Death upon
Me
[Why am I still here?]
[Am I crying for help?]
[Part 3
completes this three part mini-series.
So happy to have you back]
From Part 1
and Part 2:
[MEDICATION]
Slowed Heart Beat
[MEDICATION]
Pain Killer Drugs
[EVENT] Spine Disc Bulging
[EVENT] My
Mom
[EVENT]
High School Classmate
[EVENT] Her
First Cousin Accident
[EVENT] Her
Japanese Friend
[MIND]
Original & Personal Families
[MIND]
Empty Nest
[MIND] Move
to Seattle
[EVENT] New
Car Purchase
[EVENT]
Driver License Renewal
[EVENT]
Coronavirus
[EVENT]
Dentist
So Part 3
continues:
[MIND] Obituary and Life Expectancy
I mentioned that my life attitude
turns away from optimistic (comparing saying turning towards pessimistic), nowadays,
when I read newspaper, I skip the obituary section intentionally. I do not even care if they are the death
notice of my favorite movie stars or famous name persons; I avoid those 2 to 3
pages. I still say that I am not afraid
of death, just refuse to read anything unpleasant. Maybe I feel unpleasant is the fact that most
of them are younger than I am. Even
though I keep saying that their lives are their lives, and mine is mine, still
why insist to remind myself that I am over, substantially over, the statistic
average?
I was in a dinner party sitting
next to a seventy five year old gentleman.
He said:
“I am living in borrowed life.”
What he meant was that he quoted
that the Chinese proverb the life reaching seventy was rare. Since he was five years beyond that, he felt
that these five years over the seventy was borrowed from somewhere or somebody
else. The borrowed life, since it was
not his own, would expire almost anytime beyond his control. Although we know that, because of more
advance medical knowhow, the seventy is no longer valid. Still I am over ten year beyond that; am I
really in borrowed life?
The average life expectancy is 78.5
and I am now five year passed that. I am
still feeling alive and well. It does
not surprise me that I will stick around for another ten years or more. However, when thinking deeper into it, does
it make sense? Am I kidding myself that
I may last forever?
When I renewed my driver license,
they renewed me to age of 95 (my fake age with the real age of 92). I was kidding to say that when I reach 95,
even though I may have decided to give up driving, it still be fun to apply to
renew it one more time to see if they may be crazy enough to renew me to 103.
A few days ago, when I sent the
birthday card to my grandson with some money for his college fund, I joked when
I wrote in the card a message to my son.
“Be sure to put it in his college
fund.” I wrote. “I will stick around to see his college
graduation. Count on it”
My grandson is 10 year old
now. When he will graduate from college,
he will be 22, 12 years from now. With
my real age of 83, I will be 95 when he will graduate. Also, I was kidding to my wife, I have
renewed my driver license to age of 95 (forget about the real age and fake age;
this is just to have a laugh) and I had paid the license fee to age of 95 to
the government agency. Since there is no
refund even the license will not be used before that, for sure I will try to
use it up so I will not waste my money.
That means I will “make” myself to last to at least age of 95. We all had a big laugh.
No doubt, I feel good now, but it
does not mean that I look good unless any third person has the courage to tell
me the truth.
[EVENT]
What If I Were Disabled
What if I
were disabled?
Whether I
would admit if I was the most optimistic person or in fact I was pessimistic
without knowing it, it is beyond the point.
It is not deniable that I used to consider the best scenario and now I
am thinking exactly the opposite.
My
spine/leg pain problems have got to the point I have to do something. Even though that the pains are managed and tolerable,
still I cannot help to think, am I really going to be in pain, even though it
is manageable, for the rest of my life?
After religiously doing physical therapy at home for over a year, it
seems that there are some improvements, but definitely it is not cured. I have no major problem if I were home
walking on carpet, but if I go out, the leg pain will almost start after just after
fifteen minutes walking and start to accumulate from then on, and towards
intolerable. I began to think that I
should not be that stubborn to leave myself as I am; I should try something
hopefully taking care of the pain.
So
recently, I consulted a spine/leg pain specialist, a physical medicine
physician, one who is supposed curing without surgery. He gave me a test supposedly locating exactly
where the pain was. The routine to take
care the problem is supposed like these.
1.
MRI confirms that the spine bulging compressing
the nerve to cause the pain
2.
Physical therapy to cure [after over one year,
it only reduce the pain slightly].
3.
Acupuncture may solve the problem [have not
tried for lack of confidence if it may work].
4.
Injection of cortisone may be the solution [try
to avoid surgery including injection due to age].
5.
Needle test perform to locate the exact pain
spot, especially in case of performing injection of cortisone [test was done]
6.
Surgery, if nothing else works.
