MPNforum Magazine

All too often I responded quickly and foolishly without reading carefully. Usually there is as much or more said between the lines as on them and sometimes it’s about our losses.

Our MPN posts are like a two way street. We give something and expect
to get something in return. We post in order to fill many different
needs and expectations. Some posts are to soften a loss. There’s a
similarity of loss with the disabled or retired regardless of the
vocation and station in life they left behind, whether due to age,
disability, sickness or finances or being voted out of office.

Regardless of individual situations the so-called golden years are usually tarnished with losses. Financial security helps to extinguish the fading embers of our losses, but doesn’t quench them –financialinsecurity just adds a double whammy. We each suffer different lossesof course, but a major one in our retirement or disabled years is loss of self esteem as we are forced to accept a diminishing change from
meeting the needs of others to having our needs met by others.

I once played semi-pro baseball and single handed a 30 ft. sloop, now spinal stenosis and diabetic neuropathy plus the wear and tear of 90+ active years won’t let me stand or walk for five minutes without sitting down. I once had a thriving practice, now I sit and wait and wait interminably in someone else’s waiting room.

In our final years or with an overwhelming disability when the gold
has worn off our lives and only the base metal remains, transitioning
from eating steak and enjoying wine to swallowing mush and ‘blue-john’
has no savor. I’ve seen many very old, very weak people in some of the
best nursing homes slowly starving due to their meals consisting of
gruel served with a turkey baster or left on the bedside table uneaten
during their four hour waking days, before their twenty hour ‘nights’
of zonked out sedation that makes life easier for the staff.

Pay attention to them spiritually as well as physically. Relieve their
pain with loving care, not just morphine. Get them out of bed and out
and about instead of tied into a chair to slip under the straps all
crumpled up and sprawled on the floor (did I mention that exercise
isn’t just for the young and vigorous anymore).

Give them something to do and think about. Fix their failed vision and inadequate dentition, provide them with something to read that interests them and try meat and vegetables that are identifiable as such instead of pureed mystery mash. Don’t forget the joys and rejuvinations of petting animals and watching children.

Touching even hugging isn’t infectious. You won’t catch despair, pain or bed ridden disability from treating those at the other end’ of life with a large dose of love and an infusion of respect as a worthy adult. Talk to them as one adult to another.

Easy for me to say, but you might be surprised.

We all know and want to deny that if we live long enough, loss  is
inevitable and these losses can never be recovered. The finality is
the worst of it yet we humans yearn to retain or return to our past
glories. The elderly, retired or disabled try to compensate for their
lost dignity and self worth by many devices.

Witness the many retirees on volunteer boards, commissions, blogs, advocacy lists and club offices with their insecure grasping for lost respect disguised by posturing self importance, recounting of past positions and strict enforcing of Robert’s Rules of order.

Need I mention the determined guarding of MPN list multiple rules and regulations imposed or made a requirement for belonging.. Yes, it’s quite true that retiree volunteers serve a purpose and meet a need, but it’s the same two way street of giving something and expecting to get something in return. All too often the exchange is unbalanced and the equation favors the giving over the getting. If the younger and more vigorous seem to do all the giving and receive little in return, I suggest that they reread the posts of the old, sick and disabled very carefully before answering.

Maybe put on their shoes and shuffle in them slowly and painfully for a while before answering.

Best, Arch

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© Dr. Arch M. and MPNforum.com, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Dr. Arch M. and MPNforum.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.