When You Know As Many Old People as I Do You Don't Want to Become One of Them

Immortality: a fate worse than death.
Edgar Shoaff

I've noticed that the people of my parents' generation are living longer and longer. I wonder what implications this has for the next generation of old people. The problem is that some people don't age well. Some of it is bad genes.  Some of it is lifestyle.  Drink a quart of soda a day and it will do something drastic to you sometime in the future.

Two generations ago, people barely lived into their sixties. According to the Social Security (or the way things are going Social Insecurity) Administration, a man of 65 can expect to live to age 84; a woman to 86 1/2. My mother is 85 and 3/4.  A close friend of mine just lost her mother at the age of 88 years and 2 months. The ten or so years prior to her death, her quality of life was terrible. She was in a nursing home for a year and a half before she passed, when her care at home became too overwhelming for her only daughter. Arthritis stole her mobility. macular degeneration robbed her of her sight; Alzheimer's wiped away her memory, and congestive heart failure was what finally killed her.

Unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with congestive heart failure. My dad succumbed to it at age 80, and my cat Fatso also died of this terrible disease. The worst thing about it is that it takes away your mobility and as the heart gets weaker, the ability to breathe. It's not a pretty way to go.

I also work in a field where death is a constant reminder.  I work for a financial planner who has many elderly clients and the diseases listed below are usually the reason for their demise.

Here are the top six killers of elderly people in the United States:

1. Heart disease: no surprise here, unfortunately there is a genetic component for this in my family.

2.  Cancer (when caught early survival rates are high; a friend of mine is a breast cancer survivor for 2 1/2 years)

3. COPD, also known as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Smokers usually succumb to this one, but my mom is a lifelong non-smoker and she has it.  She is prone to asthma and bronchitis, so I'm surprised she's been around so long.

Here is a commercial for Symbicort.  It is often shown during The Drug Hour a.k.a. Evening News on TV.  The drug companies are making big bucks from peoples' misery. The stockholders are the ones who benefit.



4.  Stroke: (one of my husband's colleagues survived a mini-stroke). The worst thing about stroke is not when it kills you but when it leaves you permanently disabled and you need round-the-clock care at a nursing home.

5. Alzheimers: my paternal grandmother had this one: it is a long, slow death. It is even worse for the caretakers because Alzheimer's patients don't let you sleep, they have to be watched 24-7, and in the late stages they are bedridden.

6.  Diabetes: the family curse. I can name at least half a dozen relatives, including my maternal grandmother, who succumbed to diabetic complications. The husband of a friend of mine had to have his leg amputated due to gangrene. Diabetes is a disease that requires discipline, frequent testing of blood sugar, deprivation (I want that chocolate brownie!) and sometimes medication. I know a lady who controls it with diet and exercise. As far as I know I'm in pretty good shape, but one of these nasties is gonna kill me eventually.

I don't want to get old, If I do I want to go quickly and painlessly.  I've seen elderly people in nursing homes who are but a shadow of their former selves.  They depend on aides and nurses to care for them and I don't want to be dependent on anyone, not even my offspring.

Finally, here is a poem I wrote about five years ago.  It was published in The Art of Being Human Volume 11.  I don't have a real fast food addiction except for fried chicken and chicken wings.  The skin is the best part.  It is also high in artery-clogging cholesterol, but I eat it anyway.

Fast food addiction
fried chicken is my poison
death by heart attack.

Katley Demetria Brown 2012

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