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I'm wondering who here is dealing with health challenges that are kind of surprising post-retirement (not the usual aches and pains, but real challenges), and how is it affecting your plans to do what you want at this stage in life.
Although it won't affect what I do at this stage of life, it was a hell of a psychological trauma. Three days ago I took the first steps toward getting hearing aids. (The steps I took were seeing my primary doc for an audiology referral and going for the audiology testing. The next step, for which I have an appointment, is to see the ENT doc who will write a prescription for the hearing aids).
Although the need has long been there and I have known for a long time it would come to this, and although it should have been done several years ago, it is not easy to openly admit that one's life is over. Now I will be walking around with a non-linguistic sign saying "Here is an ancient old fart". Of course I already had that sign anyway whenever I had to ask someone to repeat, which was all too often. Just one more specific indication that I am a freak of nature in having a genetically sub-standard body in multiple respects.
Now, now, Escort Rider, the hearing aids on the market these days are not even noticeable! And how much nicer to be able to hear your concerts and the conversation around you once you have "upgraded" your hearing!
My husband fought getting hearing aids for years. They helped him so much. Unfortunately, his hearing is getting worse and worse - declining badly the last two years. He is having to get adjustments every six months now -- and at over $6K a pop, having to replace them every 3 years has been the pits. BUT - he is a different person when he has his hearing aids in place.
As for other health issues, NEgirl . . . I just always assumed things would crop up and for some of us, those things can be terminal illnesses, not just the "usual" annoyances and pains from degenerating vertabra, arthritis, vision problems, etc.
I was not prepared for my husband's health decline, as he has never been one to be sick and seemed the picture of health. It has affected every aspect of our lives and neither of us could have foreseen this even 10 years ago. His retirement is not even vaguely similar to what we had assumed our lives would be like at this stage. You just adjust and move on. There is nothing else to be done.
^^^^^^^ You're right as usual, Anifani. My post was an over-reaction, a venting of sorts. It just feels like the pits, but I realize I'll get over it.
I know a few people who have hearing aids and they are still amazing people. I don't even notice the hearing aid unless they tell me. It's no worse than wearing glasses--and neither is an emblem of infirmity or end of life. Too bad the darn things are so expensive though. That's the problem.
I guess I'm "lucky" so far in that I've had poor health since my late 20s. Now the other people are catching up with me.
With hubby, he still does at lot but he never used to get tired. Also, I am more afraid when he does things like get up on a ladder to fix the windows. I think at this point anxiety about what could possibly happen is a limiting emotion. For instance, on a trip we are planning to stay overnight on the way instead of driving straight through like we used to. I am afraid of driving fifteen hours straight like we always did before. Anxiety or maybe awareness, is slowing us down and making us think twice.
Although it won't affect what I do at this stage of life, it was a hell of a psychological trauma. Three days ago I took the first steps toward getting hearing aids. (The steps I took were seeing my primary doc for an audiology referral and going for the audiology testing. The next step, for which I have an appointment, is to see the ENT doc who will write a prescription for the hearing aids).
Although the need has long been there and I have known for a long time it would come to this, and although it should have been done several years ago, it is not easy to openly admit that one's life is over. Now I will be walking around with a non-linguistic sign saying "Here is an ancient old fart". Of course I already had that sign anyway whenever I had to ask someone to repeat, which was all too often. Just one more specific indication that I am a freak of nature in having a genetically sub-standard body in multiple respects.
I was listening this past week to a radio program in which the author of For the Benefit of Those Who See, claims that those who are born deaf or blind generally would not want to have those senses available to them now. From birth they constructed their whole world around their disability and cannot imagine going into another dimension being granted those senses. She said those who lose their sight or hearing later in life have hard time, because they knew what life was like before. Losing hearing cuts off usual communication, so it's wonderful to have the technology to restore it in those who are not completely deaf. At any rate, I would never think of describing someone with a sensory loss as a freak. Look at all the people who wear eyeglasses or contacts, not any different than using a hearing aid.
As for other health issues, NEgirl . . . I just always assumed things would crop up and for some of us, those things can be terminal illnesses, not just the "usual" annoyances and pains from degenerating vertabra, arthritis, vision problems, etc.
I was not prepared for my husband's health decline, as he has never been one to be sick and seemed the picture of health. It has affected every aspect of our lives and neither of us could have foreseen this even 10 years ago. His retirement is not even vaguely similar to what we had assumed our lives would be like at this stage. You just adjust and move on. There is nothing else to be done.
Yes, making adjustments, what so many of us have to do. I thought I'd be traveling at this age, and with my health challenges I'm not. How to construct a good life with what we're dealt is a spiritual challenge, imo. I'm reading a book called Radical Acceptance, and it's opening my vision about how to live.
