Category Archives: Aging

Aging, Health, Third Phase

A Come to My Senses Day

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Lughnasa                                                              Elk Rut Moon

Into the booth yesterday, a come to my senses day. Brandi, a bright and cheerful doctor of audiology (a new degree to me), found significant hearing loss in the middle and high pitches. That was my right ear. She tested the left ear, as all audiologists feel obligated to do. The little boxes on the report which record results at the various frequencies all had a downward arrow from the left corner. That downward arrow connotes no response. I did hear the 115 decibel sound. Through bone conduction in my right ear.

So, a hearing aid. Many of you who read this made this decision long ago. But, I only need one! That cuts the cost in half. A sort of good thing.

An hour later I was over at Corneal Consultants playing space invaders. The ophthalmologists (boy is that a hard word to spell) insist on calling it a visual field test. It uses little points of light (think G. Bush I) to evaulate peripheral vision. Aced it. Pressures good, too. Got that glaucoma under control for now.

As long as I’m on this medical note, I’m also experiencing the return of a shoulder/elbow problem I had three or four years ago. A lot of pain, most right now focused on the elbow and the upper arm of my left arm. The shoulder has less pain this time around. I got rid of it with P.T. last time, choosing not to have an MRI to diagnose it. This time I’m going to find out what it is.

 

Aging, Friends, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Pot-roast and vegetables

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Lughnasa                                                                        Recovery Moon

IMAG0833Buddy Tom Crane’s work takes him across the country, making him a favorite of airlines and the Marriot Hotel Corporation. In Denver for some work he came up to Shadow Mountain for supper last night. Kate slow-cooked a pot roast* and vegetables and made a raspberry pie from our still substantial cache of Andover raspberries.

We spoke of those kind of things third phasers often do: hearing aids, grandchildren, mutual friends, recent surgery, thoughts on who delivers care when no family is around. Of course, the content is less important the context, the being together, being seen and being heard. The importance of this last is underlined by Tom’s mother who at 98 has outlived all her friends. She’s become reclusive over the past few years. Friendship is not trivial, it’s a life-sustaining need and when it begins to disappear it matters.

 

*You can take the couple out of the Midwest, but…

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Retirement, Third Phase

Third Phase Summary

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Summer                                                            Recovery Moon

The third phase. First phase: childhood/education through at least high school, maybe undergraduate college. Second Phase: career/family formation. Third phase: Post career with adult children. This last phase has become an extended and to some extent new part of normal life. In the recent past the third phase was often short, interrupted by illness and often marred by poverty and ended not long after it began, especially for men.

Advances in medical science, improved social security and medicare and the maturation of the baby boom generation have combined to push the third phase into greater and greater prominence. We live longer, with better health and improved economic conditions. Too, the large population bulge of the baby boom is forcing society to see the third phase. In the past it may have been possible to consign the aging third phaser to the margins of society, but with the huge numbers of those born between 1946 and 1964 third phase citizens will be a larger and larger percentage of the population.

This is exciting. It allows our culture as a whole to reconsider the third phase and its implications for both individuals and society. Since the third phase is post career/work and usually represented by a couple with no children at home, it places an inflection point on the question of individual worth. The normal external markers affecting self-worth are employment and children. Both of these are in the past for most third phasers. Or, at least the time when they dominated an individual’s life is in the past.

Though it may be frightening to some this means that we each get the opportunity to reshape our lives, often around activities more closely aligned to our own interests. Kate, for example, always a hand-worker and seamstress, now focuses on quilting. I was able, earlier than most third-phasers, to focus on writing, political work and the arts, interests which sustain me now in my late 60’s. Family is still important, of course, with grand children and the lives of adult children, but those interactions happen occasionally rather than daily. This allows a pleasant mix of intimate, family contact while ensuring enough time for independent activities.

The third phase continues to fascinate me as I see friends headed into it and experience it myself with Kate. Friendships matter even more, with the hard work of friendship done while family and career dominated, and become increasingly precious as those factors reduce in importance. In my case the Woolly Mammoths and the docent corps continue to enrich the third phase.

 

 

 

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Surgery July 8

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Beltane                                           Closing Moon

The consultation with the urologist went well. My cancer has some outside the prostate presence, which makes the situation a bit more dire, but still one within the reach of a radical prostatectomy.

Kate and I both feel good about Dr. Eigner, the surgeon/urologist, and his experience. He’s done hundreds of robotic prostatectomies and hundreds of open prostatectomies. Practice is important.

We discussed the options, from hormone treatment to radiation to surgery. The moderately advanced nature of my cancer, my age and general health (good), make me a logical candidate for surgery. Kate and I had decided that already.

