Tag Archives: Aging

April 6, 2012 · 0:00

Maybe Next Year

I have a house full of folks, meals to cook, wine to drink and stories to be told.  So I’m neglecting my blog.  Yup, me.

So here is my very favorite post, from Long, Long Ago, when I was a baby blogger, in case you desperately need to get a life! need to hear my voice.

Happy Easter!  Happy Spring!

Downsizing

My husband John and I had an appointment to look at smaller houses with a realtor.  We were going to go this afternoon, but after going to the grocery store early this morning, I cancelled.

“Why did you do that?”  asked John, puzzled.  John wants to get rid of the big house.  He wants to get rid of the big mortgage.

“Sorry,” I told my husband.  “I can’t downsize.”

“Why not?” he asked again.

“Toilet paper.”

“Huh?”

Everyone I know talks “downsizing.”  Our friends are mostly middle-aged like us.  We all bought 4 bedroom 2-1/2 bath colonials back when our kids were small – we thought it was a legal requirement that came with the birth certificates.  Now the kids are off at college, or off working, or just off.  Occasionally friends decide to downsize because they are not yet empty nesters and are trying to push their overgrown open-mouthed offspring/bloodsuckers out of the nest.

As I said I had just come home from the grocery store.  With 36 rolls of toilet paper.  Double sized rolls.  That means I had actually just come home with 72 rolls.  For two adults and one dog.

What made me do it?  We really only need a fraction of that.  Why not get a six-pack?  And then a six-pack of toilet paper?

Earlier, I stood in the aisle at my local Safeway and considered my options.  Hmmmm.  I thought.  This HUGE package costs $15.00.  The size I really need costs $9.00.  But the 36-which-equals-72 roll package was only 6 bucks more.  I had no choice; I bought the big package.  It was cheaper — unless you totaled up today’s groceries.  And then it wasn’t cheaper at all.   But into the cart it went.

I continued on down the aisle.  Damn, I thought.  I need paper towels too.  Sixteen rolls?  Why not?

Go through any grocery store.  You can buy small, but it’s gonna cost you.  You can buy a six-pack of soda for $4.99.  Better still, you can buy a twelve-pack of soda for $6 or two twelve-packs for $12 and get three twelve-packs FREE!  What a deal.  You save $18 just by spending $6 more than you were going to spend in the first place!   I must buy them.  Just because I stopped drinking soda in 1996 doesn’t mean I should pass up this deal.

Twenty-four 12 oz. bottles of pure spring water?  Sure.  I only have six left from the two dozen I bought in 2007.

These promos work on me every time.

The price of wine also goes down as the quantity goes up.  I can buy one bottle of my favorite Pinot Grigio for $9.00 or I can buy two for $7.50 each.  If I want to buy even more, I can buy six or more bottles for $6.00 each, get totally sloshed and not really care what I’m spending.  There’s some logic there.

It even happened in the produce section. I wanted one small container of blueberries and one of strawberries.  Instead I took home two hefty containers of each.

“Are you going on a ‘berries only’ diet?” asked John as he helped me unload the groceries when I got home.

“No,” I responded.  “It was ‘buy one, get one free.’  I couldn’t let them go to waste, could I?”

“Well at least not until the extras have been in our fridge for a few weeks,” John muttered.

So you see, I can’t downsize.  I cannot get a smaller house. I can’t even get a smaller car.  How would I get my groceries home?

I think I’m going to call the realtor back.  We need a bigger house.

57 Comments

Filed under Conspicuous consumption, Family, Humor, Real Estate, Stupidity

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March 4, 2012 · 0:00

Hey Doc? What Would You Do?

My mother-in-law, Helen, just celebrated her 86th birthday!  She is the last of our parents, John’s and mine, and we feel lucky to have her around.  For her age she’s doing quite well.  She still lives independently and does pretty well with some help from us and even more from John’s sister who lives much closer.

As she ages, naturally she has more health issues.  But she is very independent and doesn’t want any of us along when she goes to the doctor.  It won’t be long before we start insisting though, because whenever she goes for a checkup or for a problem, we end up completely confused and can’t help because, well, she likes to keep things private.

