{"id":7905,"date":"2024-12-17T13:23:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T18:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=7905"},"modified":"2024-12-17T13:23:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T18:23:28","slug":"turning-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2024\/12\/turning-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

When someone turns 100, others ask, \u201cHow did you manage to live so long?\u201d I\u2019m about to turn 90, and nobody has asked me that yet, but I\u2019ve been thinking about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing I\u2019ve survived this long thanks to good luck, good genes and some help from good habits. (I\u2019ve never exercised consistently, but I never smoked, and I\u2019ve been a vegetarian for the last 30 years.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Also, like most people my age, I\u2019ve had help from medical science. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before my pacemaker was implanted in 2006, I was pale and bone-weary. My heart rate was dragging along at fewer than 40 beats a minute (60 to 100 is normal). The pacemaker has worked so well that I never think of myself as someone with a heart condition. I have to remind myself to check \u201cheart disease\u201d on medical forms. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to the lenses I had implanted in my eyes when my cataracts were removed, I can see as well as ever (which is to say, I\u2019m still farsighted). I\u2019m very slightly cross-eyed though, a new problem caused by weak eye muscles. But (very expensive) prisms in my glasses correct that and forestall the blurriness I would otherwise be living with.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Hearing aids have restored my hearing to something close to normal\u2014in fact, it\u2019s better than normal when I watch TV, because the soundtrack is broadcast straight into my hearing aids. Also, in a really noisy place, I can easily escape the clamor just by pulling the aids out of my ears. <\/span><\/p>\n

Vertebrae in my back are pinching a nerve, which causes pain in one leg. I also have arthritis in both feet. Most of the time, however, I don\u2019t groan or limp. Walking is painless as long as I use a walker whenever I have to go any real distance. Inside my apartment, I go walkerless, cruising around like a toddler, using the furniture occasionally for support. <\/span><\/p>\n

My memory isn\u2019t what it was. If I make a real effort, I can remember anything (like where my car is parked in a crowded lot). But too often, my mind is adrift, so I bypass the plants I need to water on my way to the nearest pad of sticky notes to jot down something else I mustn\u2019t forget. My desk is festooned with stickies, but I\u2019m about to replace them all with an Amazon Echo, a palm-sized, computerized \u201cpersonal assistant.\u201d From now on, Alexa\u2014the voice within the Echo\u2014will do the reminding. <\/span><\/p>\n

All of this may sound as if there are many things wrong with me as I enter my 90s, but the point is, so far science has provided ways to compensate for everything. I\u2019m lucky enough to be living in the 21<\/span>st<\/span> century, when aging has become much more comfortable. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When someone turns 100, others ask, \u201cHow did you manage to live so long?\u201d I\u2019m about to turn 90, and nobody has asked me that yet, but I\u2019ve been thinking about it.  I\u2019m guessing I\u2019ve survived this long thanks to…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Turning 90<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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