Everyone has to get old, if they’re lucky. Unless you die young someday your body is going to start wearing out. There are a lot of trite observations that have been made about this fact. “Old age is not for sissies” my mom likes to point out occasionally, when the betrayals of her body get the best of her. But I’m more inclined to think “old age is for everyone, whether we like it or not”. Courage has nothing to do with it, unless you want to think that courage has everything to do with living your life to the best of your ability.
When I was younger I would look at elderly people and seriously consider the possibility that they had never been young. I would watch someone white-haired and wrinkled slowly make their way down the street and find it impossible to imagine that they were once a teenager like me. And sometimes I STILL can’t really imagine that my body is going to wear out even though I know intellectually that it must.
Of course these thoughts are going through my head now because of my mother’s recent health problems. She’s had one setback after another in this latest round of illness, but I’ve watched with something close to amazement as she refuses to admit anything close to defeat and gathers her strength to try to regain her ability to walk and speak. If she has any say in the matter she’ll make it too. She’s not ready to leave this earth any time soon.
This reminds me of my grandmother, my mother’s mother, in some ways. Although Omi suffered from Alzheimer’s and was in a nursing home for many years, even when she was dying she didn’t give up easily. She fought for every breath right to the end.
So is this a family trait – this determination to survive no matter what? Or is this a simple fact of life for most people? People want to live and that’s all there is to it. They’ll fight for their lives even when they’re old and life is mostly painful and difficult. They’ll still cling to it, finding joy and comfort in little things, happy to awaken each additional day.
I watch my own signs of aging with a combination of amusement and occasional horror. I tell myself I don’t mind my grey hairs or wrinkles, yet I keep the grey hidden and apply all kinds of lotions to my skin to try to keep it young and supple-looking. I know that someday my body will begin to slow down and I won’t be able to do everything that I can do now, yet I pride myself on having run 2 half marathons in the past year and hate the thought of not being able to run any longer.
My mind is probably my area of greatest concern. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and now it appears that my aunt (my mother’s sister) has developed it as well. My father had a form of dementia before he passed away. I clearly notice my mind’s failings and while I reassure myself that repeating stories and forgetting why I entered a room are very normal, I can’t help but wonder if they might be a sign of something more serious.
Writing all this down has been helpful to me in a way. This past week, trying to get my mother’s affairs in order and set things up so that she can leave the hospital when she is ready and go to a rehab facility has been both stressful and sad. I’m torn between wanting to be back in New Hampshire helping Lee get us settled in our new house, and feeling like my mother really needs me to be here with her in St. Louis. What does one do about an elderly parent that lives 2,000 miles away? At least I’m not in Hong Kong anymore!
I know this next year is going to entail a lot of trips to St. Louis and a lot of occasions when I will feel like no matter where I am I ought to be somewhere else. That’s okay. I have known for years and years that someday this would come to pass and there are many ways in which it could be much worse. But there are things I wish for. I wish that this next part of my mother’s life goes smoothly, that the choices we need to make are clear, and that we choose correctly. I hope she can be made comfortable and happy, no matter what happens next. And above all, I hope that she will be safe and pain-free. I’ll do everything I can to make this happen for her, but I know too that it’s not all in my control.
The most important thing right now is to take things one step at a time and try not to worry about what will happen next. I need to have faith that I will be able to handle this next step, and the one after that, and even the one after THAT. But, I only have to handle one step at a time.
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
If You Don't Want to Read About Menopause, Skip This Post!
I’ve been going through a stop-start-stop-start introduction to menopause for around two years now. The current official definition of menopause is cessation of menstruation for 18 months. My periods have stopped for 3-6 months at a time about 4 times now. Just when I start thinking “maybe this is really it” I’ll have another period and have to reset the counter. This particular go round is into month 3…so we’ll see what happens next.
I have had a great deal of hesitation about fighting the symptoms of menopause with drugs. After all, it’s a natural, normal part of living and getting older. And I don’t suffer that badly. My main complaint is hot flashes. I actually wouldn’t be bothering to write this post at all if it wasn’t for the strange experience of having a hot flash.
