay restoration” on one of my back teeth, which had cracked.

 

This is from either the pointy upper molar having its way with the lower one throughout the years – or the silver amalgam fillings that Dr. Kelleher put in there back in the early 70s. He evidently did such a good job, no dentist in the intervening years wanted to mess with those silver fillings. And, as a result of metal expansion and contraction, some of the molars have cracked around the fillings.

 

Sigh.

 

So I had to have the tooth fixed before more expensive words like “crowns” or ”implants” were bandied about.

 

My dentist proceeded to numb the right side of my face – and then asked me an all-important question: “What kind of music do you like?”

 

I was completely stumped because I like a lot of music. Motown, 70s, 80s, 90s? Of course. Sinatra, Dean Martin? Sure. Girl groups, boy bands, soft rock, hard rock? Yeah. Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran? Okay.

 

Depending on the song, the artist and/or my mood – I like a lot of music.

 

But he wasn’t asking me to have an in-depth discussion about musical genres, he simply wanted to know so he could ask Alexa to play something that I liked in order to distract me from the horrible whine of the drill.

 

Yeesh.

 

Before I could get my numbed-up mouth to form actual words, he went with 70s music. Ack. He, too, thinks I’m old.

 

I wanted to say, “But…some of the music from the 70s was when I was in grade school!” Yeah, I wanted to say that, but with all the dental instruments and suction thingies in my mouth, I wasn’t able to get that message across.

 

I have a college friend I speak to from time to time when we have a couple of hours to kill on the phone. It’s usually in the evening after he’s had a few cocktails, so our conversational topics can range from the fancy food he cooked that evening to his job to the state of the world in which we live. We can talk about the “olden days” at OSU, or we can talk about what happened to us yesterday.

 

I always enjoy these conversations.

 

Except lately. Because the subject matter has revolved around Medicare, Social Security, his health – or how badly he wants to retire and how carefully he’s orchestrating the final months at his job.

 

(Insert eye-rolling emoji here.)

 

The fact that he’s a year and a half older than I am boded well for me in the beginning of these chats. Last September when I was one year away from Medicare, I began to be inundated with literature in the mail on Supplemental plans for Medicare.

 

So I figured I could ride on the coattails of all his Medicare-related research to help me navigate my own journey.

 

And, in truth, our discussions DID help. But now, he’s still talking about Medicare supplemental plans and which one he is selecting. (He hasn’t had to choose one yet since he’s still getting healthcare through work.)

 

Anyway, I do my best to steer our conversation in another direction. But what do I have to talk about? My chipped tooth? My neck pain?

 

No wonder they say aging ain’t for sissies. True dat.

 

So now I’m just shuffling along in my house slippers and robe, clutching my aching back and being careful while walking Maggie so I don’t fall. I’m learning to tie silk scarves around my neck to hide the tell-tale signs of my age. (This is a challenge during the summer months since I’m still dealing with the occasional hot flash.) And I’m researching short hair styles for Medicare-eligible old ladies. Maybe it’s time for that poodle perm?

 

No. I kid. Instead, I’m researching exercises to alleviate hip and knee pain. I’m doing my best to learn new things and keep up with technology. And I’m still wearing my hair long with sparkling strands of silk in it because I like the effect.

 

But I AM careful while walking Maggie so I don’t fall. I don’t need a broken hip at my age (or any age). Let’s hope I can avoid that challenge. After all, I’m not quite Medicare-eligible.

You Are My Sunshine

One of the saddest days I’ve experienced in recent years with my mom dealing with Alzheimer’s was last summer when she broke her hip and was not doing well at the rehabilitation facility.

I had made the decision to cut her rehab short and move her back to the memory care unit. Hospice could once again be involved in her daily care and she wouldn’t be subjected to the difficult rehab that wasn’t working for her. She was in pain and couldn’t walk, had lost so much weight in a very short period of time and we thought we were losing her.

So plans were quickly finalized and I told the hospice nurse that I would be in mom’s room when they got her ready to move. The aide and the driver from Parkside Village would arrive and take mom and her bags in the van and I would follow behind in my car.

On my way there I received a call from hospice telling me the driver and aide had gotten mom and were on their way back to the memory care unit.

That was a surprise as they weren’t scheduled to pick her up for another hour or so. But since I was nearly at the rehab facility, I said I’d just pop in and make sure they had gotten everything. I also wanted to thank the nursing staff for the care they had given us.

When I got to her room I discovered that nothing had been packed. It was an unexpected oversight, but I assumed our signals had somehow gotten crossed and perhaps they thought I was planning to do the packing.

