WHO SAYS I’M OLD?

It’s starts with something little. “Cash or credit, ma’am?” You look around wondering with whom they are speaking. Not me, I’m no ma’am yet! In fact, I never plan to be a ma’am. But somewhere between ma’am and “Can I help you with that?” the label OLD is applied. When I let my hair grow in white, for the first time in my life men stopped giving me a second look. “White hair, not interesting, not interested.” And yet, an article on publishing my thirteenth romantic suspense had just appeared in the local paper.

North American society has taken to ageism, and it’s no longer gender biased. It used to be only females who had a use by date on them. Recently a 79-year-old man told me, “My family perceives me as old, because I look, move and communicate a tad differently than I did before, but so do they year to year. Now, I might as well be in a different room, because I cease to exist. They think I have nothing left to offer.”

My daughter visited this spring when I had an ill spell. Her loving heart just wanted to nurse me back to health, but by the time she left I felt like I should be checked into a long-term care home. While I saw myself recuperating and back in my kayak, she pictured me in a wheelchair heading for helpless.

I am told as a boomer I am an albatross around the necks of the younger generations. By sheer numbers our needs outweigh the declining tax base following us. Our children and grandchildren carry the weight of covering the costs of the hospital beds, doctors, and long-term care facilities we will need. I feel I should apologize for living too long and becoming an inconvenience to them. Yet, along with a large percentage of boomers I am still in my home, looking after my needs, supporting charities and paying taxes. Boomers are still volunteering and doing the jobs our younger generation won’t, including raising their children. We are valuable mentors, sharing our vast treasure chest of knowledge with others.

Giving a workshop on writing to a middle school class.

I am inundated with stories about what will happen to me as I age — threatened with a long, slow degenerative process. But I don’t have to wait for it – my God! All I need do is pick up a magazine and scare myself to death. Now!

So why am I letting the media freak me out now? For years I lived in a constant state of act and react, twitching like a frightened rabbit when I read butter will kill me – olive oil is the way to go. No sooner do I adjust to cooking with olive oil, than I am informed the white bread I’ve been eating for the last 50 years (a particular favourite, let me add) brings me closer to death with each bite. Face it I’m a goner, I conclude, as I shift to whole grain everything.

Years ago, I became a member of the I’m going to die a long, slow, nasty death club. I bought subscriptions to magazines that forecast every catastrophe that could or would happen to me. I  tuned my television into show on aging that left me unable to sleep at night and turned up the volume on my car radio when a guest starts talking about the statistics around heart attack. I force fed myself the latest results in science and technology, which are moving so fast there is a nonstop production line of them. What’s with our world, that instead of encouraging people to put the good stories out there, we all demand ‘conflict and drama?’ One of the advantages of attaining considerable years is pooh poohing the fear mongering the media pitches.

Where’s the story about the 92-year-old driving his 86-year-old wife to the restaurant for dinner?  Where’s the story about the 94-year-old who flies to Victoria to golf with his daughter? Or the 102-year-old who learned how to run the computer in his long-time care facility and makes customized greeting cards for the staff and live-ins? They exist – I know these people, who are trucking along with a few physical failings. They’re living large, because they refuse to see aging as a scary Ghost saying, “BOO! Your mortality is showing!”

Mortality is part of my birth package. Late at night it comes to visit. But it didn’t scare six-year-old me from climbing to the top of the highest slide. Or frighten me away when I did a solo paddle down the South Saskatchewan. So why, at age seventy-five would I say, “I’m too old. I better not.”

Many of my peers insist they still feel like they’re thirty. I know I do. The energy inside me determines my age, not chronological time. Turning 75 this year didn’t stop me from doing a headstand or driving to BC to kayak two new lakes. It hasn’t stopped me from hiking the hills at the Landing, or driving into Saskatoon to shop and visit friends. I can keep up with my yoga instructor, and spend days on my feet baking for family.

I just came back from downhill skiing at Panorama. I fell a couple of times, but still bounce and keep going. We’re lacking snow this winter, but as soon we get enough of the white stuff I’ll be out on my snowshoes and x-county skis. Winter bonfires with friends – you  bet!

Instead of wasting time imagining how horrific it will be to depend on a pacemaker to keep my heart ticking, to lose my faculties to a stroke or my toes to diabetes, I’m better served filling my life with the eight habits studies show are consistent life style choices in our octogenarians.

I have a good chance of living a long life. The average age is now 81.75 years. Many people I know are centenarians. I met a woman from NL who lived to 107 years old. I think of all she packed into her life, and the quality I can bring to mine. The exciting conclusion is I have so much more I can learn and give. I am enthusiastic about the years I have left, because I’ve already learned one of life’s profound teachings. The best path to longevity is loving and being loved

A study done on octogenarians listed seven qualities that are common in their long, rich lives. These masters of living:

1. Accept and trust life, don’t beat your head against it.
2. Find humor in the situation, there is always some.
3. Wake up each day with a purpose.
4. Have faith in mankind.
5. Balance your life spiritually, mentally, physically.
6. Build a support group with people of every age and type.
7. Be willing to take risks – get out there and live.
8. Give something back.

STRETCHING YOUR WINDOW OF GENEROSITY

There is a small window of time when the world erupts with giving. What is it that causes this massive move toward generosity for a few weeks on either side of Christmas? Much of it comes from Christian teaching of the Christ story turned into family traditions passed down through hundreds of years. It is impressed on us that at Christmas you look outward and give. One must assume in these days of crass consumerism we are driven to it by a hundred commercials interrupting our radios, TV, and social network platforms, by advertisements blazing at us from store displays, and other people bringing up the subject of Christmas shopping. I believe a vast increase in charitable giving happens because people are gathering last-minute deductible expenses for their income tax. Oh, how our purse strings open when we think we will get something back for our spending – generosity indeed.

During a recent meditation, the leader spoke of generosity and led us in an exercise about feeling generosity for someone we liked. This wasn’t about buying a gift or sending an e-transfer. We were asked to imagine all the things we would want for that person. Want to try it now? Happiness – can you picture the smile on a person’s face when they do something they love? Can you imagine how good they feel when paid a compliment, or the sense of safety words of reassurance would bring them?

We would all be better, the world would be a more peaceful place if we exercised this type of generosity throughout the year, expelling into the universe quantities of good thoughts, words and actions toward a loved one, ourselves, a stranger on the street. I think one of the most generous acts of all would be if we could stop judging using old biases to make hasty decisions around people, situations, world events. I catch myself in a miserly frame of mind mentally criticizing someone I perceive as slovenly, or people ambivalent to others’ needs, or oblivious to what is going on around them while they inconvenience everyone else (I even judge myself harshly for this).

Feeling compassion or love and reaching out is part of the human design. Being aware of these feelings is the first step to acting on them. Generosity is smiling at a passerby, giving a kind word to a friend, or a compliment to the man fueling your vehicle.

So back to that small window of time. Let’s expand it from a few weeks to fifty-two. And while we’re at it let’s grow our awareness so we take in the people around us who could use a little generosity and catch ourselves when we’re judging. The world is imploding, in the Middle east, eastern Europe, and our neighbour to the south. Add in the catastrophe’s caused by global warming and there is nowhere we look that isn’t facing huge challenges. We may cope with them by judging, hiding, or ignoring the reality. We would be better served if we made these things wake-up calls for generous thoughts and acts. We all want world peace. I believe, opening our hearts and pouring out generosity is the only way we’ll make it happen.

A TRUE LOVE

In three days, my husband and I fly to Ontario to attend a Celebration of Life for our son, Ryan, who died August 6. It will be a tribute put together by his wife and the military, attended by friends, members of his military family, and close family who want an opportunity to say goodbye to a man who touched and changed their lives. I anticipate experiencing an emotional gambit from sorrow to joy but will find and keep the joy.

Part of the happiness will come from spending time with my two granddaughters. On this occasion I am taking them each a small but meaningful gift. It is a photo of their parents before the girls were born. The love Ryan and Lisa feel for each other shines out of the picture, and will find its way into my granddaughter’s hearts, and remind them of what they observed of their parents’ relationship. Ryan and Lisa sacrificed for each other throughout their lives, taking turns as one  put an opportunity for advancement, or left a place they’d prefer to live, or turned down an exciting experience in order to help the other reach a goal. And they gave generously to each other through the twenty-three years of their marriage, demonstrating the value they placed in their partner with spa days and roses, an archery set and tickets to a NFL game, a warm kiss or a joyful smile. What they had is rare. I never met a couple more ‘together’.

When Ryan became ill with pancreatic cancer, Lisa took every step of his treatment, illness, pain and suffering with him. And Ryan found the strength to face that evil disease with grace and humour and led her through the agony of lost hopes and futures with tremendous courage.

I hope, for the rest of their lives, the girls will use their photo as a symbol of what can only be described as true love, and will look for and emulate that love in their own relationships.

I, too, have a photo of Ryan and Lisa, because even after fifty-three years of marriage, I need the reminder that love is sacrifice, compromise, generosity, compassion, all giving – and eternal.

THE PERFECT PADDLE

Moyie Lake. We’d driven by it many times on our way to the coast. I would look at it as the car sped by and say, “I think that would be a great lake to paddle.” “Too much wind,” my husband would comment. “Those long thin lakes running between mountain ranges form a wind tunnel.” He knows I don’t like rough water.

With a sister living in Invermere my opportunity finally comes. “I’m coming out to paddle with you.” I speak with excitement over the phone. “Pick two new lakes for us to conquer.” Moyie is her first choice.

We drive the 160 km south from Invermere on good roads, ending at the south end of the lake, where we had been told there was a boat launch. As we drive in we find we are entering a private resort. Brashly my husband continues past the Private Property, No Public Access signs to the water’s edge where we discover an awkward looking launch and three men loading a boat for winterizing. They tell us there is a provincial park at the north end of Moyie with a good boat launch and declare it is the best part of the lake to paddle. Back we go to the park we’d passed, where a twisting and poorly signed road leads us eventually to a good boat launch with several cottages on either side.

I looked down the length of the lake, several kilometres. The water is glass smooth. On the west side high cliffs of striated rock rise from it’s mirror like surface. The lake is so clear I can see layers of broken rock like a multi tiered necklace lining the steep walls, where for thousands of years rock has peeled away pried by the harsh temperatures of winter and the stunning summer heat. A small flurry of wind ruffles the water as I push off. Torn between wanting to paddle a glassy surface, but knowing a breeze would alleviate the 26-degree temperature, I head out along the west side, my sister paddling just behind me.

Two young men on Sea-Doos set off right on our tail. Oh, no, I think. We’ll have not just the noise disturbing our paddle but the rocking of quartering waves as they turned in a flurry of circles. But after a half dozen reckless spins they head off toward the east shoreline, where grassy hills lead up to a railway track and above it the highway. Indeed, all of the motorized boats kept to the east side of the lake to avoid the rocks.

My sister takes pictures as much as she paddles. Photos of moss-covered trees overhanging the water – their lime green curving branches a strong contrast to the hard edge of the stone. Which, by the way, is my favourite element of nature. I just love rock. So, I spend a lot of my time awed by the many layers of white and beige sandstone crushed to narrow strips by the weight of granite and basalt. Huge slabs tilt on crazy angle, squeezed out of seams enlarged by thousands of years of contraction and expansion, they hang precariously, ready to fall at any second.

The layers of rock under the water are just as fascinating, forming petal like curves along the cliffs, layer upon layer leading further into the lake. The sun shines, cool water flows under my bow, birds flit through the trees. The soft swish of my paddle rising and lowering whispers through gathering silence. I am in the zone.

We meet several other paddlers along the way. Women, like us, enjoying exercise in nature. Breathing in clean air, beauty and the many freedoms Canada provides. We chat across the crystal surface, learning things about the lake, weather and women.

We eat our lunch on a fallen tree sand blasted to smoothness by wind and ice. I have more trouble getting out and into my canoe, as I formed the habit of launching and landing bow in, whereas my sister more often loads parallel to the shoreline. I choose a patch of shallow water over several large flat slabs of rock, rather than the many jagged smaller pieces. Awkwardly, I clamour out, anticipating a hasty swim at any second. I believe my awkward egress, and ingress after a tasty picnic, is the only imperfection on the day. Easy drive, pristine waters, fascinating scenery, great paddling companion. Moyie, my idea of perfection.
Photo by B.L. Thrasher

THERE’S NO GOING BACK

Last week I spent four days in Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon – my alma mater. From 1979 to 1986 I fought death there for months at a time. The staff became my family, my safety net, so that when I did recoup from a surgery going home was a scary proposition.

Having experienced for several years the brokenness of our health care system, when I was informed I must re-enter RUH for diagnosis and treatment, I imagined the worst-case scenario anticipating the situation couldn’t possibly be that bad, so the experience would seem good in contrast. That bad it was! With so many patients in the ER the resident ended up examining my abdomen at the end of a public waiting room, screened only by my husband’s body. An hour and half in, I finally lay on a gurney in an open cubicle for my ECG. Minutes later I was back in my wheelchair in the waiting room, because they needed the gurney for the next person. Finally, they announced they had a cubicle in ER for me and I was moved into a curtained area, where I collapsed on a horizontal surface for the first time in hours. Twenty minutes later, I was told someone sicker than me needed it and I was being sent over to the ER in the old hospital basement. Once there they maneuvered me into a small corner. One wall was frosted glass floor to ceiling, the nurses station closed off the opposite side, and along the bottom where curtain areas with other patients hidden from view. However, this did not save me from hearing their detailed health problems as recounted to doctors and nurses throughout the day, and gave me no privacy for answering the staff’s many personal questions.

I settled myself in my snug corner as sunlight filled the window and felt I could be safe tucked away there for the next couple of days until my MRI took place. But at 12:30 am I am informed I am being moved up to a ward. “No,” I said, “I want to stay here.” “You can’t stay here this is for ER patients you have to go up.”

Now staying in a multi bed ward was my worst nightmare. I have a real phobia of being in an enclosed place full of strangers. You should see me on an airplane! However, they tucked me into the far corner of a three-bed ward. The other two patients across from me, where basically comatose, and I had the bathroom all to myself, so thought, “This isn’t so bad.” The next afternoon I am told I am being moved again, some man needs that space. “Why can’t you put him where you are planning to move me?” “He needs more care giving than you.” That will teach me to do as much as possible for myself to save work for the staff! I took a stand. “I’m not moving. I feel safe here and all these changes are too stressful.” Two hours later I had the administrator of the floor apologizing but telling me firmly I was being moved.

Now I am in a four-bed ward that has had a fifth bed squeezed into the middle of the side I’m on. My bed is right at the main door to the room, in fact the door can’t be closed because it is caught behind the small space I have. I’m pushed far beyond any protection from a curtain and lie exposed like a beached whale for everyone passing or entering. The bathroom is right across from me, and for the next twenty-four hours, my male neighbour and I run a silent and intense competition around who gets there first, every hour on the hour. I get up in the dark and do my wash and change in a corner of my room, sans door or curtain.

I call my tiny space the mousehole, and getting the door partially closed to block one side, and a curtain pulled across the end of my bed, settle in. At this point, I expected to be screaming, “Get me out of here.” Instead, a miracle happens. I start seeing the humour in everything. My creepy neighbour becomes, Raymond, someone I can take an interest in, as he peeks through the slit in the folding screen between us. The constant change of people being added or removed from the ward, produces dramas such as two hours of a woman gossiping nonstop to a nurse in the middle of the night, a man who refuses to wear earbuds on his TV and forces us all to listen to baseball games all afternoon and exploding bombs of a war movie at night. Requests for quiet from staff so the rest of us can sleep, last only if they are in the room, then up goes the volume again. Across from me another man moves in. He is deaf. The nurses are forced to yell at him “Are you in pain? Etc. etc. through the night. They could have a bull horn and get no answer, but the rest of us sacrifice the tiny chance of sleep we have.

Maybe being sleep deprived helped me find the humour, my body flooded with adrenaline, from unending fight or flight response, provided me an opportunity that brought me home feeling a better version of me.

My MRI took place the next day, not without complications. However, my specialist received enough information to advice me on the best course of action, and I had already done my due diligence on the options available to me moving forward. Amazingly, the special course of medication was found in a small clinic in Saskatoon and sent up to the hospital just for me. Warned it might take days to get it, I suddenly found myself receiving a quickie course in how to inject myself subcutaneously and being released that afternoon.

So, after four days that seem like a surreal experience, a mystifying dream from which I’ve woken, I am elated to be in my home by the river, buzzed up on Prednisone and racing about like a monkey on speed.

My old home at RUH is no longer a haven, but a sprawling spew of chaos. The sheer size of the hospital, with the children’s hospital added on, along with several other floors that were built after my initial stay makes getting around not only intimidating, but a marathon workout. Over forty years there are massive changes, in size, numbers, and systems; but several stood out: there is a much higher percentage of male nurses, there is a wide variety in ethnicity of the staff, who have In common, their caring, and frustration in not being able to give the time they wish to their patient. They spend more time moving them around than making them comfortable. I am most grateful for the expertise, sensitivity and good energy they brought to all our encounters.

Our overcrowded hospitals have mastered one skill since the demands of covid. Triage rules. The constant relocation of patients a driving force. Most decisions to move a patient happen on rounds later in the day. This means the patients are almost always moved in the middle of the night, as it takes cleaning staff hours to sterilize the cubicles and equipment for the newest occupant. So, more fodder for humour, as an entire ward of exhausted patients put up with the lights, noise, and personal information thrust upon them at 2:15 am by the arrival of the newest occupant. You don’t go to a hospital to rest.

My next-cubicle neighbour and I are eyeing the bathroom door. Who will win? Whether I’m first in or not, I know I’ll have a grin on my face. Hospital turned out to be a hoot!

Opening myself to the experience those last two days proved so much more beneficial than my earlier attempt to isolate and keep my protective wall in place. With awareness came gratitude. How could I complain about my mousehole, when there were dozens of patients who didn’t have a bed, thousands of Canadians who don’t have a doctor and millions of people around the world who can’t get treatment? I was blessed indeed.

Coming from this new perspective I could laugh at what days ago would have disgusted, frightened or turned me judgemental. Where else could I listen to a woman talking about her bloody stool while I tried to eat my lunch; or smile at the irony of five milk-based foods on my tray marked “no dairy”? Where else could you have a nurse shout at a room full of visitors “Do you know how much he weighs? Do you know his height?” When they can’t answer, and the man can’t hear you think they’d pull out a writing pad. Instead, the nurse goes by my bed muttering, “I’m saying he’s 5’8” a hundred and eighty pounds, so tough.”

Reps from the physio department and abilities centre are now interrogating me about my needs. Can I manage at home. Can I walk on my own? Can I climb stairs? They want to take me for a trial test. I leave the woman in the dust as I stride down the hall, up and down a stairwell and back to my room. I’m no ancient lady who needs a pole to pull herself out of bed. That they think I might be incurs a stream of silent laughter that delights my mind. I will recover fully, paddle the river, ski the hills. Time and will power have proven me right many times. I have total faith that forty years after my first victory I am in an even stronger position to combat Crohn’s, for I have a more powerful weapon in my arsenal — humour.

MY ANNAPURNA

I feel like an anomaly, raised on a flat piece of prairie when I have a climber buried deep in my spirit. Rocks — pebbles to boulders and great towering peaks of granite attract me. As a young girl, I found my greatest thrills climbing the Couteau Hills around Clearwater Lake through the summer and the small curves at Eagle Creek the rest of the year.
Since, I feed my spirit with stories of other climbers and great climbs; and been fortunate to draw from an extensive library on the subject put together by my brother, who did roam from the flat prairie to the top of mountains around the world. Recently, he lent me Ed Viesturs autobiography No Shortcut to the Top. A high-attitude climber, Ed was the 5th person to climb all 2800s the 14 tallest mountains in the world without supplemental oxygen.

Ed, who also grew up in central United States  not a lot of mountains) had his interest piqued, as a young man, by reading Annapurna by Maurice Herzag, who describes the first summitting of a 2800 by a French team in 1950. Lured by the exciting account, yet, with no experience in high mountain climbing, Ed spent the next ten years honing his craft by guiding amateur climbers in the Mt. Rannier area and creatively attaching to international teams who had permits in place to attempt the bigger forays on Everest and others. He’d been climbing for several years and had conquered six of the 2800s before he set a goal to summit all fourteen.

Now you wonder why I am going on about climbing while I sit in a hospital bed 5:30 am unable to sleep for all the noise around me. I clearly see Ed and I had equally meaningful goals on which to focus. Over the next ten years Ed met his, but with many setbacks. Often his summits were cut short at the last stage because of other climbers who would not survive getting down without his help. Sometimes dangerous snow conditions on that last tantalizing slope meant he had to turn back. Often the effort of planning, putting together the perfect team, obtaining the correct permits, finding sponsors, stockpiling equipment and sending it around the world, setting up base camp and auxiliary camp sites for the last push and a safe descent, ended in a failed attempt. A challenge for the next try. Dealing with a chronic disease that seems intent on putting many obstacles in my way provides similar preparedness and flexibility. Above all it requires knowing the end goal–good health and determining to take every step you can to get there.

Though Annapurna was the first 28er Ed dreamed about it became the last he summitted. His attempt of the north face solo in 2000 and was turned back 350 feet short of the final peak. He tried the east ridge in 2002, ran short of time and chose getting down safely to the glory of the summit. For an hour in 2005 he stood on top of Annapurna and looked across the Himalayas and Napal at other the towering peaks in he had stood upon. Ed does not say he conquers a mountain, rather, he believes the mountain decides if it will let you succeed. This philosophy is now applied to my health care, as I no longer feel bullying and pushing my body to perform will bring me success. I listen and work with my body at what it tells me it needs.

Now a keynote speaker much in demand, Ed shares his philosophy and what kept him alive when so many others died. In all his climbs he is one of the few who did not lose fingers or toes to frostbite. “Getting up is optional. Getting down is mandatory,” he tells his fascinated listeners. This is his bed rock motto. If he does not reach the summit by his designated time he turns back, refusing to be caught up in the euphoria that take so many other climbers past their final bit of energy so they freeze to death on the mountain with no strength left to descend. He turns short of his goal, knowing retreat and lessons learned this time is a higher guarantee of success the next.

The last line of Herzag’s book is, “There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men.” Ed Viesturs builds on this theme as he talks to corporate executives striving to grow their companies, a group of young people searching for their place in the world, a ward of cancer patients fighting to meet their goal of remission and survivor. I relate, having gone through the first of several Annapurna’s in my life. Granted some, where forty years ago. Today I make my climb again as Crohn’s attacks my body. I am certain, like Ed, I will be turned back at times by treatments that don’t work. I can take only one step at a time, focused and fully aware of the dangers around me. I may settle for never quite reaching my summit or find the glory of looking down with elation on the world of good health spread below me. Acceptance is one of the hardest and best lessons I’ve learned.

I do know, like Ed, my wins are short spurts of focused energy supported by a great team of health care workers, family and friends. And I feel I have an advantage over many facing their own Annapurna for the first time, for I know I have found the strength, endurance, resilience and will to make successful climbs in the past. Thank you, Ed, for the exciting descriptions of your attempts, failures and successes.

Getting up is optional. We have little control over the disease attacking our body, but the belief at some point our body will decide we are worthy of victory. Getting down is mandatory. We do have control over when we make that all important turn – challenge the mountain and possibly die or get down so you can try again. Going down Is creating a different lifestyle for myself, it can be even better if I discard my tunnel vision on a fixed route and try the one that looks best this time around. Ed doesn’t talk of challenging the mountain and beating it. He builds a relationship with the mountain and lives by its rules. May you all recognize and manage your own climb on Annapurna. It can become the best learning experience of your life.

WHERE IS M?

She isn’t dashing from window to window checking wind speeds at six in the morning. Her kayak lies dry in its rack.

She isn’t standing at her stove, pouring boiling chokecherry jelly into jars; or chopping vegetables at the counter for the homemade soups she lovingly crafts, a recipe rebel.

She isn’t kneeling in front of a rock bed in the yard picking leaves from between their jagged teeth. Nor is she sitting on the back deck laughing at an industrious sparrow taking his morning shower in her birdbath.

She isn’t at her desk. Her laptop lolls a dusty witness proclaiming productivity nil. A half-made puzzle splatters a table, the pieces scattered and isolated like the bits that make up M.

Step lightly across the hardwood floor and peek around the edge of the double door into the bedroom. Is that M curled on the bed, her breathe a reassuring rise and fall? Is she asleep or enclosed in an imagined sanctuary, a sandy alcove on a private stream where she can float in cool water and dream.