On the irrational side, I want that organ out of me. It’s no longer on my side. On the rational side surgery gives me the best chance of negative margins, a procedure in which all the cancer is removed, none showing at the tissue margins.

I feel good this evening, at peace with the choice, confident in the skill of my doctor and the support of family and friends.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Friends, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

A Yamantaka Moment

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Beltane                                                        Closing Moon

Yama
Yamantaka

So. Today is June 11th. I feel a small hole in the pit of my stomach. Not often you meet a day when your life is at stake, but this is one of those days for me. This afternoon we’ll find out the stage (severity & aggressiveness) of my cancer. We’ll also decide on a course of treatment.

It’s been an interesting time since the initial news from the biopsy. Once I absorbed that information and read the Schwartz book on Surviving Prostate Cancer, I’ve let the matter go for the most part, at least at a feeling level. There was a bracket around the time between then, late May and now, mid-June. In that bracketed time no new information could be gained and no action could be taken.

Now that bracketed time is over and the next steps, the real choices are just ahead. My confidence level is still high. Kate’s knowledge and support is essential as is encouragement from friends and family. Dr. Eigner is competent and practiced, and, unusually, open to serious questions and probing. I’ve done my research, have a list of questions.

The appointment is at 2:30. More later.

Aging, Health, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

This. Well.

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Beltane                                                             Closing Moon

 

A man in Kirkland, Washington, got his last wish, thanks to the compassion of the local fire district and caregivers at his hospice care center.

The patient, known simply as Ed, had been a forest ranger with a passion for the outdoors. Sadly, his illnesses forced him to stay inside for many years, and he eventually became a resident at the Evergreen Hospice Center in Kirkland. As his health waned, he shared his last wish with the hospice chaplain: To be among nature one last time.

It was important to the staff to make sure Ed was safe on his journey, so they contacted the Snohomish County Fire District to see what they could do. With a little teamwork, Ed caught a ride in an EMS vehicle to some nearby woods.

The EMS team that transported him made sure he experienced as much of the area as he could.

“Together, the group took Ed up and down the trails, bringing him the scents of the forest by touching the fragrant growth and bringing their hands close to Ed’s face,”reads a post on the Evergeen Hospice Volunteers page.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Tightrope

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Beltane                                                                         Closing Moon

Realized after talking to Kate yesterday that I have a tightrope I’m walking.  I need to recognize my prostate cancer as potentially fatal, because of that I need to find the best treatment possible. Yet. I also need to find ways to be with that possibility and not sink into the slough of despond. There’s a tension created by the act of staying focused on the medical issues and trying to maintain calm. I’m sure this is not novel to me. Anyone with a lethal agent inside them must face the same dilemma.

One solution is denial. Nope, nothing’s going on. I’m ok. Another is wallowing in the terrible fate. Poor me, why me, oh my. In between these two extremes is a path that sees things as they are, but does not give up living. Of course I swing between the two poles. At certain points I think oh this is no big problem. It’ll get fixed (how is not part of this thought pattern) and I’ll be better and life will return to normal. At other points the disease has already won and I’m planning my last good-byes, writing my obituary, planning my funeral.

Most of the time I’m aware of the disease, know I’m taking the steps that can be taken, and am at peace. Life is not normal. Concentrating for Latin or writing has not returned. Daydreaming seems to have a foreshortened horizon. I no longer imagine long projects like Superior Wolf or translating Ovid, finding a way to go on another cruise or start researching certain facets of Western history. Now my daydreams stop at tomorrow or next week, do not extend into the next decade. This is, I suppose, my subconscious reminding me of the predicament.

I do not feel anxious. I sleep well and, for the most part, am level and engaged, not wandering off to thoughts of doom or what might be. In my opinion I’m handling the situation, if not always well, at least honestly. Not sure what else I could ask of myself right now.

Aging, Colorado, Health, The Move, Third Phase

A Dip Down

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Beltane                                                                 Closing Moon

NB: Yet another down post. Skip it if you like.

1st Grade Me
1st Grade

Yesterday’s organ was the eye. Glaucoma check-up. Lots of gazing into my eyes. Dr. Repine said, almost as if she were surprised, “Your eyes look good!” She’s very enthusiastic. “And, you have some cataracts, but if they get too big, we’ll just take them out!” I told her my eyes felt good. She seemed to want a response. Back on Latanoprost, from now on, I imagine.

I felt pretty good up to this appointment, though I was beginning to weary of high stakes medical tests, waiting for results. Didn’t realize how weary until, after squinting through my sunglasses all the way home-they dilated my eyes-and getting a headache, I suddenly dropped into a funk.

