A Wee Bit o' Reality

I received a call from my doctor's office the other day. The receptionist told me that the doctor had requested I come in to his office. I felt this was strange, since I'd only just been to see him a week or two before this call. Everything checked out well, at that time, and he had not sent me for any tests.

I questioned the receptionist as to what the reason might be; she mumbled something about a medical review. Even though I had no idea what the doctor might be reviewing, I allowed myself a small bit of hope...had they perhaps found a new treatment for Fibro I hadn't heard about?

Since I didn't know what the whole thing might entail, I cancelled one appointment, as a result of having visitors that week. I thought, when I phoned and cancelled, that the receptionist ( a different lady, this time) sounded a little knowing. When she realized I didn't know what the appointment was about, she changed the subject to how cool the weather has been.

I didn't think much about The Appointment...it was just another thing to do in an already busy week ahead.

I was still not thinking about what the doctor might want, out of the blue like this, when I settled myself in his office. My mind was on a whole cadre of different tasks I had ahead of me.

After the preliminary greetings, my doctor said...I guess you're wondering why you're here?...


I began to be aware that he was a wee bit nervous. And that made me focus more on where I was and...why was I here?

I could see him thinking...In for a penny, in for a pound...and, with a little grin, he told me that since I was on a couple of medications for Fibromyalgia that could cause either Alzheimer's disease or dementia, that Fibro itself can cause them, he felt, at my age, that I should be tested for those two conditions.


All I heard was Dementia, Alzheimer's and...test. A test!


Good grief. My eyebrows shot up and I stared at him, wide-eyed.


My doctor, who reminds me of one of my granddaughter Brianna's friends...he seems about that young...began to giggle nervously. For him, I suppose, it must have felt as if he was facing his grandmother. I could see and feel his apprehension at what he was planning on doing.


He quickly explained. My doctor felt that aging was one of the things the medical profession was ignoring. He is all about prevention, he said, and since I'd just turned sixty, he felt he had to talk with me to make sure I knew what aging was all about.


Excuse me?

And then he went on to state statistics...on average, women die at the age of 75 and men at the age of 72. Women usually get Alzheimer's and dementia more than men, who statistically die of stroke or heart attack. He hurriedly explained, as I was about to fall off the chair, that these were only statistics...most people live much longer.


I kept thinking...they must have gotten those figures from somewhere!


I began to laugh...my usual reaction to shock. Some perspective arrives, after I let out inappropriate and nervous, forceful energy in laughter. Usually.


My doctor watched me. My laughter took on a nervous edge...was he already thinking I was demented?

I told him I couldn't pass the test...I could hardly remember anything. I told him I had recently joined Lumosity.com and that I was doing brain exercises every day. I told him I took my dog for walks every day, that I worked hard physically in the garden. I told him I could not pass tests...even an eye examination has sweat pouring down my face.


I tried to come up with as much as possible, to prove I was still mentally coherent...anything, just so I wouldn't have to take that test. I caught myself almost begging...


The doctor ignored it all. He told me the test was very simple, it was not about the questions so much as how I dealt with them, my body language, and so on. And that there was much that could now be done to help with dementia/Alzheimer's.


Well. If one knows one is to be tested for losing their minds, then perhaps one can visit the doctor in a better, more prepared frame of mind, one not shut down by shock and stupefaction, at the fact that statistically, at the age of sixty, there may only be fifteen years left to one...

I have never contemplated how much longer I would have to live. I knew about those statistics the doctor rattled off to me. I just had no idea they applied to me. I have forever held the opinion I would live to be 104. But, even if I lived to be eighty or ninety, there are only twenty or thirty years, conceivably, left to live.


Time goes very quickly, these days. The last ten years have gone by in a flash...


He began the test. He asked me the date, where I lived, what country I was in, where his office was. He asked me to remember three things...apple, table, and penny. Except he has a South African accent and penny came out of his mouth as pain.


He looked astonished as I recited apple, table and pain back to him, when he asked what three words I was to remember. He mentioned it again, again I heard pain. He tried to describe the penny; he said it was a coin, a round metal object you pay with. Still! I heard pain. I could not think what pain had to do with a coin.


