I recently attended my high school reunion. Looking back over the decades, I became aware of how different life was then. The differences in my priorities between then and now were quite striking.
Back then our topic of conversation, for example, was, “Hey! I just got my first car!” Today it’s, “I just had my second colonoscopy…” In high school there were always hushed rumors of “who has mono…” Today we’re exchanging stories of who’s recently survived a quadruple.
During graduation week, adults said to us, “Listen to your heart…” Every few months now I have someone younger than me (in a white coat) saying, “Lift up your shirt so I can listen to your heart.”
Back then, their big advice to us was, “Follow your dreams…” The single best piece of advice I’ve gotten in the last ten years was, “Never pass a bathroom.”
I know there’s really nothing high school can do to prepare one for real life. And I am absolutely certain no one can prepare you for a doctor commencing an office visit with, “I’d like to begin today by inserting a camera up your penis.” Oh! That’s just the beginning!
I want to lament that no one tells you what it’s going to be like when you get older. The truth is, they do tell you! It’s just that, in our 20’s and 30’s we don’t care to listen. There’s a very famous quote that has been attributed to Groucho Marx, Mickey Mantle and several others. It matters not who actually said it first. It’s been repeated often and rings true for many of us:
If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.
I went for a walk last night… probably for no more than a mile or so. Today my hip hurts of badly that I’ve been limping from my desk to the coffee pot and back.
A few weeks ago I was at my dermatologist’s office to have a mole-of-questionable-composition excised from my back. He entered the exam room and said, “So… how are we doing?”
I replied, “About six months ago I was walking down a sidewalk and my Achilles tendon began hurting and it could no longer support any weight. I was on a cane for two months. I recently survived my second prostate biopsy. I have a consult with a surgeon next week for what my primary doctor thinks is an umbilical hernia. Every four weeks I get an injection in my left eye. And you’re about to whack a hunk out of my back. How the bleep do you think I’m doing?!”
It’s the Future
Just before the turn of the last millennium I was listening to a radio interview. I don’t remember the program or the name of the person being interviewed, but the guest was claiming that people being born then (the late 1990’s) had a life expectancy of 125 years of age. That sounded reasonable. He went on to say that, due to the advancements in modern medicine, if those of us listening at the time lived until the year 2010, our life expectancy would also become 125. Furthermore, he said, if we lived to the year 2020, our life expectancy would then become 250 years of age. (Of course, we’re now less than two years from that predicted date and I’m not hearing of anything close to a 125 year life expectancy, let alone 250!)
Also, I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but, to me, the government seized control of our healthcare with the Affordable Care Act and they are also are in control of our Social Security payments and Medicare supplements. Now, without bringing politics and the associated emotional responses into this statement, I want to simply state that it appears logical to me that there is no way the government can afford to keep paying for us to live that many years. Social Security is fragile, at best, with less money coming in than is being paid out each month. Can you imagine if they had to keep paying us for another 180 years? It’s not possible.
But none of that actually matters to me! What does ring so resoundingly clear to me was my first reaction when I heard that interview back in 1997. When the guest on that show said if we make it to the year 2020 our life expectancy would be 250 years of age, my initial reaction was, “If I feel as proportionally crappy as I do now, then forget it!” And I was 20 years younger at the time!