So I am not
at the stage accepting that injection may be the possible cure. Since I am still rejecting it, I may try a
couple other methods before I surrender to have the injection or desperately
enough to have the surgery. By that time
I may be too old to try anything.
After
accepting the fact that physical therapy alone will not quite improve the
situation, I am using the nerve stimulator to see if the nerve can be stimulated
enough to get rid of the problem. Even
though I am doing it, I know it is just the wishful thinking, I am not so lucky
to get rid the problem so easily [how pessimistic I am now]. Still I am giving it a try just to hope for something
unexpected.
If it does
not work, I probable to try acupuncture since though I only believe that it
only work as an anesthetic medication and not to cure the bulging. Besides, it may require multi sessions [very
time consuming]. Since it is not as
evasive, I would just do it to hope for miracle.
If
acupuncture fails, the next step will be the injection of cortisone. I asked the doctor if injection could be done
in one shot. The answer was not what I
expected. He said it would require multi
sessions to cure the problems. It gives
me the impression that even with the Needle Test he really did not know exactly
where the trouble locations were and how big the areas had been affected. The multi sessions of injection were a trial
and error process. He knew the general
location but not the exact location. If
he would not hit correctly the first time, he would try again [by guessing?] within
the neighborhood location. And I also
had the feeling that he was not sure how big the problem area and exactly how
much cortisone he might need. The multi
injections were to increase a little by little of cortisone until it was
enough. So it sound like a painful, long
process that I am not sure if I am willing to go through with it.
That is
what I am now. Instead of thinking the
best scenario I am thinking the worst. Why
can I think that the nerve stimulator will take the pain, or the acupuncture
works like magic like some friends claim to be, or the injection will hit the
bull-eye on the first try. I cannot help
to think what if the injections have gone wrong and I end up losing my mobility
and have to be in a wheel chair for the rest of my life.
Am I
turning pessimistic or is it this is just part of aging?
[MIND] Lonely or Peaceful Life
I feel so lonely!
In my autobiography, I said, “I
felt depressed constantly, but if other asked me what I was depressed about, I
could not find a satisfactory answer”.
Was I blinded by only looking at the sunny side at the time when I wrote
the autobiography? Am I seeing the real
me now, a few years after that? So far,
in this article, I have already listed pages after pages of facts and thoughts
in my mind that could have caused my depression. So when I feel down I have tons of evidences
that justified the depressions are for real.
With my parents and my brother
passed away, even after so many years, I still cannot forget them. How I wish I could turn back the time machine
to the time when I was a teenager. I
would spend more time together with my parents and my brother rather than just
with my own friends. Now when I am at
the last few years of my life, I miss them.
When I see some of my friends spending time with their elders, I envy
them. I still hate to accept the fact
that I am the only survivor of the four of us.
They say that it is good and bad to have a longer life, and mine is the
best example. My dad passed away when he
was 50 and my brother at 72. Other than
my mom left me when she was 93, and I am now 83, I have longer life than at
least two of them. Is it good to have
more time to enjoy life or is it bad when you feel you are alone?
Even though we had not spent more
time together as what I wished for, the whole family did spend some time
together. Now when I am all by myself
sitting alone in the evening, those memories still both come to comfort me and
haunt me. The main problem is that I
have nobody to share with, both good times and bad times.
Sharing is the most important thing
that I am lacking of. I learned that
when my mom was in the rehab, and whether I pitied her that she was alone or I
felt the affection both she and I needed, I spent lot of time with her. I visited her every day. When I said every day I actual meant it. I gave up everything, including my life and
the lives of those around me. Because I
felt the necessity to have dinner with her every day, I gave up all the dinner
engagement with friends.
Because mom was the last of the
original family other than me, I sacrificed my life and those around me to achieve
that. I received unbelievable amount of
criticism that I had deserted my friends, my wife’s life, and my own. I never cared for criticism however it still
left bad taste in my mind. Being alone
all by myself, I felt frustration but there was no one to share with. I did not believe seeing a psychiatrist was
the solution as some commented. I was
lucky that I still had my diary and my daughter to unload my frustrations. There was nothing worse that when I was
depressed and had no one to share with.
These take care the original
family; now onto the personal family.
The children are fine. They have good jobs and behave
themselves. They care for me and
frequently call me on the phone just to show I am always in their minds. I cannot ask for more than that. However, because of their jobs we are
separated geographically. Phone calls
are fine but it is far from seeing each other.
Because it will take six hours by air between us, so getting together is
not a simple task. I would be lucky if I
can manage to spend a couple weeks a year with them. That means if I will live until 90, I will be
seeing them six more times, or twelve more weeks for the rest of my life. How disgusting! How depressing!
That is what most families have in
common. I have not heard any complain
from most of them. They have accepted as
part of life, why can’t I? How
disappointing! Of course I can move to
next to them. It sounds easy but carrying
out the plan is a different story when I am over eighty. I do not have enough energy to take care the
task all by myself.