Addled, I watched him take his wallet out and hold up a penny. Oh! Oh! A penny!


I just knew I would be the first person declared demented because I couldn't understand an accent.


After that, I was asked to write a sentence, fold a paper and place it on the floor, and subtract seven from 100, then seven from 93, etc.


It all caught up with me in the subtraction. After 93, I no longer knew who, where, what or why. I stared at the doctor, my mind a complete blank. Were there other numbers? What was a number? Oh, my goodness...


For just a second or two, I learned what Alzheimer's might be like for those so afflicted. For just that moment, my brain felt like a hole, like there was only Air where my brain should be.

The doctor watched me; suddenly, I could tell he was a doctor, albeit young, and a good one. 


He was aware of my struggle and so, I didn't try to hide it. I showed my astonishment, for only a moment, and then, closed my eyes and concentrated like never before...


After what seemed like hours but was really only seconds, I was able to visualize the numbers once more. I was able to think once again.


After the questions were completed and after the doctor told me I passed the test in the high percentile, we discussed the moment where my mind went completely blank.


He told me this occurs more often in the aging brain. He explained why...something about blood flow, lack of exercise and a few more ditties I have stuffed away until I'm ready to really have a good think about them.


He warned me about lack of acceptance of aging; he'd seen too many people become angered and embittered at themselves and their partners/families because of impatience and fear of increasing age-related problems.

It is the way it is...he said...I am concerned that here in this country we ignore aging, we try to stay young. Any signs we might be getting older are hidden. And then I see the elderly not getting the respect they deserve, only because their bodies and minds cannot keep up with the young...


He looked so earnest and so young as we chatted. He knew I worked with elderly patients; he was somewhat surprised at my shocked reaction to the test. He said...You are a senior, after all.


And therein lies the rub. I have not, as yet, considered myself a senior. Nor have I ever considered how many years might be left, in my life.


A wee bit o' reality is a good thing, for the Queen of Denial.


On the drive home, I tasted the word senior, as it applied to me.

It felt good. 

Actually, it felt right!

Hello, Feet!

All my life, I've taken my feet for granted. Oh, sure...they would clamour for attention every once in awhile, with ills other than trimming toenails.

There was the time I had a plantar's wart, which grew huge before I summoned the courage to have it cared for.

There were the numerous operations on my Big toes, with the nails finally being removed.

Each time these things were dealt with, I marvelled at how much I missed my feet, and their usual good health. But the wart and the toes...once those maladies healed, I went back to mostly ignoring my feet, swiping moisturizer over them after a shower.

When I look back, I notice the ability to be able to wear almost any shoe in my size decreased over the years. It happened so slowly, I was unaware...and continued to buy shoes that gave no support, that fit oddly...that had high heels.

I was unable to join the running shoe people. Every time I tried to wear those shoes everybody told me were good for my feet, I would trip. At times, I would lose my balance entirely, finding myself sprawled on the ground, wondering what had happened. I was sure this odd behaviour was unique to myself; nobody else ever commented on their inability to wear sneakers.

It turns out, however, there are many like me. All I know is, I feel clumsy and awkward in the ordinary styled sneaker; less so with leather walking shoes.

In my fifties, I learned to buy appropriate shoes...shoes for walking, shoes for hiking, shoes for a night out. They became more sensible over the years...heels became lower and lower, although I still loved a bit of a heel. They were all leather, and mostly brown or black. My shoes were alike in style, a wide toe with good arch support.

My feet were beginning to be more prominent in my life. I have Arthritis, Osteo and Rheumatoid, and suddenly the one part of my body that had rarely given me problems, did.

Now they hurt, sometimes with a screeching pain that almost brings me to my knees. Alright, I told my feet, alright, I give...I will search out a Podiatrist. Perhaps something could be done.

I had gone to the Pharmacy to buy specialty socks, the kind that have padding under the toes and heels. The lady there gave me a brochure from a Podiatrist, and I called for an appointment. I was asked to bring all my shoes.

I wondered if I should hire a truck.