 

 

Here’s how the funk went. Moved to Colorado. All that. Then on April 14th a physical. Since then negative findings, consultations, biopsy, diagnosis, echocardiogram, glaucoma check and more to come. Consultation on the 11th about prostate cancer. Treatment, probably surgery, recovery. Holter monitor installed on Tuesday, wear that for a month. What’s causing my shortness of my breath? Not why me. No, not that. But the constant drip of this negative, that one. Of people probing, poking, peeking inside, evaluating, deciding. And waiting. Waiting. Wondering. I was, too, tired.

This morning I’ve decided I need to stay at home, get some stuff done around here. Go easy. Maybe catch a movie today or tomorrow. Better rested this morning I feel better, too. But I need to let my body and mind and my spirit rejuvenate, refresh. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

 

 

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

death cannot defeat life, only end it

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Beltane                                                                            Beltane Moon

The hits just keep on comin’. Now, in addition to the biopsy this Thursday I have lowering oxygen saturation. This is not good. It can and does destroy brain cells and my brain is my favorite organ. So, I have an appointment with Lisa Gidday sometime in the next three weeks. Geez. This all converges with long standing, but well-managed issues (right now) like high blood pressure, cholesterol levels too high or too low, stage 3 kidney disease and others like left ventricular hypertrophy.

Now, I choose to see this all in a positive light. I have some chronic conditions that are common to many people and the dietary and pharmaceutical solutions to them have been successful so far. The kidney disease and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) are not good, but they both seem stable.

Unless. The LVH ends up reinforcing the lowering oxygen saturation. That’s for the follow-up to my appointment with Lisa.

My sense of myself, in spite of all this, is that I’m healthy and strong. Doesn’t feel like denial. I know about each item here and its implications. My choice is to take positive and aggressive action where I can and to accept the limitations or ultimate consequences in those instance where no action can be taken.

Two different streams of thought have lead me to a calm place. The first, experienced immediately after the beginning of the prostate journey, involved facing my actual mortality. We maintain throughout most of our life a subtle innocence about the probability and even the possibility of our own death. In my opinion this attitude is the reverse of unrealistic. In fact it is protective of our need to get on with living in the face of an inevitability about which we can do nothing.

The prostate findings lifted that protective innocence from me. There was death peeking over my shoulder, the agency of its coming perhaps revealed. This shook me. Hard. Finding my way into it, not running away, took the better part of a week and a half. Then, I realized that, if not this, something. If not now, sometime. With that frame and the palliative effect of taking the actions I could take, I became peaceful again.

The second thought involves living until I die. This has always been intention, not to run away from life or problems but to embrace them. Make choices. Take action. If I see a problem that affects me deeply, my tendency is to move toward it, see if I can do something. The realization here is that no disease, no condition can stop me from living until I die. I will, in other words, continue doing those things that matter to me. As I have done. Death cannot defeat my life, just end it.

So far these two thoughts: something, sometime will kill me and death cannot defeat my life, have helped me see that I am in no different situation now that at any other time in my life. Nor will I ever be.

 

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Lucky We Live the Mountains

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Spring                                                        Mountain Spring Moon

Lucky we live the mountains. Yes, Minnesota is a beautiful state, but the exurban chunk of it in which we lived and the areas in which I usually traveled, south toward Minneapolis, only occasionally reflected the wonder of the northern part of the state. There was the Mississippi, the lakes in the city, the green belt of parks. There was little Round Lake on Round Lake Blvd. That was about it. The rest of it, the beautiful part, including northern Anoka County with its high water table, marshy and wooded terrain, had to be sought out by driving.

Here the 3 mile drive home from highway 73 up Black Mountain Drive winds past a valley filled with grass and pine on the south side of which rises Conifer Mountain. To the north Shadow Mountain gradually pulls the road higher and higher, rocks jutting out, ponderosa and aspen dot the slopes and mule deer sometimes browse. Each morning when I go to the mailbox to retrieve the Denver Post Black Mountain is on my right, guarding the west and the eventual sunset.

Anytime we leave home, whether to go into Evergreen for our business meeting or into Denver to see the grandkids or south toward Littleton for medical care mountains and valleys, canyons and gulches grace the roadways. Small mountain streams run next to the roadways, swift and right now, often violent. Walls of sheer rock alternate with wooded mountainsides. Always the journey is up or down until we get past the foothills onto the beginning of the great plains where the Denver metroplex takes over.

This was my thought while driving home from the doctor yesterday. How short is a human life span. Not even a tick of the second hand to this rock. These mountains have been here for millions of years longer than the human species itself has existed. They will probably be here millions of years after we’re gone. What is one lifetime? What is a few years here or there? Compared to these. This was a comforting thought.