That is life. I signed!!
[EVENT] Count Your Blessing
One way to fight off depression is
to count your blessing. As the good old
Chinese saying (as what I always quoted), “Comparing those better than you are,
you feel you are insufficient; comparing those not as well as you are, you feel
you are more than satisfied” [比上不足, 比下有餘]. Some are luckier than you are and always some
are not as lucky as you are. So count
your blessing.
We have a Spanish couple
friends. They have been moving between
Spain and U.S. a couple times and finally settled down in U.S. as their final
home. He is at his early eighties and
she is probably ten year younger. They are
not the social type and have probably no local friends. In daily life, they just have nobody to share
their spare time with. I will not be
surprised that we are their only friends.
We sympathize their loneliness (they probably were used to it and did not
feel it themselves); we tried to spend time with them occasionally, especially
special occasions such as Christmas, Thanksgivings, etc.
They are content to spend time
themselves. Life for them had been quiet
but they had no complaint about it. Then
bad luck struck.
They lived on third floor in a
condo in a gated building with elevators. One day when they went out, and when
the elevator reached the ground floor, she fell down. The fall was so bad that he thought it was
fatal. Ambulance was called. Luckily it was just an isolated accidental event. Nothing serious resulted. Unfortunately, it turned out that though
nothing damaged physically but it affected her badly psychologically.
After the fall, it affected her
mind so bad that she lost the confidence of walking. She refused to go out again. In the last over two years after her fall,
she had been staying inside the condo and refused even to step out front door.
They settled their new life style. He took over the grocery shopping and running
chores, and she was fine staying home.
Life was not ideal but as long as they felt secure, they remained as a
happy couple. She felt safe to stay in
the condo; he was fine to have chances going out, even it was all by
himself. Then bad luck struck again.
One day when he went out and had a
car accident. They had an older model
car. The accident was so bad that the
repair shop declined to repair the car because the repair costs would be more
than the car worth. So the car was
totaled. Because of the car accident and
because of his age, his driver license was suspended. Now she stayed home by choice but he was
forced to stay home not voluntarily. On
top of it they both had medical problems, hers was physical and his was cardiac
related. Without transportation, they
had problems even to commute to the doctors or clinic for medical reasons.
They were not the only couples or the
only friends had series of problems, physically and medically. So when I was frustrated on my problems, such
as insomnia, bowel problems, spine bulging affected the nerve and leg pain, I
made myself to think of them. Comparing
with them, I suddenly feel I was the luckier one.
I just count my blessing.
[MIND] Organized Life
When I was in college, I lived in the
tidy room in the basement in my “uncle’s” (he was not my real uncle, but kind
enough to treat me as his nephew) apartment.
I had no complain about it especially the rent was free.
The room was small. Longitudinally, it barely fit a single bed
lengthwise, a desk and a closet without door.
The other direction, it fit the width of the single bed and the short
side of a three drawer cabinet with about 9 inch walkway between them, just
barely enough to open the cabinet drawers.
Next to the no-door closet, there was a stove took up the space. So when I sat in the chair in front of the
desk, I could reach the books in the shelf on the desk in front of me. With my left hand I could reach the pot of
tea on the stove; and with my right hand I could reach whatever I put on the
top of the cabinet.
The room was small, but with the
proper arrangement it was very, very convenient. That had been my hobby to arrange my
belonging to be convenient with a tight available space. With that, even living in such a small room,
I did not feel small; I felt it was sufficient.
After college when I finally
settled down to have my own house and my own study room, even though there were
plenty space than the basement room, I still arrange and rearrange whatever I
had to make life convenient and comfortable.
That was why I always enjoyed moving
to a new environment, or setting up the new desks or arranging new filing
cabinets. Currently, my U-shaped desks
packed with so many goodies or junks that would surprise everybody.
So when I thought about if miracle might
happen that I would move to a new house in, like Seattle, I would have another
new environment for me to arrange my stuff to make myself feel proud that I was
so good to use up all the spaces and nothing to waste.
It definitely was a wishful
thinking. Whether I will have the
chances to arrange my study area in the Seattle home or the current study room
area in the house if I would be living here for the rest of my life, I would
have something creative to have the satisfaction.
The wishful thinking cheered me up
but the words “for rest of my life” depressed me.
Am I really getting more and more
pessimistic!
[MIND] How I die
We all die once; there is nothing
to feel sad about it. When I was all by
myself in the evening with no mood to do any reading or watch any television
programs, I just sat there, not really staring at the ceiling, but fall into
deeper thinking – when I would be at the end, how would it end?
