I am almost 78 years old, and I have started to think about the last chapter of my life. I have been blessed with good health and the privilege of being able to be very active…until December of last year. I played in a very competitive over 35 years old basketball and softball league until I had to have my right hip replaced in 2015. My response was to prepare for the surgery by dealing with whatever discomfort by riding my bicycle, walking, doing landscaping and maintaining gardens at my primary residence and at our house at the beach. I was also coaching a soccer team and a basketball team at the middle school where I was a guidance counselor. I lost 25 pounds before my surgery, and I was in great shape for a man of 67.
I had the surgery and wanted to get started on my rehabilitation as soon as possible and my physical therapist and my doctor asked me to follow their plan for rehabilitation rather than doing as much as I wanted to do. The operation and the rehabilitation were a great success and in my last meeting with my surgeon, I wanted to know if I could resume playing in the two leagues I had been playing in, and he asked me this question: “how hard do you play”? I told him that I always played hard to win. He told me I could resume playing in both leagues, but he strongly cautioned me that although the hip surgery was a success and strong, playing for fun and with more caution would be a much better decision.
I talked to my wife and my two sons, and they strongly agreed with my surgeon. They reminded me of all the things that I do and how another injury could cause me to be unable to enjoy those activities. They also told me about all the other things that I shouldn’t do. Work on remodeling projects that involve ladders, second floor work, roofing etc. Rather than doing those jobs myself I should pay someone else to do those jobs. They stressed how that would free up more time for going to the beach, playing golf, gardening, travel etc. I had to agree that they were right.
I worked another three years as a coach and as a guidance counselor and then retired at age 70. I have been retired for seven very active years, and retirement is an enjoyable blessing. However, my life took a rather quick detour, and I am now looking at the next chapter of my life. This past December my advice to others about having your family pay attention to what is happening with their parents came back to me as another blessing.
In one of my last posts concerning how unprepared my wife and I were to deal with our aging parents; my suggestion came full circle. “My strongest suggestion is to make a thorough assessment of what is going on in your parents’ life rather than just accepting what you are being told. Honestly, don’t most of us want to believe that we can take care of ourselves, and we don’t want to admit that we can’t take care of ourselves? And for those of us that are getting older, shouldn’t we reach out to our children and encourage them to pay attention to what is happening in their parents’ lives so they can give an honest appraisal of what they see and act, when necessary?
My youngest son was looking at me and watching how I was acting and he became very concerned that what he saw was someone much different than the father that he knew. He discussed this with my wife, his mother, who agreed and they took me to the emergency room after discussing what they were seeing with my primary care physician. I didn’t think that there was a real problem, but I didn’t resist.
The emergency room staff did a complete examination including a CAT scan and an MRI, and I was placed in an ambulance and sent to another hospital. I was hooked up to a screen that was displaying my vitals, and I noticed that it said AFib. I didn’t know what that was, but if you are in a small hospital and they are sending you to a larger major hospital, there must be something very wrong.
I did find out what AFib was, but the major reason that I was being sent to this other hospital was because I had a tumor in my head and it was presumed that this was the reason that my behaviors were of such concern to my family. Two days later I had an eight-hour operation to remove the tumor and placed in the intensive care unit. The operation was successful; I didn’t have a lot of pain and just wanted to go home. It is a very good thing to have a professional team, and your family realize that what you want is not even close to what needed to happen. I kept asking about when I could go home and after 6 days, I was released. Two days later my son noticed something that concerned him, called the hospital and he was driving me back to the hospital. I had developed an infection and was back in the hospital for another 4 days. My other son flew up to Philadelphia and he, my youngest son and my wife came to the hospital to check on me, talked to the medical staff and let me know what was recommended and what was going to happen.
When I was released before Christmas, I was so excited to go home and so surprised that both my sons, my daughter-in-law and my grandson were going to be at my house for Christmas. I felt so blessed that my family had been paying attention to what was happening with me and took charge of this situation. Well, I wasn’t exactly excited that they were all paying so much attention to what I was doing, how I felt and asking if I should be doing this or that. I started thinking of the next chapter in my life and realized how fortunate I was that my family was involved in my life and realized that there was a lot still ahead of me medically and needed to take my own advice about asking my family to pay attention to what their father and mother were doing and act if something didn’t seem right.
Next time: dealing with your feelings about not being totally in charge.
