THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503180086
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Back about 1979, I interviewed a 90-year-old Virginia Beach woman who was doing radio commercials for Hardee's biscuits. The story was illustrated by a wonderful close-up of the woman's face.
She called me the day after the paper ran the story. ``Hey,'' I thought to myself, ``she loves the photo and wants a copy.'' Wrong. She was furious. ``The picture was awful,'' she snapped. ``It made me look wrinkled.''
Almost any one of us would settle for 90 years old and breathing occasionally. Here she was complaining about 90 and wrinkled. Which helps prove that aging is as much attitude as calendar. Maybe more so. Ask Lori Hasty, the warm and likable lady who serves as gerontology nurse specialist at Chesapeake General Hospital.
Gerontology is the study of aging, and the hospital has just kicked off a four-part series of programs on the subject. The first one, on normal aging, was held Thursday. The next three are for people who are, or might become, caregivers for elderly relatives. For more information, call Hasty at 482-6157.
Meanwhile, if you are geezer-ish, stay cool about stuff like minor memory lapses. It goes with the growing-old franchise, Hasty says. Some of your brain cells are dying and you process information a miniscule fraction of a second slower. That's one of the reasons you might find yourself in a room wondering why you came in there in the first place.
Being 65 myself, I can testify that it can happen. But, 65 or not, I define ``elderly'' as anyone at least 10 years older than I am. ``Aging is very individual,'' Hasty says. ``I have known people who were elderly at 55 and others who were not elderly at 90.''
However, we are talking ``normal'' aging here. Oh, we were? I forgot. Just kidding. And yet almost all of us stumble over minor memory lapses as we hit our 50s, Hasty says. Don't panic, she tells us. Take a bit longer to study where you park your car before you leave it. Write down the five things you want to buy at the grocery store. Have a written schedule of the medicines you take.
And if there's a name or a word you just can't pull off the tip of your tongue, Hasty has a comforting word: relax. ``Don't keep straining to remember,'' she says. ``Do other things. Think about other things. Your subconscious mind is still working on it. Suddenly, it will just pop into your head from nowhere.''
While I like to think my mind is just as sharp as it ever was (no wisecracks, please), I have discovered that my knees sometimes awake about 10 minutes after the rest of me. That's reasonably normal aging, too, Hasty says. Three of the most common chronic diseases of aging are arthritis in varying degrees, high blood pressure and diabetes. But I'm a walking advertisement for sensible treatment of high blood pressure. I take pills, and my pressure readings keep me, my doctor and my insurance company very happy.
Because our old, gray bodies ain't quite what they used to be, Hasty waves a couple of caution flags. Like curb the urge to crank up the lawn mower when it's real hot out there. Your body is more sensitive to heat than it was when you figured 40 was codgerhood. Older people are more sensitive to cold as well, so stay warm when winter blows Eskimo breath again.
(And, younger people, bear in mind that older people who complain that the house is too warm or too cold when you're comfortable aren't just being cranky.)
Hasty's big warning on arthritis is to stay away from the ``miracle'' cures that catch your eye on the front page of the National Trashbin. See your doctor. Though what he does for you won't make tabloid headlines, it's likely to ease your aches.
The deal on normal aging is that you're gonna have some mental and physical glitches that weren't there before. But stay active, Hasty says. Keep your mind churning with a hobby or whatever. Give your body some sensible exercise. Remember what a U.S. senator once said when he hit 92 and someone asked him how it felt. ``Considering the alternative,'' he said, ``it feels pretty good.''
Then there was the old guy wandering along the lake front when he saw a frog. ``Stop,'' the frog said. ``I am a beautiful princess under a spell. If you kiss me, I'll turn back into a beautiful princess and reward you with a romantic idyll on a faraway isle.''
The old guy picks up the frog and starts to put it in his pocket. ``Wait,'' the frog says, ``didn't you hear me?''
``I heard you,'' says the old guy, ``but at my age, I'd rather have a talking frog.''
Friends, I would not rather have a talking frog, and I like to think that keeps me on the sunny side of elderly. by CNB