There are numerous ways this may
happen:
·
I live in a three story townhouse. I walk up and down numerous times every
day. Now I am in fact older, the leg
muscle is not as strong and it affects the body balance. I understand that for an elder person, when
he falls, all the problems will surface and there is no return way. So I have been very careful when I walk the
stairs. I never carry anything using
both hands; always using one hand to hold the railing. It sounds excellent theoretically; but
accidents do happen no matter how careful I am.
If it does, that will be the beginning of the end.
·
I had three heart procedures over twenty five
years ago because of the blood vessel clogged.
Other than “clearing up” the blockage, the cardiologist placed a stent in
the artery at the last procedure. During
the last twenty five years, I have done numerous nuclear stress tests, and I
passed all of them. So, theoretically I
have been a “healthy” person. However
with all the medical books I read, I understand that once I have the heart
problem, it will haunt me for the rest of my life. Passing the tests put me in the comfort zone,
but, in reality, I am not out of the woods; and I will never be out of the
woods for the rest of my life. So it is
not surprising at all when one day I suddenly have a heart attack or stroke for
no obvious cause at all.
·
When one has the heart attack or stroke, if he is
medical treated within a short period of time (I believe it is three hours, but
I am not sure), he will be saved and restored to “normal”. But there are more than one way that I may
not be noted if I happen to have the heart attack. At home, if I work upstairs while she does
her own hobbies, she seldom goes upstairs for almost the entire afternoon. If I happen to have a heart attack, I will
not be noticed for hours. Also when we
go out to shopping, movie, dining, etc., she never walks next with me. Because of my leg pain problem I have to walk
very slowly. She does not have the
patience, so she frequently walks a street block ahead of me. If I have a heart attack, she will not know
until she happens to turn around to see where I am, that could be a minute or
longer later. Is it too late? I wish I know. That may be another way to go.
·
After we donated the old car, and with owning
only one car, I am driving less and less.
Yet I still have to drive by myself to the doctor appointments and some
grocery shopping. With so little driving
for sure my driving technique will not be as well. Also when one gets older, the reaction will
be slower. Of course I have been
extremely careful because I understand and accept my own problems, still
accidents do happen. If it does, one
bang will be sufficient to do it all.
·
She is younger and should react faster, but it
does not mean that she is always perfect.
Now she practically drives almost all the times including night
time. She actually admits that she does
not see the road perfectly when driving at nights. What if one careless driving and that will do
it.
·
I am not travelling as much as before but I
still taking air transportation occasionally, including visiting the
children. When I fly it is beyond the
passengers’ control. Every now and then,
we hear about the airplane accident.
What if I just happen to be in one of them?
·
During the current coronavirus, several cruise
ships were affected. All the passengers
were trapped inside the cruise ship with their future unknown. I have been in many cruises since I started
my first cruising around the Greek Islands.
I felt in love of cruise and have been in so many for the last thirty
year. Just because of my leg pain, I
have been forced to stop travelling/cruising recently. My last cruise was the Berlin/Germany/Czech
Republic over couple year ago. If not
because of my spinal problems, I will be in one of cruises somewhere. Would that be in one of the unlucky ones? Is it a good or bad way to go?
·
Thank God, there is one other way. Maybe sometimes, some days when least
expected, I feel a little tired as I may be coming down with a cold. I go to bed earlier, fall asleep and never
wake up again. Peacefully. How nice!!
[Mind]
Giving Up
It is more
and more like a suicide note, and, again I deny that. Even though I have had pages and pages of
incidences and all of them are more pessimistic than cheering up, and I still
insist that I will not approach that direction.
It all
started when my sister-in-law in Hong Kong commented. She was saying that watching so many
unpleasant happening,
“I will eat
whatever I like to eat and do not worry about anything anymore.” She said.
“I just want to enjoy life.”
What she
meant was that she used to be on healthy diet as recommended by everybody
around her. – what had more fiber, what had too much fat, what was too high
cholesterol, what meals had too much protein and not enough vegetable, etc. etc.? She never had a complete meal with her full
satisfaction. Now she accepted that life
was too short and if she remained sticking to the rule that killed most
satisfaction to eat. She might find that
life was not as long as she expected to be.
Before you knew it, it was too late.
I more and
more agree with her logic. By giving up
all the precautions and limitations, life can be so free that I may reach my
dreamland. It does not matter how long
it lasts and as long as you enjoy all the time, that worth all the money in the
world.
What a
wonderful thought. Can I do it? Will I do it?
After so
many pages of depressing thinking, incidences, events, imaginations, crazy
thoughts, I am running out of steam.
Whether I have really turned pessimistic, or I have been always
pessimistic all along without realizing it?
Or it is how elders think especially he is now past the national life
expectancy or the thought for the one being lonely, suddenly I feel it is
immaterial.
Maybe the best way to face it
is: who cares!!!
[The end or the beginning]
No comments:
Post a Comment