Old Age SATs

 

The "Old Man" Of Auto Painting

My brother had an aneurysm hemorrhage last Friday, and by the grace of God, he will be leaving the hospital today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, I sped into the medical system of the hospital my brother was recuperating in, and had a battery of tests, including ultra-sounds for the carotid and abdominal arteries, costing $70 for the lot! Since my father had also had an iliac aneurysm operated on back in 2006, I saw no reason to put it off any longer, and decided to pay the $70, then see if I could re-imbursed later.
Even if there is no way to separate the costs of the tests and to re-imburse me, it probably would have cost me almost $70 to see my doctor and go to various places for some of the specialized tests.....

So a friend wrote me and said that these test were "the SATs of old age", which I thought was pretty funny. I seem to remember gerontological groups clustered together and comparing cholesterol stats in pretty much the same way as we used to talk about which SAT percentile we landed in.

Having said this, I think it is pretty obvious that this is a clear case where the simple, strong, and direct Anglo-Saxon expression; i.e., "old age", is not the preferred means of communication.

I need another word:

The Latin "gerontology" and its brothers and sisters have been placed in a state of eternal "dibs" by the medical community, so that is out.

The Greek "presbyter" and its ilk are similarly monopolized by the Presbyterian Church, and even though it does not offend me to be characterized as being as dour and staid as a member of the Scottish Church of the Glasgow Assembly (beware the curse of Hiel the Bethelite!!), it would be much too ambiguous and people might mistakenly take me for an elder of the church.

The French "vieillesse" is precise and succinct, but given the ambivalence of Americans to things French - American fries versus French fries and the unshakeable belief that the French waiters are arrogant in their attitude to American tourists who are dressed like comedic beggars and who make no attempt to speak French - it would give the impression of being a  Précieux Ridicule. 
(this last sentence being a self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose.)

The German "Altertum" is off the table. I would not mind being referred to as "der Alte", and thus imagining myself to be Conrad Adenauer, but it won't fly.

Ditto for Russian "старость", or "starost", and the Chinese "晚年".  They will only generate blank stares.

So I have decided on the Arabic "shaib", which means  "a state of having white hair".
Merely having white hair does not necessarily mean being old, which itself is a big plus.
Furthermore, it is pronounced just like "Scheib" in "Earl Scheib", the automobile painting magnate, who himself was of Lebanese descent.

So "shaib"... or "Scheib"...  for "old age".
If someone (not me!) were to be referred to by age, particularly "old age", they would be called  الشيب
which would be  "Ashyab", but there's no reason I could not use "scheib" for this, also.

So, the battery of tests are Scheib SATs.
And I have accomplished what I set out to do: I have totally turned attention away from my antiqueness.

--

Old Age

As I tip-toe down the foyer to senectitude, I find that age is not life attenuated, but filled up with a new wine - frothy and intoxicating and exotic - yet, alas, poured into old wineskins.

A patch here, a patch there, and the old wineskins will endure.

--

A Senior Moment

 I Forget the Name of this Film... although that is Cyril Cusack on the left.

The phrase "a senior moment" used in such contexts as "Ooops. I forgot. I just had a senior moment." are infuriating, especially when uttered by anyone under 55. You know they are doing the very insulting and bizarre act of patronizing you for their own mistake.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, She-who-must-be-obeyed was taking it easy in the spa-like atmosphere of the steamy hot tub environment called "The Evening News".
I think she just likes having Brian Williams yell at her. He does yell. They all yell. Go back and find a YouTube vid of Walter Cronkite (Hah! Remebered the name!... take that, all you patronizing whippersnappers!) doing the evening news. He did not yell at us.

So there's a segment on the increase of Alzheimer's and Dementia. It pretty much said that the incidence of Alzheimer's and Dementia are increasing.
The modern day narrative into which we usually slip this nugget of information is:

(1) People are living longer through modern medicine;
(2) modern medicine for the elderly is paid by Medicare, and it is too generous and is the cause of the deficit;
(3) as you have people living longer and longer, you will have more incidence of age-related sickness.