I sat in a wonderful chair, one that supported every part of my body, and watched the Doctor examine my feet and my shoes. There were a pair in the huge bag I brought that I had never been able to wear; I loved them, and had always wondered why. The Doctor said they were the one pair that were totally wrong for my feet, and completely different from the rest. Had I not noticed?

Obviously not, since those shoes cost me a small fortune...and I paid fairly happily. They hurt everytime I tried to wear them, however. The Doctor told me there were C feet and D feet. These shoes were the opposite of what I required.

I was so enthralled about the idea of C and D feet, I never caught what she said mine were. And quite frankly, I can't tell by looking at them what they might be, since they tend to swell and change entirely.

Things progressed quickly after this.

She sent me into the World of Orthotics, into previously unknown territory.

After some x-rays, the Doctor wrapped my feet with a quick drying plaster and took an inverse impression of them. They would be sent to a lab, where corrections would be calculated and orthotics would be made. These would be sent back to my Doctor, who would fine tune any adjustments that would be required. I was told to expect my new orthotics in perhaps a week.

A few days went by. I began to trudge around shoe stores, now looking for the words ortho and orthopaedic and orthotics on the windows of the shops.

If someone had asked me, I would have told them there was not one pair of shoes I could bring myself to pay for...to me, they looked like the shoes my grandma once wore.

As, indeed, they were. And the cost was as dear as any shoe I had ever bought.

I learned, first of all, that the insole must be removable. There went my idea of just placing my new orthotics (which I didn't have yet) into the shoes I already had...

Once the orthotics arrived, after paying a large amount of lucre, I paid a visit to a training shoe store, to appease my doctor. She had advised that I may not get the heel support I required in leather shoes, and to try the running shoes, at least...instead of dismissing them out of hand, as I was inclined to do.

There were some strange shoes in that store.

I found myself trying to walk, inside the store, in shoes I would swear were skateboarding shoes. I imagined myself on uneven ground, and shuddered. The resulting injuries would not be pretty.

The people there told me they had never seen an orthotic with as high a heel, as were on mine. Since I didn't know an orthotic device from an insole, I couldn't give any advice to the salespeople. I was floundering as much as these so-called experts.

After trying on every shoe that would fit the orthotics I had, even the luridly coloured ones...the ones I shuddered at, wondering what I could wear that would incorporate these shoes...I left the store, sweaty, sore and disheartened.

The next store was one where I had bought shoes on a regular basis. I had not noticed their orthopaedic section previously, when I still bought what I considered fashionable, yet comfortable footwear.

But the section was there. The saleslady picked out the shoe that would fit, immediately, and said it was possibly the only shoe they had that would. I was astounded, being prepared for another session where I would have to explain my whole history, before a shoe was found.

I asked for brown. Magically, she fit the orthotics into the shoe, and fit the shoe onto my foot.

I don't have the words to describe how wonderful the shoes felt on my tired and swollen foot. It was sheer heaven.

I walked through the store, checking out their inventory of the Autumn season's new footwear. I heard my saleslady behind me...Don't even look, she said. Don't even.

Ruefully, it finally dawned on me. I had better like comfort more than looks, at this stage in my life. Those wonderful, little boots over on that pedestal, just what I would have at one time loved to own...those little boots were history. If I was to move forward, in my fight to stay mobile, I was limiting myself by even dreaming this shoe scenario could be different.

Finally, after more than half a century of ignoring my feet and their needs, I said hello to them...and decided I would find out what feet are all about.

It's a new journey. I will have to go back to my Doctor; she will have to make adjustments to the orthotics, I will have to work my way into wearing my special shoes all the time. It helps when my footwear is now so comfortable. And the shoes I bought are very similar to a favourite pair of hiking boots I once owned in the seventies.

I have already discovered the alignment of my body is changing, as I stand properly. My posture has changed for the better. At night, I am in some pain, but it is the kind of muscular pain that occurs after a therapeutic massage...the kind that tells me my muscles are finding where they are meant to be, once again.

And wonder of wonders, I gained a couple of inches in height. For a short person, who suddenly can easily reach items once out of reach...this is a miracle.

Shoes are not all about looks, you know.