My Life With Doctors

When I complain about not having any time in my life, my younger sister (just turned 60) asks  why I’m so busy all the time. Just wait, I want to tell her. It seems that after 70, my body started to slowly come apart. First it was pain in my knees when I walked down the stairs, and then discs started separating in my spine, my fingers became too stiff to curl, the bones in my arms and legs weakened, and other medical problems too embarrassing to mention. The latest was a severely blocked artery that required a stent to keep my artery open so I won’t have a heart attack. Before this, I didn’t know that you could get a catheter through a small vein in the arm all the way to the heart, even drilling through the plaque. Amazing.

In the past year I’ve gotten an education about the medical world. For example, there are more specialists than generalists, and it can take three to six months to see a specialist. I have appointments with two rheumatologists, hoping I can see one before October. Somehow, I’ve acquired three neurologists (for different conditions), one dermatologist, one cardiologist, a pulmonologist, a rheumatologist, an optometrist and ophthalmologist, a gastroenterologist, endocrinologist, orthopedist, a wound care specialist and a primary care provider. I’m sure I’ll add to this list as I get older.

Each visit has engendered more visits and more work. My deteriorating body requires therapy—not to put it back together—but to keep it from getting worse. My chiropractor, spinal therapist and hand therapist have all given me exercises to do at home, which take up a good part of the evening. When I’m not exercising or visiting my health care providers, I’m replying to their constant texts, phone calls and emails wanting me to confirm the appointment. And the forms that need to be filled out: Do I have covid? Have I traveled in the last month? Did anyone in my family have cancer?  

I need to list all my medications and there’s a lot. My bathroom counter is spread with bottles of medicine, and I need to remember which ones I take in the morning, which in the afternoon and which at night. It’s a good practice for my memory, which is getting worse, by the way.

Because my doctors can’t figure out why my hands hurt, I’ve enlisted the help of alternative healers, including a naturopathic physician, an acupuncturist, a somatic healer and a rolfer. At this point, my poor memory can’t keep up with all the healers, the doctors and their assistants—and even why I’m seeing them. My calendar is stacked with so many appointments that I don’t have time to see friends.

It’s all gotten so complicated, tedious and time wasting that I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. I know two people who have refused to go to doctors for most of their lives. Now in their 70s and 80s, they have no idea if something is seriously wrong with them. It’s entirely likely that sometime in the near future they will be struck with cancer or a stroke, and it will be too late to save them. But in some ways I envy them. We could keel over at the same time, but they would have avoided all the endless appointments and the constant anxiety of not knowing if their condition is serious or not. Best of all, by dodging all the medical appointments, they had more time—the one thing I want more than anything.    

In the meantime, I’m getting a crash course in how the body works, and in the process I’ve developed an appreciation for its complexity. Because my doctors can only give me a limited amount of time (and because my science education by nuns was rudimentary to nonexistent), I rely on Google to explain how the heart sends blood all over the body through an intricate system; and how the spinal cord stacks up with discs that can deteriorate over time, leaving your vertebrae vulnerable.  I’ve learned some medical language that I can throw around casually: my neuropathy might be idiopathic; my heart test is ambulatory.

These are things we learn as we age, and I would have been glad to have never discovered them. I was blissfully happy as a young person never suspecting that my body would betray me, especially since I treated it so well: hiked and bicycled, took yoga classes, ate the right foods, never smoked, drank moderately and kept my weight down. Now I’m wondering: Why did I bother? Should I have just indulged in large scoops of ice cream?

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Words I Didn’t Know Yesterday

Every day it seems I stumble upon a new word or phrase I’ve never heard of, like this one from a Dear Amy advice column: “I don’t want to recreationally hurt his feelings by telling him I’m not comfortable with him anymore. . .” Is she hurting his feelings on the pickleball court?  Hard to know. (Not only do I learn new words from Amy’s column, but I also learn about new social trends, like brides wanting everyone at the wedding to wear the same color. It’s a new world out there.)

Along with the world changing too fast—social media, polarized politics, a warming planet, increasing prices in food and gas, TV shows that don’t make sense to a 74-year-old, and new trends in weddings–is language, pushed by social media where everyday speech must be evolving at a dizzying pace.  I say “must” because I don’t follow most social media. I’m not on Snapchat or X. I assume the words and phrases I find in my daily New York Times or New Yorker originate on these platforms or somewhere equally obscure to me.

As someone who spent most of her life devoted to language—writing, editing and reading—I feel overwhelmed by all the new words and phrases but also intrigued. I learn about our changing world through new language; I discover what people are concerned or obsessed about. I love doomscrolling, because it so perfectly describes our obsession with reading bad news.

I thought quiet quitting referred to leaving a job without officially resigning, like not showing up for work one day. But I’ve since found out it means doing the minimum amount of work. I can sympathize with workers who feel estranged from their corporate employers that don’t care or respect them. And we’ve all been ghosted, even if we didn’t have the name for being dropped unknowingly from relationships.  

