Seems Like Old Times . . .

I am thinking a lot about aging lately and about one of Audrey’s grandmother’s most famous sayings, “It’s no fun to get old.” The expression is more fatalistic than Oomi was herself. She was a remarkable woman, who was commuting downtown to a job as an inspector in the garment district into her 80s. But she did have a tendency to make sighing and burping sounds in her later years. I have been making some of those same sounds lately . . . and more. Is that creaking that I hear coming from my bones?

Audrey and Oomi, a long time ago

To add to my sense of foreboding is the recent diagnosis by my ophthalmologist that I need cataract surgery. (Isn’t that something for only old people?) So, next week, I will be going under the knife, or whatever they use for removing and replacing my original, now defective natural lens with a better artificial one. My doctor is very optimistic. He assures me that the surgery will help me feel more comfortable dealing with glaring headlights at night, a problem that until recently I thought plagued only old people. (Uh-oh, there goes that refrain again.) He also claims that 98% of people who undergo the procedure come through with positive results. I am not fully reassured. His comment makes me think of those times as a school kid when I would come home with a 98 on a test, and my father would ask, “What happened to the other two points.” It also doesn’t help that the staff at the facility where the procedure takes place asked me during a preclearance interview if I have an advance directive on file—just in case. Oh my!

As Petula Clark sang, "The lights are much brighter there. . ."

I am not alone in this feeling of declining, it seems. When I told a cousin about the upcoming surgery, he noted that he had a similar procedure a few years ago. He assures me that his condition was probably worse than mine. Of course, when I complained previously about another health issue to the same cousin, he quickly topped it with one of his own.

Then last week when I was in Savannah, I mentioned another potential health concern to my brother, the doctor. It has the word “hernia” connected to it. “That’s nothing,” he said, “I have a …”

 

My brother and cousin are both in their 70s, and they are teaching me an important lesson about getting older. Whenever someone mentions a health issue (and that is quite often the topic when us aging people get together), be prepared to describe your own issue in detail and to explain why yours is more worrisome. Maybe Oomi was wrong. There is fun to be had in growing old. It’s just a perverse sort of fun in which you out-complain everybody else.