I'm Officially Old

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When I went in for my annual physical at my doctor’s office I was treated to a battery of questions I’d never heard before.

Can you get out of bed by yourself?

What day is today?

Can you convey yourself from place to place?

Can you make dinner yourself?

Remember these words: apple, table, penny

(Me: Man, woman, camera…
Practitioner: Stop that)

Do you feel physically threatened at home?

Do you feel sexually threatened at home?

Do you have handholds in your bathroom?

Do you have handrails on your stairs?

Do you have trouble digesting?

Do you have unexplained pains?

Do you get depressed?

What were the three words we told you?

{Me: apple, table, penny
Practitioner: Good! You got all three! Everybody forgets the penny.)

This is just too depressing, but I won’t give them the satisfaction of saying that.

I’d hate to meet whoever got a perfect score on this test.

Dammit, I bicycle every day and I feel ready for the next casting call for Stranger Things.

2

I got told that my prostate was “age appropriate”.

Thanks, that’s a relief, I guess.

3

Must be a lot of dementia diagnoses in that practice. :upside_down_face:

If you deliberately recite the wrong words, is that reverse gaslighting?

4

I think what they’re doing is establishing a baseline for many of these things with their healthy age 60+ patients. “OK, this forgetting the three magic words is recent dementia, because he did that just fine a year ago…” sort of thing.

5

I last went for my annual physical exam six or seven years ago. I’m officially old too.

6

Depending upon your age, maybe not! I know a couple guys who have had it removed and miss it a lot.

Myself, I just turned 62 so I consider myself “officially" old now as well. Just about everyone keeps asking me about when I am going to apply for Social Security and when will I stop work. It’s bad enough that they talk about their medical problems (or lack of), now they want to comment on mine all the time.

People at work think that I am 58, and I want them to keep thinking that for as long as possible. On my birthday I told them that I was celebrating 85 years of dyslexia, the smarter ones (without dementia) got the joke.

7

So, if I laugh at Si_Amigo’s jokes, I don’t have Alzheimer’s yet? Great!

I’ve passed the age that my dad had Alzheimer’s… (or rather, when we started noticing it!), but I’m always watching out for symptoms. When I remembered my four words*, I was silently hoisting a gold medal over my head (imagining that I was at the Healthy Brain Olympics).

.

*Ankylosaurus, Doohickey, Aubergine, Rapscallion.

8

Yeah, my doctor gives me a Mental Wellness Check every year. Last year she asked me, among other things, to name as many animals as I could in a minute.

What she doesn’t know is that, in the mornings, to help me wake up, I go through the alphabet naming things (often animals, often multiples for each letter.) So I began to rattle 'em off in more-or-less alphabetical order.

After 20 seconds she said I could stop. She appeared stunned.

Then she said she was going to tell me a story, and ask me some questions about it afterward. She started, and it was the same story she asked me the year before. I stopped her, and answered the questions before she could ask them.

My Mental Wellness is fine for now.

9

For real?

That beats “apple table penny” any day.

10

These days, many physicians are required by their employers to do a lot of screening stuff like that, on target populations. Failure to do so (even when they know it’s not necessary) can result in salary reductions.

I’m a whiz at serial 7s on these types of tests.

11

Just about every visit to one of my doctors (yes, I now have a stable of them, which I guess is another sign I’m getting old) I get asked about whether I have trouble getting around my house, doing daily chores, whether I feel safe at home (well, except that I think my cat it trying to kill me), and similar questions.

During one of my recent hospitalizations I was visited by two varieties of physical therapists. One went through a whole battery of questions about my lifestyle, do I need assistance with household chores, can I do my own grocery shopping and prepare my own meals. The other had me demonstrate how well I can get out of bed and walk around without assistance, and also asked if I needed handholds in my bathroom or elsewhere in my house. She stopped short of having me show whether I could get up if I fell down.

12

Every gynecologist I’ve seen since the early 2000’s has asked me if I feel safe at home or if I’m subject to sexual violence. I guess men get to join the party in their 60’s!

We’re getting started on a bathroom renovation, and when we meet with the contractor yesterday, I realized that all of my 30-year-old daughter’s questions were about design elements like fixtures, lighting, and vanity style, and all of mine were about safety features. I’m more interested in the placement of grab bars than the style of faucets, so I’d say I’m old.

13

They’ve been asking me similar questions since I’m about 12yo.
When they do I get anxiety and can’t speak. A new doctor is always alarmed if some has to interpret or I have to get my pencil and paper out.

Daddy always said I was born old.

14

They alway ask me if I am in pain and I always answer yes. Then they they ask me for how long have I had this pain. Since I fell out of the cradle doc.

Its my way of testing them back.

15

In addition to my bulging discs/pinched nerves, I got confirmation of bursitis and a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder, matching the left. Saw the doctor for something else last week and was told my blood pressure is too high. She also needs me to cut down on my cholesterol. Feeling like there’s a reckonin’ a’comin’ with my heath.

16

There is a short, very cute young woman who timidly taps on the office door and asks if we have any trash.
I have an urge to teach her to drive and pay her college tuition.

17

Nurse: Any difficulty with vision or hearing?
Me: What? Who said that?
Nurse : Haha, I’ve never heard that one before :roll_eyes:

18

Get a bunch of old folks together and pretty soon they’re bitchin’ about their health

19

Back when we were in our 30s, I was at dinner with a bunch of friends at a Chinese restaurant. There were some old people at the table next to us and they spent their entire meal talking about their medical problems. After they left, I made my friends swear that we would never, ever be like that. It made a huge impression on me and to this day I still bring up that story if the litany of ailments gets to be too much. I don’t mind talking about these things but not to the exclusion of anything else.

20

Even as a youngster, when I would witness this I referred to it as their “parts inventory”.