I Always Eat Dessert

This week’s TIME magazine has.a long section on aging.  “How to Live to 147.”  It said I could add years to my life by proper diet and exercise.  Then I picked up the current issue of The Week and found a special report on retirement. 

All this information is too late for me.  I am already old.  Next month I will be 87.  I  “retired” when I was 54.  I never expected to live this long.  I had breast cancer.  When the doctor came in after the mastectomy and told me the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, I thought it was a death sentence.  That was 25 years ago, and I am still here.  Seven years ago I was told I had “end stage kidney disease.”  That made me reevaluate how I wanted to spend the time I have left. 

Some things can not be avoided.  I have been on dialysis for six years. I am used to sitting in a recliner three days each week with my left arm attached to that machine.  That’s when I read magazines.  I can not travel any more.  I make the most of every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

All that advice about proper diet can be tossed out as it applies to me.  Because of the kidneys I must avoid high potassium foods.  That means no potatoes, no beans, no fresh fruit.  The only vegetables that are low in potassium are lettuce, cucumbers, eggplant, and green beans.  I was told to eat white bread and avoid whole wheat.  I should not eat avocados or asparagus, but sometimes I cheat.  I am not diabetic.  I always eat dessert.  

As for exercise, in this new place where I live my apartment is such long way from the dining room that I take a walk every time I go to lunch or supper.  I march along on my own two legs.  I don’t use a walker -- not yet.

I live in a retirement home with other old people.  Everyone has some sort of health problem. 
People must face the truth: bodies wear out.  The lucky ones are those who may be creeping about with a walker or zipping along in an electric wheelchair but whose minds are still alert.  It frightened me when I could not remember names, but my psychiatrist said it was all right if I remembered later. .

Here’s what I want to tell to young people: Take care of your health and you will grow old.  And when you are old you will have lots of aches and pains.  You will have arthritis and cataracts and become hard of hearing.  Then you will take pain killers, get artificial lenses in your eyes, and pay a fortune for hearing aids to put in your ears. 

And life will still be good.  I always eat dessert.