In the last year, though, she’s had a few procedures that, while not too terribly invasive, still seemed over the top.  Unnecessary.   Expensive, but covered by Medicare and Medi-gap insurance.

Now remember, I am a bit of a cheerleader for doctors.  I have wonderful ones and they have improved my life immensely.  I work with doctors, I have friends who are doctors.  I am really familiar with the system and how things work.

So I have to say that I was taken aback when I read a recent article in the Wall Street Journal:

Why Doctors Die Differently

Huh?

The article was written by Ken Murray.  DoctorKen Murray.  Naturally as an all-too frequent patient/medical geek, I was intrigued.  The gist of the article is summed up by this quote:

What’s unusual about doctors is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little.  They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care that they could want. But they tend to go serenely and gently.

Oh.

No tubes.  No chemotherapy.  No machines.  Gently and serenely.  Well, whodda thunk it?

I know for a fact that doesn’t happen in the hospital.  They know for a fact that doesn’t happen in a hospital.  If it did, medical costs would not be so, well, costly.  You’ve read the stats, so I won’t go there.  You’re welcome.

My sister Beth, who was a nurse, had suffered a stroke that, among other things, led to acute kidney failure requiring years of dialysis.  Beth had been having problems for a couple of months when she suddenly took a severe turn for the worse, and she was in terrible pain.  Her sons were unable to help her and took her, against her will, to the hospital, where she lapsed into a coma.  But not before she was placed on all kinds of machines, respirators, monitors, dialysis machines, the works.  But she had really already gone.  None of that expensive equipment was really necessary.  None of it changed the outcome. Only the drugs made her more comfortable.

Selfishly, part of me is glad they put her on those machines, because it gave me enough time to get to her bedside and be there at the end.  She would have been glad to know I was there, but not glad of the expensive and hopeless treatment she received.  That is not at all what she would have wanted.  Would you?

So when I read this article I realized it was time to add an important question to the list I ask all doctors whenever I go, or whenever I go with someone I am trying to help:

“Hey, Doc?  What would you do if you were the patient?”

86 Comments

Filed under Family, Hey Doc?, Science, Stupidity, Technology

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February 1, 2012 · 0:00

Hey Doc?

Medical care in today’s America is really no more than a Ponzi scheme.  Just ask Rick Perry.

In my case, it seems that whenever I go to the doctor, I end up going to doctorS.  Plural.  Somehow, radiologists are always involved.  What did folks do before they split the atom?  I think all these tests is a Russian (Iranian?) plot to get Americans to wipe themselves out with radioactive dyes so that they — The Russian/Iranians — can take over our country and get up there on the CT Scan machine themselves.  They are seriously cool machines.  I want one for my living room.

Oops.  I digressed again.  So back to our hero in the U.S. medical system.

Me, I have a chronic condition that has a nasty habit of wandering around the temple that is my body.  (I am quite sure it is a temple, because it keeps expanding.)  So I do know the medical system, ummm, intimately.

No, no, no, the illness is not such a big deal.  More than anything it is annoying.  And gross. And time-consuming.  Because when I go to one doctor, she sends me to another, who invariably says, “well you know, you really should see … and along the way there will be tests.”  Needles will be stuck into veins, dyes will be injected, and incredibly disgusting potions will be consumed.  The doctors don’t feel a thing, though.  It hardly seems fair.

But I have something over most patients:  Doctors are terrified of me: 

I work in drug products litigation 

And

I am married to a lawyer

Besides,

  • I do my homework;
  • I ask questions that I have thought about in advance;
  • I write down their answers;
  • I do not let them leave the room until I am satisfied;
  • I call them with all those questions I forgot to ask the first time around;
  • When they don’t call me back, I threaten to haunt them after I am dead.

That last one is REALLY effective.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a new specialist.   So, I am taking bets here:

182 Comments

Filed under Family, Freshly Pressed, Health and Medicine, Hey Doc?, Humor, Music, Science, Stupidity, Technology

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January 17, 2012 · 0:00

People My Age

Well, it’s my birthday.  And I have a problem.

You might have noticed it yourself.  You may even have asked me about it.  Or wondered in stoic silence.   “Whatever will she do?” you asked yourself.  I am sure it has been weighing on you — heavily.  As well it should.

