Warning Signs

David (see the posting on October 30) came up to me last night at our Cardiac Rehab. session and said that a week ago when he was in town, he suddenly realised that he was getting chest pains, so he parked his car and walked to our city centre NHS Walk-in . They took his condition very seriously and he was whisked off to hospital where he had a series of tests and was kept under their care overnight.

The report the next morning from a consultant said he had had a minor heart attack and would be put on new medication. Very confident about the care received over the years by his G.P.,David insisted that nothing should be prescribed and certainly nothing administered without reference to his local doctor, and this was agreed. Telling the story last night, he said ‘I’m living on borrowed time anyway’. Two reflections about this.

First, older people should take warning signs seriously and act accordingly. That’s better said than done. If you have spent much of your life as a natural unforced and highly skilled hypochondriac like me, identifying what may have flared up as a genuine medical problem isn’t easy. (In my case fearing that something odd is happening to your health is complicated by having had so many false alarms in the past!) But at this end of our life-span one should take the risk of being mistaken. As David did. So there he was again last night, struggling to do as much of the exercising as he could manage, whereas if he hadn’t responded to that sudden chest pain, today he might be dead.

Second, those of us who are subject to the inconveniences of old age, need to speak up for ourselves sometimes, even – especially – when we come up against medical professionals. I like this idea of telling a hospital consultant that she/he should only make a prescription when he/she has first made contact with the general practitioner who knows all about you (or should do). The medical profession in the U.K. – under-funded, always pressurised and under scrutiny by so many interests - is often unfairly criticised. It is serviced by human beings and therefore is not perfect.

But medics need to be reminded sometimes that the people they are dealing with are human beings too; often exceedingly vulnerable ones, who can so easily be bullied and patronised. And silenced. But not David.

B.R.

' I am old....'

....says Fay Weldon writing in the Guardian magazine. The prolific novelist and writer of many television plays says she is ‘not young in heart’ as Brian Aldiss said of himself in our previous posting. ‘It would be extraordinary if I were after all my experience of life, my years of work, the people I have loved, those I have lost, the places I have lived in, my friends who are dead and those who are alive, the births and growing up of my tall, handsome grandsons.’ She goes on to say that growing old is not all sweetness and light and bemoans the way younger people view old age, especially how they notice – or ignore – women who are old. ‘According to them, the old all have false teeth and colostomy bags’.

Exercising regularly since she was 37, Weldon says she is ‘absurdly proud of being size 10. I have a very good head of (dyed) hair, the only disadvantage to this being that a lot of people think it’s a wig.’ Her clothes she says ‘have become increasingly feminine. The unpalatable truth is that old women often look like old men as they age, a tendency not to be encouraged by wearing tailored suits, striped shirts and lace-up shoes. And I have bought my last pair of jeans.’

She says that she reads as much as she ever did. ‘I would far rather read than watch television. The theatre I enjoy less than I once did, but music more. Going to the opera I feel the same excited anticipation I felt visiting a swimming pool, aged eight. When I was young and middle-aged I used to boast that I never felt tired, but I do now and, as one who gets up at six, I struggle to keep myself awake till 10.

Fay Weldon’s husband died in 1999 and she thinks of her own death every day. The ‘miserable faith’ she had has now gone but she often reads the Bible, ‘something I am sure young people would think a suitable occupation for an old woman. I never say ‘elderly’, as mawkish a euphemism for ‘old’ as ‘passing on’ is for ‘dying’.

‘Every day when its not pouring with rain or icy – old people should take care not to break their bones – I walk about London. When I’m in the country I walk the lanes and the footpaths…I thought I walked at the same pace and with the same energy as I did when I was young until I began to notice that I was soon outstripped by anyone younger walking alongside me.’

Allowing for the ‘irremediable absence’ of her husband, Weldon likes living alone. ‘I like to come and go as I please and not to have to tell anyone where I shall be and what I shall be doing and when I shall be home. It is nice to eat what one likes and drink what one likes and not answer the phone if one chooses…I am an old lady who lives alone with her cats. I am not sure that I would like anyone else to describe me like that, but I can do so myself and smile.’

B.R.

Winter Sunshine

Brian Aldiss, the distinguished poet and author of many pioneering Science Fiction novels has been writing in The Guardian about what it is like to be 80 years old. Good, in the main it seems, and with few reservations and many advantages, such as not having to do what you don’t want to do. ‘You do not have to go out to dine if you can’t be bothered; a phone call in a whiney voice, a burst of sympathy at the other end, and you can stay in snugly and read Tolstoy’.

In the mornings he tends to wake up at about four or five, and instead of ‘lying there whingeing about it, I shuffle downstairs and make myself a mug of tea. Sometimes I switch on the TV and discover a world that does not exist in daylight hours. The riches of Istanbul, a chap making friends with a crocodile, someone climbing the Himalayas in a wheelchair..’

He has advice to share. ‘A tip worth passing on is not to go out looking miserable even if you feel lousy and the in-growing toenail is playing up. Look cheerful. Keep your back straight. And lo and behold, there’s a good friend having a coffee at the patisserie up the road. Not that it matters if you can’t remember his name. He can’t remember yours.’ Its good idea to get out and about. You need exercise. And it feels so pleasant when you arrive home again. There are many foodstuffs you can buy which never existed once upon a time.’

There’s encouraging news for people who have the capacity and need for frequent siestas. Brian Aldiss says that he requires ‘spasms of sleep during the day. I will be sitting in an armchair, perhaps watching television or perhaps reading…and fall asleep. At least, that’s what I call it. But like those unfortunates caught on the wrong side of the Sittang Bridge when it blew, I find myself on the wrong side of consciousness. I have entirely blanked out’ One day, he says he will have blanked out for good and ‘this marvellous, unique lifetime will be over. But what an easy way to go….’

‘Many people’ says Aldiss ‘feel old at 30. I still feel young in spirit. And there is a great abounding reason for that, though she has begged me not to mention her name. She is just the most empathic, intelligent, adorable woman I have had the luck to meet. My winter sunshine'.

B.R.