Here is where I and everyone else will start there quest:  "age-related", because our interpretation seems to be wrong.

In Science Daily today, we read along the same lines, only much more informative (and scarey):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130510075502.htm

Brain Diseases Affecting More People and Starting Earlier Than Ever Before

May 10, 2013 —

Professor Colin Pritchard's latest research published in journal Public Health has found that the sharp rise of dementia and other neurological deaths in people under 74 cannot be put down to the fact that we are living longer. The rise is because a higher proportion of old people are being affected by such conditions -- and what is really alarming, it is starting earlier and affecting people under 55 years.

... Professor Pritchard of Bournemouth University says: "These statistics are about real people and families, and we need to recognise that there is an 'epidemic' that clearly is influenced by environmental and societal changes."

... The research highlights that there is an alarming 'hidden epidemic' of rises in neurological deaths between 1979-2010 of adults (under 74) in Western countries, especially the UK.

... When asked what he thought caused the increases he replied, "This has to be speculative but it cannot be genetic because the period is too short. Whilst there will be some influence of more elderly people, it does not account for the earlier onset; the differences between countries nor the fact that more women have been affected, as their lives have changed more than men's over the period, all indicates multiple environmental factors.

Considering the changes over the last 30 years -- the explosion in electronic devices, rises in background non-ionising radiation- PC's, micro waves, TV's, mobile phones; road and air transport up four-fold increasing background petro-chemical pollution; chemical additives to food etc. There is no one factor rather the likely interaction between all these environmental triggers, reflecting changes in other conditions. For example, whilst cancer deaths are down substantially, cancer incidence continues to rise; levels of asthma are un-precedented; the fall in male sperm counts -- the rise of auto-immune diseases -- all point to life-style and environmental influences...

This is very informative.
All of the things we juggle: climate change, toxic pollution, social change, weapons, war, religion...
everything is reaching a critical mass, so it seems.
We could ask our Representatives in Washington to do something about it, but it might sound like it could hurt Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

--

Fighting The Jerries

I am a Jerry.
"Jerry" is slang used by my children, and it is left-over from the Great War... "Jerry" is derived from "Geriatric" and means one of advanced years, and the Great War is a future antagonism for our offspring:  what to do with us, the aged encumbrances?

I do not intend to have a home health provider.
My daughter turned to me the other day... I was giving her a hard time about something, I suppose... and said that I had better not act like that in the undefined future time when she has some sort of hideous and "ironic" custody  of me (as if I were witless and the workhouses were out of commission, so in the meantime she had to stand on street corners with a hurdy-gurdy and I capered - as well as an octogenarian could - in some grotesque monkey suit, while she sought an old-age home for me), and I need some care provider. All in jest... I said, no. That's not the way it will be.
As they -  "they" being the jackals of Youth - stand about in the corridor, discussing which cuckoo's nest of an institution or home to put me in, I shall be laying plans.

As they go before the judge to testify to my diminished mental capacity, I shall stand and smile and nod my head like a good old Jerry. As I go to my home for one last time, I shall dump the documents from the banks I have already emptied out into a club bag, take a few books and some clothes, get a limo and beat it to the airport to make my connection for the Islands. If some young relative stumbles in on me, the money I spent on martial arts for the elderly will have been a good investment. Shall they arrest me for battery? And why should I care, since they have conspired to deprive me of my life? Nope. I shall dispose of the young interloper with the same aplomb Frank Sinatra disposed of Henry da Silva in The Manchurian Candidate,  kicking through the wood paneling and breaking tables... and I am into the taxi and making my way to Margaritaville.

And they will say... we thought he was such a good Jerry...he was a Jerry that knew his place...it was funny the way he shuffled around in his slippers...but - and here we agree with Nurse Ratchett - the only good Jerry is an institutionalized Jerry.
Use the knowledge of Stem Cell research to give life to those who are at a point where they see that they are not immortal and do not wish to live in this social prison anymore. Let them set their sails to the wind and escape to the Islands for a blaze of glory!