“FiftyFourAndAHalf,” that’s the problem.  It’s right up there at the top of the page.  Yup, the blog’s name.   I called it that in a fit of pique at the GOP who were going to take Medicare away from everyone under 55.  Starting with me.  It seemed grossly unfair when I was younger.  Like, you know, six months ago.

But, ummmm.  I’m not FiftyFourAndAHalf anymore.  I’m not even FiftyFourAndThreeQuarters, either — the name my son, Jacob, has been calling me.   Because my 55th birthday is here.  I tried to stop it, but, well, I failed.  My bad.

I didn’t know what to do.  I thought of taking a poll:

 

 

I must admit I was afraid of your answers.  More importantly, I was afraid that I had more poll questions than readers.

But then I saw this:

John Gorka, singing “People My Age”

It helped me make my decision.  It stiffened my resolve.  I wish I had thought of it sooner.  Like 20 years ago.  But back then, I didn’t know that people my age had started looking gross.

So I’m not going on to FiftyFive.  I don’t want to be my age, because people my age have started looking gross. 

I’m sticking with FiftyFourAndAHalf.

Man! I look better already.

107 Comments

Filed under Childhood Traumas, Climate Change, Elections, Family, Humor, Music, Science, Stupidity

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January 7, 2012 · 0:00

Bees and other stings

Yesterday, I read on my office building’s  elevator computer screen that someone had smuggled bees onto an airplane. The bees escaped and stung several people before brave airline personnel managed to capture and/or kill them.

I got nervous.   After all, I was in an enclosed elevator, and people around me were carrying stuff.

“Whoa!” You say, “Your elevator has a computer screen?!”

Yes, but I can’t check my stats there.  So don’t hate me.

But the news that someone had gotten bees onboard an airplane made me look around at the folks riding up with me in the elevator with greater concern.  That man over there with the regular-sized briefcase looked “bee-free,” but what about the guy with the big square briefcase?  He could have a whole hive squirreled away in there and I wouldn’t know.

The third and last person on the elevator with me had a bag that was big enough for a bunch of bees, but I was pretty sure that it was tuna.  I don’t know if I could identify what bees smell like, but I do know tuna.

I was relieved when I got off on the 14th floor without being stung.  Relieved that I didn’t suffer from somebody else’s, ummmm, mistake.  That isn’t always the case, you know.

In addition to feeling relieved, though, I also felt stressed, and overloaded by information that I didn’t necessarily need.   Like how many times things go wrong when you least expect it.  And how frequently people don’t say anything about it.  Well, until they sue, that is.

It was later on in the afternoon that I realized that the internet is, in fact, making me crazy.  Paranoid.  Thoughtful in ways I don’t like being thoughtful.  Because I was sitting in a hospital waiting room reading an online New York Times article:

Report Finds Most Errors at Hospitals Go Unreported

Oh dear.   Now I was just there for a blood test, not brain surgery (although I DID consider a lobotomy after watching the GOP candidates preening for New Hampshire on the TV in the waiting room).  So you don’t need to worry about me.

I’m not so sure about you, though.  I mean I’m not so sure that I don’t have to worry about YOU.

Full disclosure clause:

I AM NOT A DOCTOR!

I AM NOT A LAWYER!

I AM NOT AN INDIAN CHIEF!

And I have not jumped rope to that chant in decades.   AND I am way more politically correct now than when I did.  So don’t even go there.

I AM a patient, though.  More often than I’d like.  Consider me an expert patient, in fact.  Assume  it is has happened to me.  Consider also the fact that I am married to a lawyer.

So I have some advice.  Free.  No charge.

In any medical-type situation, if something doesn’t seem right,

SAY SOMETHING!!!

Say it politely.  Say it clearly.  Keep saying it until someone looks you in the eye and answers your question, stops what they are doing and makes you comfortable that either:  they will stop, or there really is no problem and you can now relax and let them continue doing their work correctly.  Just remember that they are people too.

When your health or that of someone you love is the issue

DO NOT BE SHY

Pay attention

Ask questions

Speak up

Do your homework

Write down questions

Keep an updated list of your medications with you

And, if you frequent planes and elevators, keep something in your wallet that says whether or not you are allergic to bee stings.

41 Comments

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