The first time someone sent me an LOL, I thought the person was sending lots of love, which was a little strange from a person I didn’t know well. Still, I was pleased that she liked me.  I probably sent a whole lot of love to acquaintances before I figured that one out, but I’m sure the world has since moved on with a whole new repertoire of words that I will use wrongly and make a fool of myself.  I have to pause and think when a form asks if I’m BIPOC or Cisgender or which pronouns I want.

What if I choose wrongly?  Could I accidentally identify myself as a cat-hating, pro-Estonian witch worshipper and then get doxed? Have my address made public, so cat lovers show up at my house and pelt it with cat poop? Or sneak my picture on Facebook wearing a witch’s hat? It’s so easy in this world now to accidentally post something offensive and provoke someone or a group that exposes—doxes—you in social media.  

Language has always been touchy. I remember, in the 1970s, a heated argument at the liberal newspaper where I worked about whether Black should be capitalized or not. In the following years black and African-American were generally accepted. But now language is speeding along at the rate of a new meme daily. It’s taken me a long time to comprehend that word. When a friend who doesn’t own a computer asked me to define meme, I could only give him a few examples that may or may not have been accurate.

But I felt like I was reading a foreign language when I read a recent article in the New York Times about an influencer (that’s a whole other topic):

At her first full-time job since leaving influencing, the erstwhile smoothie-bowl virtuoso . . .

Although I have no idea what a smoothie-bowl virtuoso is, I find it intriguing that the writer combined the archaic erstwhile (from the 1500s—I looked it up) with a modern (I assume) phrase, although, as far as I know, smoothie bowl might be equally archaic.

Should I try to learn these new phrases, or will they pass as quickly as the next meme?

. . . wellness culture, a warm-blooded mood board of Outdoor Voices workout sets, coconut oil and headstands.

Others dismissed the workshops as out of touch, even appropriative.

Even though I found a definition for mood board (a collage of various items, as scenic snapshots, song lyrics, and mementos, used to evoke a desired feeling, style, or ambience for a project or event, and often fashioned as a starting point from which to create an inspiration board), I don’t know what the Outdoor Voices are saying. I guess I’m just another victim of an aging brain.

And I can guess what “appropriative” refers to, but not to a phrase used in another article: adaptogenic latte, although I have to wonder if I accidentally drank one.

Others I admire, like the puff of ashwagandha:

Still, her post count never slipped. So it was a shock to her fans and haters alike when, in a puff of ashwagandha, she disappeared from posting in 2019.

And did she ever come back, perhaps in a puff of Reishi mushrooms?

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Waiting for Dementia

When I visit my neurologist’s office, the assistant walks behind me and tells me to turn right up ahead and then go the second room on the left, the one numbered 7. Sometimes she’ll have me get on the weight scale and tell me to read the numbers. Because most assistants in other doctors’ offices lead the way, I’ve concluded that my neurologist is measuring my cognitive abilities. So far, I’ve passed, but it feels like, at my age, I’m being constantly evaluated. One day I’ll turn right instead of left, and it’ll be all over.

When I fumble at the grocery stand, I get looks from the checkers, like: ah, another old person who doesn’t know how to use her credit card in our new machine. Or when I can’t instantly remember my phone number, I get a condescending but patient response: She must be losing it.  Or has she already lost it?

Maybe it’s paranoia. When you think you’re being observed, or you have a fear of Alzheimer’s, any mistake can lead you to the conclusion that you’re going down the dementia path. If I were 20 and misplaced my keys, I would laugh it off. But now, I second guess myself constantly— like when I can’t remember the name of someone. It’s a common complaint as we age, but it’s easy to attribute it to something serious.

Both my parents had dementia, and one of my family members was just diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. Will I be next? In surveys, Americans fear dementia more than any other health scare: cancer, diabetes, heart attacks. Unlike cancer, there is no remedy for dementia, only medications that might slow its progression.

Maybe I fear dementia because I’ve seen it up close with my parents. I clearly remember the time I handed my mom her toothbrush, and she asked what she was supposed to do with it. Her dentist had told us her teeth were in bad shape, and we needed to make sure she was brushing. But obviously she had forgotten how to do it or even what a toothbrush was for.

Or the time we were getting ready for a potluck dinner at my niece’s. When I was growing up, my mom cooked extravagant meals for a family of nine. But now, in her mid-80s, she didn’t know how to cook green beans.

To avoid or slow the progression of dementia, doctors advise getting more exercise, abstaining from alcohol, eating the right foods and getting enough sleep. I’ve done all of that. But I’ve come to realize that the best thing is to stop worrying and anticipating something that may never happen. We all need to prepare ourselves for old age: making sure our will is up to date and that plans and wishes for the last stages of life are recorded and made known to our loved ones.

But beyond that, we need to enjoy life, especially as our days are numbered. Worrying is not useful and distracts us from enjoying the company of friends, from noticing the sunset, from hearing bird songs. That’s what brings us pleasure, and research shows that being happy also helps avoid dementia.

Enjoy this day, I tell myself. None of us knows how many we’ll have.

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