Great God, let us be free! Let all the spirits of Mankind be free at last!
--
reprinted and enhanced.

Reprise: Night People

I am repeating this post from 2009 as it fits in well with my post "Image of Obsession: Old People in Exile"
http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/image-of-obsession-older-people-in.html
on August 20, 2011.

The old people come out at night. The have become feral and feline, sleeping during the day. Night is not a metaphor for the darkness of the soul anymore, not the evil of pitch black, but the silhouettes of night have become the archetypes of all things.

We, the old, stalk the shadows of the city on our quest for the Virgin Mary's bicycle parts.

The things of the earth lose their detail, the thorns of life that prick us, bleed us; the day people want to help - so they say; they want to minister to us, to provide medicals. We call them "leeches", like in old times; they want to leech us to whatever icon they have of old people should-being. They task us. They harry us like dogs chase the fox. Their old-age homes are dungeons run by their Ministry of Love.

They leech and suck our blood with their taxes, and their wars, and their guns and violence.

They speak in a cenobite tongue of the most profound profanity. We hear their blasphemous language, which they find comical, and it tears at us. All words are used: every vulgar profanity, every curse gets a laugh.

Discourse is invective.

The old word for conversation was "intercourse". Intercourse of days is now vile: it is either violent, or it is a graffitti on the walls for everyone to gaze at, hard colors on concrete drawing tears from the tender eyes of the day people...eyes used to Death and Cable.

We drive at night and see the blackwork buildings sentinel on silent streets. We watch the Sunset Channel with its documentaries of nightime streets, where you can actually see the streets and sidewalks; they are not obscured by the opprobrious burden of multitudes of people, walking like a living carpet of many-coloured knots, woven at random seeming along the night-time weft we inhabit. At night, the weft is empty...Penelope-like, the ragged carpet of care is unwoven every night, and we wait for the Master Weaver to come...

The day is the time of massacre of the two-year old boys, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and busy with their toys.

Christmas was at night, our loves, our joys...

Night is the holy time, when we mend broken hearts with bicycle parts, straighten spokes, adjust the brakes, pump up the tires; night time, priapic with meaning and engorged with arts!

pics 1,3,4: arnold pouteau
pic 2: broken hearts & bicycle parts

Good Old Jerry

I do not intend to have a home health provider.
My daughter turned to me the other day...I was giving her a hard time about something, I suppose...and said that I had better not act thus and so in that undefined future time when she has some sort of hideous custody of me and I need some care provider. All in jest... I said, no. That's not the way it will be. As they, "they" being the jackals of youth, stand about in the corridor, discussing which cuckoo's nest of an institution or home to put me in, I shall be laying plans.

As they go before the judge to testify to my diminished mental capacity, I shall stand and smile and nod my head like a good old Jerry ( from "geriatrics"). As I go to my home for one last time, I shall dump the documents from the banks I have already emptied out into a club bag, take a few books and some clothes, get a limo and beat it to the airport to make my connection for the Islands. If some young relative stumbles in on me, the money I spent on martial arts for the elderly will have been a good investment. Shall they arrest me for battery? And why should I care, since they have conspired to deprive me of my life? Nope. A few "Manchurian Candidate" kicks through the wood paneling and breaking tables, and I am into the taxi and making my way to Margaritaville.

And they will say... we thought he was such a good Jerry...he was a Jerry that knew his place...it was funny the way he shuffled around in his slippers...but, and here we agree with Nurse Ratchett, the only good Jerry is an institutionalized Jerry. Use the knowledge of Stem Cell research to give life to those who are at a point where they see that they are not immortal and do not wish to live in this social prison anymore. Let them set their sails to the wind and escape to the Islands for a blaze of glory.

Great God, let us be free!