I know these are different for everyone, but here is what happens to me. I start to get a sensation of heat. It rises from somewhere inside me. It’s very different from going “whew it’s hot in here”. Instead I’m going, “it’s hot in ME”! As the sensation develops I have a variety of reactions. Sometimes if I’m not busy doing something else, I stop and observe the sensation. There is a bit of a “rush” involved which is probably the heated feeling moving through my body. Sometimes I break out in a sweat, but not always. Occasionally I have a sudden attack of anxiety along with the hot flash. I leap out of bed, or once, ran out of the room I was in until I gathered my senses and reminded myself that the sensation was internal and I couldn’t escape it by moving somewhere else.
I think I would simply live with this except for the effect it has on my sleep patterns. As we get older its normal for our sleep to get interrupted more than it used to. I’m a very light sleeper to begin with but hot flashes have been waking me up 2-4 times a night. The strange thing is, I will be woken by a hot flash, but once it passes I go right back to sleep. I also don’t usually feel tired during the day, so I must be getting enough rest. But it still can’t be healthy to have my sleep interrupted so consistently.
The other thing, and it’s a big thing, that concerns me about menopause is osteoporosis. To say it runs in my family is an understatement. My mother broke her hip. My father broke his hip. My aunt (my mother’s sister) broke her hip, and my grandmother broke her hip, twice. I started getting bone density exams in my mid-forties, and bone loss started showing up soon thereafter.
Science has gone through rather recent developments while discovering what can be done about bone loss and how to prevent it. When I started getting the bone density exams, around ten years ago, there was Fosomax and drugs like that. They are supposed to prevent bone loss and even reverse it, but you have to be careful. Taken incorrectly these drugs can cause severe esophageal problems. I’ve been taking some sort of bone loss medication for three or four years now. It helps, but only to a point. My bone loss has definitely slowed down, and even stopped in some areas of my body, but it has not reversed.
Several years ago, doctors started suggesting that I take medications for hypothyroidism, or low thyroid production. The dosage I take has gradually risen, as my thyroid has gotten more sluggish, and doctors have gotten more aggressive in the use of this medication. The thing I didn’t understand until the doc I went to in Hong Kong took the time to explain it to me is that a sluggish thyroid affects bone density. Once I understood that I got more enthusiastic about taking this medication. I’ve recently changed to a different type of thyroid med called Amour, that is supposed to be more efficient. We shall see.
The other thing doctors are practically gaga about nowadays is vitamin D. In Hong Kong the cloudy skies and pollution ensured that much of the population was vitamin D deficient. Wearing sunscreen may help protect us against skin cancer, but it also filters out the vitamin D. There is an increasing body of evidence that vitamin D deficiency affects bones in more ways than just preventing rickets in children. So my doctors started me on higher and higher doses of this vitamin. My latest doc actually wants me to go off of the bone-density meds and try very high doses of vitamin D instead. I’m willing to do this for the 6-9 months until my next bone density test. If it doesn’t work I’ll go back on the bone density meds.
I feel kind of like the science is evolving as I age! I’m trying a bio-identical hormone cream for the hot flashes. I’m still having the flashes, but it’s only been a couple of weeks so I need to be patient. I think the cream might be giving me strange dreams though! I’m very sensitive to male and female hormones and notice changes fairly readily from their application, so I’m cautious. There’s no point in solving one problem only to create another!
Overall I am very lucky health-wise. In spite of some of the serious problems some of my relatives have experienced I’m in really good shape for a lady in her mid-to-late fifties. I’m fit, happy, on an even keel, and the potential health problems I do have are being treated (and I have the insurance to treat them).
So all-in-all I’m not complaining. I’d like the hot flashes to go away, but they won’t kill me, at least in the short run. In the long run…well pick your poison, you know? :)
I have had a great deal of hesitation about fighting the symptoms of menopause with drugs. After all, it’s a natural, normal part of living and getting older. And I don’t suffer that badly. My main complaint is hot flashes. I actually wouldn’t be bothering to write this post at all if it wasn’t for the strange experience of having a hot flash.