So I went to work. When I finished, I went out to thank the nursing staff. The aide I especially liked – her name was Avis – gave me a big hug and wished us both well. As I tried to hold off more tears (I’m becoming such a big baby in my old age), I told her what a blessing she was to us and how much we appreciated her efforts.

When I turned to leave she said, “Wouldn’t you like to see your sweet mama?”

I am sure the look I gave her was of utter disbelief. “Hasn't mom left to go back to Parkside Village?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “Your mom is in the TV room!”

So we walked to the TV room and a woman I didn’t even recognize was dozing in her wheelchair. Her bangs had grown out since she hadn’t had her hair cut since before her fall and she had two tiny little cornrow braids on either side of her head.

I smiled because I thought they were cute, but I laughed because I knew that mom would’ve hated her hair in braids.

My whole life I cannot remember mom doing anything to her hair other than the obligatory perm when she cared about that sort of thing. She never colored it. Her hair was always short, so she never wore it in a ponytail or a braid. And she never affixed a hair clip in her hair.

Mom's hair was not this big!

The only thing I can remember that was different about mom’s hair was a short period in the late 60s when she wore a wiglet. I don’t know why…maybe she wanted a little more of the bouffant hairstyle that was so popular back then and she didn’t have enough hair to achieve the look.

All I really remember was that it was gray (or “silver” as mom insisted we call the color of her hair). And to me that wiglet looked sort of like a dead squirrel in the little box she kept it in.

So I was a bit nonplussed by the cornrows, but I let it go. I figured someone was spending time with and caring about my mom.

We wheeled her back to her room just as the Joy, the aide and Johnny, the driver, came in to pick up mom.

Avis asked if she could sing her one final song before she left. Mom nodded – so Avis started crooning, “You Are My Sunshine.”

Johnny chimed in – and then mom tried to sing along, too.

I couldn’t have joined in if I tried.

I was standing behind mom’s chair, which turned out to be fortunate. Witnessing this moment of compassion between these caregivers just about broke me. I had tears streaming down my face – much as I do right now.

It was an incredibly poignant moment. Later, I wished I’d been able to capture it on video, though I don’t think I would have been capable of holding the camera at that moment.

But the memory will stay with me.

I know there are good caregivers and there are not so good caregivers out there.

That day I witnessed the very best.

So I’d just like to say thank you to all the people who care for someone else’s loved one. I, for one, am extraordinarily grateful.

And I thank you.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

                (Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell, 1939)

The Long Lost Voice of Jane’s Domain

If I finish this blog, I will be as surprised as you must be to read one from me. It has been a long, long time since I’ve written.

Why?

Well, I think I lost my voice for a while there. I was just so damn sad last year. Every time I started to write a blog, it wouldn’t be one of those light, semi-amusing Jane’s Domain kinda blogs. No, it would be all gloomy and doomy.

And then I’d stop writing.

One of the biggest reasons was that my 95-year-old mom who has had dementia for the past ten years fell and broke her hip this past summer. Watching her go through a second hip replacement surgery and struggling through rehabilitation was heartbreaking and I truly thought we were going to lose her.

She has rallied some, but is a much different person than she was before the fall. She struggles to find simple words to communicate. She sleeps most of the day and is now completely incontinent. She has to be fed each meal. And, sadly, she is no longer able to walk.

So it’s nearly impossible to face each day in a lighthearted manner, although I do cherish those moments when something funny happens and I can let loose with a belly laugh. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

Like the time I thought I was using lip balm to moisturize my chapped lips and discovered I had used a lip plumper instead (where did that tube come from?) so that I walked around for an entire day with duck lips.

Let’s just say it was not a good look on me.

Or when I thought I was spraying dry shampoo in my hair and when I flipped my head back and looked in the mirror, my hair was standing straight up in the air like I time hopped myself  back to the 80s. Only then did I look at the container in my hand and read the fine print. Hair spray, I read. Lasting hold.

Oh joy.

Vince has been encouraging me to write again. And he’s boosted my readership by inviting more people to like Jane’s Domain. I appreciate his efforts and I apologize to anyone who maybe, I don’t know, expected to read something current.

Ah well. Hopefully, those new people have been able to read some of my older blogs. I used to be very chatty.

But I have to do things in my own time.

Now that it’s a whole new year and a whole new decade, I think I’m ready. Getting back into the writing game is one of my goals for the year. Perhaps I can find my voice again.

I can’t promise they’ll all be lighthearted and fun. But hopefully they won’t be all gloomy and doomy.

Wish me luck, okay?