A Perspective on Old Age from an Old Person: Being Old

A Perspective on Old Age from an Old Person: Being Old

Russell R. Burton, an old person

To begin, the word OLD in the title finds very few supporters including some of my friends.  So, I pulled out my trusty Thesaurus and looked for other words that would be more appealing.  Well, after seeing such words as ‘aged’, ‘patriarchal’, ‘past one’s prime’, ‘infirm’, ‘enfeebled’, ‘decrepit’, ‘exhausted’, ‘impaired’, ‘broken-down’, ‘wasted’, ‘senile’, ‘having one foot in the grave’, and ‘gone to seed’, I decided to stay with ‘old’. 

I hope you noticed that I wrote my trusty Thesaurus correctly implying that I did not click on the e-version.  One of those things must lurk somewhere in the bowels of my computer just waiting to assist me even if I don’t want it. Of course I didn’t use it because I don’t know how and I couldn’t care less. And, I will not ask my eight-year old granddaughter for she will pipe up and say, “Here granddad let me show you”. How times have changed for just a few years ago it used to be the ‘old’ person doing the teaching.

My printed Thesaurus lies on a stand next to me in my computer room and it is used often.  Oh yes, I do know how to use the word processing capabilities of a computer but not any of those other e-wonders that comes free of charge with ‘Microsoft Office’.  

About ten years ago when I was seventy years of age, I began a diary on growing old expecting to see or feel changes in me signally that I was growing old.  I soon gave up the idea because each day was like the last with no changes that I could feel or see.  I continued to be as physically active as I was when I was in my thirties and forties.  So, I discarded my plan to write about this old age stuff for it was not happening to me – just everyone but me - you know, old folks.

However, in my late seventies, I began to notice a modest change in me that I now realize signaled my approaching old age – a feeling that I conveniently or subconsciously ignored.  For instance, at seventy eight I developed a modest ‘drop foot’.  The following year I had difficulty walking four miles at a modest pace that I had accomplished eagerly with a chum for many years.

And, then came eighty years of age!  I woke up one morning and realized that I didn’t feel seventy anymore so I must be what is called old!  Now, I want to be clear here that I do not plan to die today for I have visions of living and enjoying my life for several more years. So, I plan to live my life pretty much like I have in the past but perhaps at a bit slower pace.  But, I do feel different!  I find that physical activities that were performed routinely and without thought suddenly were not undertaken without some thought.  Routine is not the word I use now.  This all happened so suddenly and TO ME!

Old age enjoys several maladies, too many to cover in this short essay, but I will discuss a few of the major ones.  Of course high on the list is the fear factor.  I am finding myself concerned – no frightened – that I will fall.  And, I have taken a couple of serious tumbles recently.  Fortunately, I was not hurt because of them.  But, why should I be frightened of a fall?  When I was a young boy I fell several times a day and I didn’t get scared about them.  I just picked myself up and ran off likely to fall again the same day.  And, those were serious falls that hurt sometimes with arm scrapes and bruises.  So my fears are just part of an old mind.

I use to jump into my shower, now I slowly walk in and make sure that I can touch a wall, you know for balance. What’s coming over me?  Of course, OLD AGE!

Oh boy, I just read on the Yahoo News that ‘Old People Do Smell, But Not That Badly’.  Now here is a bad news, bad news story. Old people smell differently, you know like old people, but not as bad as what? The story does go on to explain that old age smells are not like body odors from not bathing.  These types of young body odors are worse than normal old body smells.  I can barely tolerate all of this good news.

I disagree substantially with this study though, for it groups old people as all the same and that is not correct for we are individuals and I am sure with individual smells.  I will write more on ridiculousness of grouping people in another essay.

Interestingly, as I grow older, it seems that surgeons love to cut on me.  I had my prostate removed a few years ago because of cancer and recently I had some vascular surgery on my right leg so I can walk my four miles again.

A few days before my scheduled surgery, my very young (much too young to be a physician) pretty woman anesthesiologist reviewed the tests she had required of me before they put me to sleep.  I cringed when I heard those words for I am a veterinarian and being put to sleep can have some serious side-effects.

When she entered the room in the hospital where I was waiting ‘patiently’, she exclaimed, “You are eighty years old?”  I stared at her in shock, did I look older?  My physician continued, “You don’t look a day older than sixty!”   Hey I thought I might enjoy my surgery.  She looked into my mouth opened wide at her request and loudly voiced another complement, “Wow, you have all of your original teeth!”  Then more kudos from her when she learned that I took only five medicine pills each day.  ‘Most people your age take twenty or thirty’, she informed me to my delight.

Well that made my day and almost erased the anxiety that was growing inside of me as I neared my day of reckoning with the surgeon. I did recover from the cutting and got to go home from the hospital a couple of days ahead of schedule.  And, thank God for a hospital is no place for an old person.

So, now I am home with no pain and little swelling.  Of course, complete recovery from four hours of surgery will take many more days than when I was young but the key word here is ‘recovery’ – hey I’m still alive and I plan to enjoy my walks again.  With a smile my surgeon noted, “Your leg circulation is back to about 95% of ‘what it used to be”.  Of course referring to when I was not so old.

So, I guess I am doing okay with being old.  Certainly, there are those people my age who are less fortunate than I in many ways so I should not complain but be thankful that I am experiencing my life as well as I am.

Certainly, I can’t forget that half of the people born in 1932 are dead.  Yes, half are dead. I remember when I was a young kid one of my major goals in life was to live to see the turn of the century.  Wow, to be able to write 2000 as the date!  And why not for when I was born life expectancy was in the high sixties.  Now, it is in the high seventies for men and eighties for woman.

As I reflect on my life in the future I suddenly realize that it took eighty years to get here and now I have at the most twenty years left to live.  Somehow that does not seem fair, but then I realized that this train of life cannot be stopped, in fact it seems to be speeding up as it heads for that inevitable finish line.

Well here I am eighty years old and still alive!  Like they say, I’m living on borrowed time but who am I borrowing it from? Of course, I’m using the years of life that my dead 1932 classmates failed to use – thank you. But, what is amazing is that my life expectancy just keeps getting longer everyday that I stay alive. Now according to some calculations, I’m expected to live for another eight years!  Wow, they keep moving the finish line further out as I grow older.  How cool can that be?  At this rate, I will never die! Okay, I guess it doesn’t work that way, but one can hope.

I am reading ‘Presidents’ Club’ by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy.  The authors early in the book note that this club is exclusive for one must be a live former President of the United States to be a member.  Hey, no matter how rich you are you cannot join!  Well, it’s about time that those rich people got put in their place.

But, this got me thinking about the club I have just joined and it too cannot be bought into.  It is the Old Age Club and like I just explained half of my birth-mates were not allowed to join.

So, as I walk with less spring in my step and when I see middle-age people looking at my slower gate I smile and call out “Take my advice, don’t ever grow old.” They smile back nodding their head at my good advice. They fail to understand that not to grow old one must die. It serves them right, those young punks for staring at me.

Like Art Linkletter once said, ‘Growing old is not for sissies’.  I wish to correct his well worn statement, “Being old is not for sissies, but the alternative is much worse.”  How lucky can I be!!!