Hasn’t this early spring been one of the loveliest? Our magnolia tree and the ones throughout Irvington were absolutely loaded with blossoms. The plum and pear trees that Bill planted are in full, sweet-smelling bloom. Eek! They’re predicting a freeze. That’s Indiana for you.
It’s hard to think serious thoughts on such a gorgeous day, but I’ve travelled a long way past springtime. Watching the experiences of others tells me that I need to take inventory and attempt to avoid or at least ameliorate some of the downside of the aging process. Actually, all of us should constantly take stock and, as Henry David Thoreau put it, live consciously and try to suck up all the marrow of existence.
Most people — myself included — are too soon old, too late smart. Oh, we hear good advice about exercise, cutting down on sugar and salt, and controlling our weight, but do most of us follow it? You know the answer. Financial experts advise having several months of savings in case of job loss and planning for the elder years. They urge people to avoid car, house and credit card payments that they can’t afford.
People say, “Why should we deprive ourselves of things we can enjoy now?” They kick the can into the future, and, alas, are unprepared when the future creeps up on them and becomes their present. Many of us live like the grasshoppers of summer, storing up nothing for the inevitable winter. It’s a question of balance. I don’t want to live as if I have one foot in the grave, but I hope not to become impoverished and lose control over my existence.
One of our acquaintances lives in a modern assisted living facility. She’s among the lucky ones because she and her late husband were thrifty people who had good jobs and a good financial plan. It’s a clean place with good medical and nursing care, therapy, activities and a pleasant staff. She has a rather institutional bedroom with a private bath. It costs her about $50,000 a year with an additional $400 a month for medicine even though she has drug insurance. Is she happy there? Indeed, she is not.
Following Bill’s bypass surgery two years ago, he thought that it would be good to go to a facility for two or three weeks. Vicki and I had only a day to choose a place. “Do you have private rooms?” “No, we have double rooms so that people have buddies.” We couldn’t picture Buddy Bill! The next place was marginally clean. We didn’t visit one because a friend’s husband received such bad care that she threatened to sue them or a place that another friend hated.
We chose a facility with a private, albeit spartan, room with a half bath on a separate hallway that wasn’t lined with the extremely aged dozing in their wheelchairs as was the case with the others. The shower was down the hall. The place was old, but clean, with adequate nursing, pleasant employees, and mediocre food at a cost of $7,000 a month that Medicare covered for his short stay. We thought that he would have a lot of exercise therapy. The place’s physician said, “The therapy program here is magnificent!” Ha! His therapy mostly consisted of brief walks with Vicki.
When I told an acquaintance who is a nurse and the owner of an agency about our search he said, “Those places are all “excrement” holes.” Many people exist for years in “excrement” holes. It scares the Hell out of me!
I want to live rather than merely to exist. Following last week’s column, a couple of people asked, “Are you selling your house?” No! As long as humanly possible we’ll stay here in our one-story house. More to come. wclarke@comcast.net