At any rate, I would never think of describing someone with a sensory loss as a freak. Look at all the people who wear eyeglasses or contacts, not any different than using a hearing aid.
I see your point, but there is a vast difference in the incidence of hearing aids and the normal ages of having them as opposed to glasses and contact lenses. I had to get glasses in the second grade, and while that is younger than average, glasses among school-age children are quite common.
Another "genetically sub-standard body" reporting in.
Retirement began unexpectedly in my fifties, and those previous years had involved eleven years of auto-immune hepatitis (supposedly...It was evidently Hep C, which had not yet been identified) and four (successful) operation for a deteriorating spine and discs. However, now I had to face yet another major spine operation with prosthesis implant before I had the physical level of endurance and mobility to beguile myself into believing: "Now retirement begins." (I had already been disabled six years, but I was refusing to include that into the big R.)
Anifani wrote: " . . . I just always assumed things would crop up and for some of us, those things can be terminal illnesses, not just the "usual" annoyances and pains from degenerating vertabra, arthritis, vision problems, etc." And I did, indeed, make an ostentatious nod toward that wisdom, and then resolutely buried it in a time capsule for someone else's future reference. What followed were five essentially good years.
Time, however, has upchucked that capsule repeatedly now over the last decade....four stents, cataracts, glaucoma, inguinal hernias and a clutch of Etc's. And then three super-duper spine operations in less than five years, each involving opening the entire spine from shoulder blades down to the coccyx with very extensive prostheses.
I emigrated to Europe in 2000, leaving that time capsule in NYC, I thought. Fortunately I crowded a great many things into the first five years....but with much more still on the menu I thought. However, the past five years with their spine surgeries have most likely written finis to that idea. Life has become a matter of managing a day, often simply coping with a day. Much of it on the physical end is like cliff-hanging, the most difficult part of which, thus far, is simply living with this type of existence instead of in the state of future-plans/future-planning, i.e. tomorrow I will not be cliff-hanging and can go to the travel agent to.....
I did spend eight years in the past dealing in various capacities with men and women who were diagnosed with AIDS, or dying of it. Their ages ranged from mid-twenties to a few in their early fifties. None of them that I recall had reached the point in their lives where they had yet contemplated their own mortality, but now for most death was imminent. The eight or nine I was involved with most closely and until their end, fell like dominoes each in his turn. With one exception they fought and fiercely resented only the first couple of devastating opportunistic infections, and then each turned to the business of really living an increasingly uncertain daily life.
During this time I worked a regular job, then spent my "free" time with this volunteer work; and I began meditating at home and at a nearby Buddhist center because I recognized all the signs that I was getting over my head and had very little under my feet. These were not unrelentingly horrific months and years, though such periods came back again and again, of course. Many of these people found (to me) rather unexpected juice in restricted their days. And in some cases I would find myself leaving a thoroughly awful, depressing day at work and being really delighted that I was going off to visit a dying person who was in the midst of enjoying (and sharing) one of these special morsels.
There may be respites of improvement in my personal future, but I feel that in large measure that I have returned to the feeling of this former period. The meditation and interest in Buddhism remained with me, and I see my current life more as the events of being alive rather than projecting toward the fulfilment of a plan in the future. I am fortunate that my personal and natural environment are pleasing to me, and there is a strong streak of bookishness that can still be satisfied... in fact, it has more time. Physical discomfort and pain can be managed fairly well, thus far; but at times must be lived with rather than resisted when managing isn't working. And meditation seems - though not always, by any means - like a gyroscope...but the non-gyroscope sessions are being able to just sit without the metaphor.
Although it won't affect what I do at this stage of life, it was a hell of a psychological trauma. Three days ago I took the first steps toward getting hearing aids. (The steps I took were seeing my primary doc for an audiology referral and going for the audiology testing. The next step, for which I have an appointment, is to see the ENT doc who will write a prescription for the hearing aids).
Although the need has long been there and I have known for a long time it would come to this, and although it should have been done several years ago, it is not easy to openly admit that one's life is over. Now I will be walking around with a non-linguistic sign saying "Here is an ancient old fart". Of course I already had that sign anyway whenever I had to ask someone to repeat, which was all too often. Just one more specific indication that I am a freak of nature in having a genetically sub-standard body in multiple respects.
This is probably not applicable to you, but, a couple of years ago, I was convinced that hearing aids were my only alternative. After moving to the northern part of Florida, I had numerous hearing problems related to stuffed ears (Eustacian tube, etc.) and saw an ENT several times. He tried numerous procedures to deal with the problem. Finally, although I had never had any type of allergies, I decided to see an allergist, since many of the symptoms seemed similar to allergies. -- It turned-out that my highly regarded ENT had only been treating the symptoms, and not the cause (Go figure?). I now hear fine, with no hearing aids!
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