I know these are different for everyone, but here is what happens to me. I start to get a sensation of heat. It rises from somewhere inside me. It’s very different from going “whew it’s hot in here”. Instead I’m going, “it’s hot in ME”! As the sensation develops I have a variety of reactions. Sometimes if I’m not busy doing something else, I stop and observe the sensation. There is a bit of a “rush” involved which is probably the heated feeling moving through my body. Sometimes I break out in a sweat, but not always. Occasionally I have a sudden attack of anxiety along with the hot flash. I leap out of bed, or once, ran out of the room I was in until I gathered my senses and reminded myself that the sensation was internal and I couldn’t escape it by moving somewhere else.
I think I would simply live with this except for the effect it has on my sleep patterns. As we get older its normal for our sleep to get interrupted more than it used to. I’m a very light sleeper to begin with but hot flashes have been waking me up 2-4 times a night. The strange thing is, I will be woken by a hot flash, but once it passes I go right back to sleep. I also don’t usually feel tired during the day, so I must be getting enough rest. But it still can’t be healthy to have my sleep interrupted so consistently.
The other thing, and it’s a big thing, that concerns me about menopause is osteoporosis. To say it runs in my family is an understatement. My mother broke her hip. My father broke his hip. My aunt (my mother’s sister) broke her hip, and my grandmother broke her hip, twice. I started getting bone density exams in my mid-forties, and bone loss started showing up soon thereafter.
Science has gone through rather recent developments while discovering what can be done about bone loss and how to prevent it. When I started getting the bone density exams, around ten years ago, there was Fosomax and drugs like that. They are supposed to prevent bone loss and even reverse it, but you have to be careful. Taken incorrectly these drugs can cause severe esophageal problems. I’ve been taking some sort of bone loss medication for three or four years now. It helps, but only to a point. My bone loss has definitely slowed down, and even stopped in some areas of my body, but it has not reversed.
Several years ago, doctors started suggesting that I take medications for hypothyroidism, or low thyroid production. The dosage I take has gradually risen, as my thyroid has gotten more sluggish, and doctors have gotten more aggressive in the use of this medication. The thing I didn’t understand until the doc I went to in Hong Kong took the time to explain it to me is that a sluggish thyroid affects bone density. Once I understood that I got more enthusiastic about taking this medication. I’ve recently changed to a different type of thyroid med called Amour, that is supposed to be more efficient. We shall see.
The other thing doctors are practically gaga about nowadays is vitamin D. In Hong Kong the cloudy skies and pollution ensured that much of the population was vitamin D deficient. Wearing sunscreen may help protect us against skin cancer, but it also filters out the vitamin D. There is an increasing body of evidence that vitamin D deficiency affects bones in more ways than just preventing rickets in children. So my doctors started me on higher and higher doses of this vitamin. My latest doc actually wants me to go off of the bone-density meds and try very high doses of vitamin D instead. I’m willing to do this for the 6-9 months until my next bone density test. If it doesn’t work I’ll go back on the bone density meds.
I feel kind of like the science is evolving as I age! I’m trying a bio-identical hormone cream for the hot flashes. I’m still having the flashes, but it’s only been a couple of weeks so I need to be patient. I think the cream might be giving me strange dreams though! I’m very sensitive to male and female hormones and notice changes fairly readily from their application, so I’m cautious. There’s no point in solving one problem only to create another!
Overall I am very lucky health-wise. In spite of some of the serious problems some of my relatives have experienced I’m in really good shape for a lady in her mid-to-late fifties. I’m fit, happy, on an even keel, and the potential health problems I do have are being treated (and I have the insurance to treat them).
So all-in-all I’m not complaining. I’d like the hot flashes to go away, but they won’t kill me, at least in the short run. In the long run…well pick your poison, you know? :)
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