With the weather being as strange as it is — summer one day, winter the next, spring in bloom, then winter once again — we who are advancing through our senior years have a tougher time dealing with this wacky weather than our younger brethren. Let me tell you the kind of phone calls I get from my many friends.
“Is your body going wacky?” a girlfriend said the other morning. “Do you wake up in the middle of the night, three or four times, and have to run to the easement room because your bladder can’t stand it another minute?”
Another barely said hello before she lamented, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I went to the doctor but he couldn’t find a thing wrong. He wasn’t looking in the right places! How can you go to sleep at night feeling fine and the next morning you have this huge lump on your behind? It must be cancer! What am I going to do?”
And still another: “I hurt all over. My knees are just killing me. I can’t stand the thought of having a knee replacement, but it’s so difficult for me to get on my horse these days.”
And this happened just the other day to a friend who is a fine author: “How are you, my friend?”
“Don’t ask. I went to the doctor yesterday and he tells me I’m borderline diabetic. Can I help it if I like ice cream? How could I be diabetic? I only weigh 140 pounds and I’m 4’11”. Do you think I’m fat? And my poor Henry, he woke up yesterday morning and two of his big toes were swollen. The doctor says he has gout.”
“But how’s your new book coming along?
“Oh, thanks for asking,” she says. ‘It’s the only thing that keeps me going. Except I think I’m going to have a heart attack!”
“A heart attack!” I say. “Then what about the book?”
“Oh forget that, I’m too worried about my diabetes.”
In speaking to another person before I could ask how he was he blurts out, “I think I’m going blind. I had cataracts removed and I still can’t see a thing. What’s going on with me?”
What’s going on, my friends, is that we’re advancing in our senior years, and whether you’re a young 65 or mature 85, these are the ailments that begin to happen to all of us — even if we haven’t been sick a day in our lives.
Who am I to say don’t worry about your aches and pains? I have mine. But what I do know is that once you realize you are not alone in your advancement through your senior years, you just say to yourself, “You know what? I’m still here this morning and I’ve survived another night!”
Give yourself a big slap on the back because surviving is the name of the game.
I think Bette Davis said it best: “Getting older ain’t for sissies.”
And for the weather be glad you’re living in the West.
Until next time … keep thinking the good thoughts.
— For more than 30 years, Rona Barrett was a pioneering entertainment reporter, commentator and producer. Since 2000, she has focused her attention and career on the growing crisis of housing and support for our aging population. She is the founder and CEO of the Rona Barrett Foundation, the catalyst behind Santa Ynez Valley’s first affordable senior housing, the Golden Inn & Village. Contact her at info@ronabarrettfoundation.org. The opinions expressed are her own.