Being old is awful… or is it?

By Tim Henney
Reader Contributor

“One never knows, do one.” 

— Fats Waller

Other than outliving dear family members and cherished longtime friends (and dogs) the worst thing about being old are medical maladies. About two years ago my 1957 bride lapsed into dementia. Today she remembers nothing of our storybook 67 wedded years or its romance-on-steroids 1956 prelude, zooming top-down in a Brit roadster up and down Pacific Coast Highway to Lake Arrowhead, to sports car races in Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and other sunny Edens before they were overrun by the likes of us. 

She hasn’t any memories of our mid-’50s Block Island wedding or bohemian Greenwich Village apartment; or summer vacations in tents and canoes on a Vermont wilderness lake; or summers with dearest friends at their waterfront Cape Cod cottage; or exploring España and gorging on paella on a Mediterranean beach with hog-farmer pals from rural Illinois — a state in which we lived twice. 

Jacquelynn cannot remember her parents, her siblings or starting her own family; or happy decades of tennis; or racing sailboats on Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island; or sailing on the Mississippi. If one of our senior citizen kids recalls family Caribbean adventures, my bride smiles yet remembers nothing. 

She sleeps all night and much of most days. She can’t cook or shower or dress herself, or recall losing her dad and youngers brothers whom she virtually reared — aged 9 and 11 — in a raging Bermuda Triangle storm when their wooden schooner splintered and sank. 

“So the proverbial glass half full or half empty is dry as a bone?” 

Not quite. “Mumsie” (to family) has never been happier. For starters, having dementia means you don’t know it. Or remember tragedies. She roars with laughter at Seinfeld reruns even though she doesn’t know what they’re shouting about. She spends hours trimming and conversing with wilting roses from bouquets received weekly. When the dry silverware cage from the dishwasher is placed in front of her she meticulously separates the utensils, muttering happily to each fork, knife and spoon. When presented with a stack of finished laundry, she folds each item with the care given a baby bird who fell from the nest, murmuring softly to every stocking. 

Speaking of which, while being chauffeured around Sandpoint, Mumsie counts the same bird nests along tree-lined streets day after day in the belief that all are new. 

We have for many years had two cuddly cats: Maestro and Bootsie. Bootsie adored Mumsie, and vice versa. When Bootsie stopped eating and vanished, as cats often do when tossing in the towel, Mumsie simply assumed Maestro was Bootsie. Easy-peasy. 

Perhaps most importantly, my mate loves being social and is amusingly so. Hard of hearing, her humor is unintentional. At the downtown Tango Table, to which she often accompanies me for camaraderie with pals, someone might say, “Then some bird flew up to the perch.” She will ask, in total earnestness, “Did you say, ‘Then some turd threw up in church?’” And hysterical colleagues almost tumble from their chairs. Things at Tango and at home are happiest when Mumsie is there. 

But let’s be fair. I too have issues. About the time Jackie sank into dementia my kidneys, feeling ignored, up and quit. Subsequently I started thrice weekly dialysis visits; three to four hours per trip, ensnared in one of 12 repeatedly rubbed and scrubbed chairs — each connected to a purified blood-cleansing computer with super-size needles, tubes, bandages and sometimes a bit of blood — and first requiring surgically inserted catheters or fistulas. 

A blood-cleansing computer instead of kidneys? Yes, and one that squawks, screams, squeals, screeches, shrieks, beeps, burps, chirps, honks and hollers. 

How my kidney-less colleagues can spend their penance in slumber is baffling. Most weary patients bring blankets in preparation for a needed nap. Some show up in pajamas. They know the drill, because when I finish a treatment I can barely walk or talk.

Because kidneys are dependent upon every other vessel, valve, vein, muscle, mineral, bone and artery, the thoroughly trained technicians and RNs who keep us alive are constantly attentive to a legion of medical factors, which they tweak continually on the intimidating machines. Fluids measurement is a priority. As is blood pressure, which enjoys such prestige in the dialysis hierarchy that its own armband is attached to its own arm — the unpunctured one. 

“And so dialysis, you poor thing, is a torture chamber!” 

Well, no. Let me tell you about little old men with crapped-out kidneys and canes. Little old ladies compete to open the door for me at the liquor store, the drug store, the post office, the liquor store, the grocery store, Image Maker, the liquor store, the bank, Di Luna’s Cafe, wherever. If my cane slips from the grocery cart and clatters to the floor, fellow shoppers compete to retrieve it. Also, as luck (and brilliant planning) would have it, loving family members who live next door mow our lawn, shovel our snow, fix our toilets, chop firepit wood, plant and tend the garden, lug recycling out to the curb, dump the cat litter, watch over Mumsie when I’m away and keep things humming. 

Even if we don’t play tennis, travel or have backyard horses or a boat, nursing a margarita in our cozy patio while watching chickadees bitch at one another at the bird feeders is compensation. The secret to a joyful antique life is to slow down, scale back and simplify. And join the collegiality at a dialysis clinic. 

“Excuse me?” 

The gentleness, professionalism and wit of technicians Allyssa, Ashley, Ashlyn, Kris, Elisa, Zoe and their pinch hitters easily outweighs treatment discomforts. This veteran of military, collegiate and corporate organizations, and of later nonprofit and university boards, cannot recall a staff so disciplined, so gifted and so content with their task: saving 24 lives every day. The managing office RN in my dialysis clinic sets by example the attitudes and skills of her technicians. For one thing, she’s “been there, done that.” For another, she’s a natural “tough love” leader. Moreover, she is very much liked by those she leads. In 30 years among corporate managers I found that to be somewhat uncommon. (I once ran a national corporate PR organization and it was whispered that some employees didn’t like me. What? Malicious idle gossip!).

The task of a dialysis team is to keep patients healthy and happy. They do so with aplomb. Thanks in large measure to them, my cup runneth over. And Mumsie’s, too.