|
I saw my young dentist on Tuesday. He was sporting a big, red bump and a long vertical scar on his forehead. He earned his injuries in a cycling accident. “I’m just glad I didn’t damage my teeth. I see a lot of that in here,” he said. Short-term ribbing aside, my dentist will carry on and the cycling accident will be forgotten. There is so much more to him than a rare fall from a bike. If he turns up in a doctor’s office for another reason, no one will ask him: “Any falls recently?” If I walked into a provider’s office with a lump like that on my forehead, I wouldn’t be worried about my teeth; I would be worried about my freedom. Adult Protective Services would be called. I would be one stitch away from the nursing home. My argument that suffering a fall while switching clothes from the washer to the dryer was a mere cycling accident would not save me. And that fall would haunt me at every future encounter with a medical professional. For my young dentist, his fall is seen as an aberration, for me and my peers it is seen as state’s evidence that we are incompetent and becomes a stain on our permanent record cards. Growing older is like driving around with the car’s check engine light illuminated. What now? Medical appointments are the new second career. And health care professionals don’t really see older folks. Now that the number of procedures performed has toppled patient well-being as a performance indicator for doctors, they look at us and see dollar signs. And don’t get me started on the pharmaceutical companies. I was in high school when the War on Drugs began. It went about as well as the Vietnam War. I admit it; my aging body appears to be in shambles. I don’t really want to look at it any more than my doctor does, and I am equally good at avoiding doing so. No matter how many miles I walk or how many leg lifts I do, time and genetics continue to conspire against me. Even if I get to Fort Knox before Donald Trump, I don’t think there are enough gold bars in there to cover all of the procedures I would need to lift every part of me that has fallen. Even my eyelids are sagging. There isn’t a stylist out there who could put together a flattering outfit for these proportions. My best look might be a body bag. But it’s what’s inside that counts right? I’d like to say that my good heart and clear conscience make up for the raggedy exterior, but that’s not the what’s inside I’m talking about here. No siree. You should see my labs! Popeye said, “I yam what I yam.” Well, so yam I. I should know; I’ve eaten enough of them. When Euell Gibbons asked, “Ever eat a pinecone?” I didn’t laugh, I took notes. Chipping teeth aside, I do think Grape Nuts are effective. I am constantly studying the literature on healthy aging and trading notes with friends. The homework never ends. I can list ten ways to lower cholesterol faster than I can shout out the Ten Commandments. I anticipate my lab results like the impending birth of a child. When any of my lab test results come back within the normal range, I want to send out announcements or put up a yard sign: An honor roll student lives here. And if I make it out of a doctor’s appointment without a prescription or a referral, I rush straight to the nearest convenience store to buy a lottery ticket. I try to imagine a new kind of beauty pageant for seniors, one in which it’s what’s inside that counts. Instead of the MC reading the contestants’ heights, weights, and body measurements, they read our best lab results out loud and everyone cheers as we walk the runway in comfortable shoes and sweatpants. Instead of a Miss Congeniality Award, there would be a special honor for the lowest A1c. Even better for seniors, this is a pageant that could take place remotely. Just email your numbers. No risk of falling on the runway.
0 Comments
 I texted a friend, “Well, it’s official. I’m old. I’ve had ‘the fall.’” It happened on a Saturday morning in front of a men’s clothing store. It was an unseasonably warm Saturday in winter. The sidewalk was illuminated by bright sunshine. I didn’t think to look for ice, but as I took a few steps out of the door, my feet went straight out in front of me. Thankfully, I landed on my well-cushioned bottom and somehow managed to strain my upper body forward in a modified crunch/sit-up protecting the back of my head from crashing to the pavement. The full force of the fall was absorbed by my left hand and arm, my dominant side. I sat on the sidewalk for a moment. A woman was getting out of her car and saw me fall. She kindly offered to help me up. I sat on the cold, wet sidewalk for a moment to collect myself, and then I walked on my knees to the wall and held on as I lifted myself to standing. Badly shaken, I went back inside the store to report the fall and to encourage assistance for an older gentleman using a cane who had just entered the store. The shopkeeper was kind and concerned. She wanted to call the emergency squad which I did not feel was necessary. She took my contact information and offered me an ice pack for my scraped and reddened hand. I sat for a few minutes on a stool next to the cash register, and then I drove myself home. My son came by and I described the fall to him. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if my neck was hurting by morning. Sure enough, the front of my neck was stiff and sore by the time I went to bed, but I was grateful that my neck had the strength to hold my head and protect it during the fall. Over lunch a few days later, I told a friend and fellow social worker about the incident. I expressed much surprise by how badly shaken I felt for the next couple of days following the fall. “Trauma,” she said. “Falls are a kind of trauma.” Trauma. Hmmm. As a social worker and therapist I have come to know people who have survived the atrocities of war, survived the Bataan death march, the Holocaust and the tyranny of Stalin. I’ve met children disfigured by a lifetime of abuse. Myself, I have survived a life-threatening medical emergency that literally took me to the other side. I use the word “trauma” carefully. And yet, I did feel traumatized by this relatively minor event. It happened so quickly, I didn’t see it coming nor did I see myself falling, but the event rattled all of my senses. More, it left me with a changed view of myself. The gal who always feels youthful and strong on the inside seemed to disappear in the nanosecond that it took for my bottom to hit the sidewalk. I was changed. A friend tries to reassure me that anyone at any age could have slipped and fallen that day. After all, it was icy. True, but it means something different to a person of a certain age. Perhaps youth and older age are not separated by decades. The divide may be as narrow as one thin icy line on the sidewalk. |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
August 2026
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed