"When I get older, losing my hair...many years from now...

First, a big thank you to David at authorblog for selecting my last post as PTD on July 13th, and to Braja, at lostandfoundinindia who nominated my post for this award. Thank you Braja; your words are most inspirational.

Then, sixty+ people showed up to comment. I had no idea the topic would be of such interest to young and old alike.

As Paul McCartney asks in his song,"... will you still love me,.. will you still feed me when I am sixtyfour? ...doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more....",his words resonate with us even more as we approach the sixties, and the seventies, and the eighties. Yes, we ask the same questions, but we are asking for more than he did.

We age, but still want to look as young as we looked in our prime, as active as we were in our teens, and as ardent as we were on our honeymoon. And pharmacies are providing us with our wants. In a few years more of us will be reaching retirement age, and we have great expectations for those years.

Last week, the Associated Press medical writer Lauran Neergaard reported on Diet and Aging in our local paper, relaying a study conducted on the effect of a reduced calorie diet on the life of rhesus monkeys. The results showed that the primates on the diet lived longer and healthier than those not on the diet. The results of this study may have application for us humans. (Science Journal).

Who knew?

When we were little, our mothers worried about having enough food to feed all of us in the family. We were always hungry, never truly full. We dreamed of banquets, tea parties, and growing up with jobs that paid enough to purchase all the food we wanted.

When I became a mother, I worried about what to feed my children. The baby food section in the supermarket displayed beautiful healthy babies on powder milk and on little-bitsy jars of fruit and mashed vegetables. None of the food tasted appetizing. But, I wanted my children to have the very best. Though I prepared baby food many times in my kitchen, I never felt it was as nutritious as the food Gerber sold.

Each generation has worried about nutrition. But today, we are obsessed about our bodies, about dieting,about looking thin.

And while we worry and fret and go on diets, more and more people are diagnosed with diabetes, obesity, heart disease, various cancers. We are bombarded on television with an array of possible diseases for which there are pills, I might add, diseases that we never heard of. Did you know about restless legs syndrome?


Our understanding of how our lifestyle and health are interrelated is still in the Middle Ages.
Am I the only one confused out here?

Accommodations.

When we last visited our doctor, yes, hubby and I have the same primary physician, he gave us his diagnosis straight up. Then, he added, "There are millions of Americans walking around with the same disease, and don't know it."
Thanks, that made us feel so much better.

He was talking about Type 2 Diabetes. Elevated blood sugar seems to be a morbid condition that affects many people and they don't know they have it. Once we have this disease, it will slowly get worse. What we can do is to make various changes in our diet and lifestyle to slow down the damage that has already begun. It seems that all organs are now unionized against and no amount of mediation will change their course of action.

The pharmacist was a bit more upbeat, telling us that he too had the disease, but hey, ten years after the initial diagnosis and he still does not have to inject insulin. I gulped, twice. Injections? Oh no! I faint at the sight of needles. When my children had needed shots someone else had to take them to the doctor. When I needed shots, they had to cover my eyes, and then get me supine for an hour or so before I could walk normally again.

We went to classes. We learned about dieting, measuring and reading labels for every spoonful of food we ingest. No more runs to Dairy Queen for a Milk-Shake-Delux. No more pasta, pizza and other steaks to celebrate our golden years. Hubby learned about measuring his blood glucose. My turn will come soon enough, I was told.

So, I cleaned up an entire bathroom for hubby's comfort. We used to brush our teeth together at the end of the day. No more. He has to be alone to do his needling. I moved my make-up and tooth-cleaning components into my bathroom. His bathroom is bigger and has better lighting, and longer counters for all the paraphernalia. I do need to learn about needles though; I'm right behind him, the doctor had said, suggesting I could very well hit the mark as I write this. Then, with all that fainting I'd have to give up blogging.

There is one good part about all this. We are finally on the same page regarding diet and exercise. I don't have to cook two different meals. One can be split and eaten by two. And we need to maintain our muscle tone and expand energy, daily, rain or shine. That treadmill has to come out of the garage and face the television with the rest of the family, and we can save some money and do our own tree and lawn maintenance.

Thank God I still enjoy cooking, or this new accommodation could send me over that watery ramp.