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The View From
Ninety
By
Chalmers M. Roberts
The Washington Post, January
23, 2001
Chalmers Roberts, 90, shares a moment with his wife, Lois.
He spends most of his time caring for Lois whose mobility is impaired. (Michael
Robinson-Chavez - The Washington Post)
April may be the cruelest month, but
the decade of the nineties is surely the toughest passage in human life.
I know something about this -- a
little and learning more daily -- because I made it to 90 last November.
The creaks and groans, the pains and the padding about all are with you
when you become a nonagenarian. But as they say, consider the alternative
and enjoy life. You are a lucky one to be alive.
To make it to 90 is a triumph,
mostly, I guess, of good genes and good medicine. My dad died during World
War II at 67 of a heart attack; he had high blood pressure, just as did
President Roosevelt who died two years later. There was, then, no medicine
to lower it. In contrast, I've been taking the stuff since the late 1950s.
Of course, as you grown older, your
body begins to -- well -- disintegrate. Take my back. A couple of years
ago, I began to get occasional shooting pain, becoming stabs of fearful
proportions. My orthopedist, after the X-rays and MRI, pronounced it
spinal stenosis. In short, the pads between the spinal cord bones had worn
out, squeezing the nerves and thus causing the pain.
But, miracle, there is now a
treatment, with success in the 70 percent range. So I went to Sibley
Hospital's pain clinic where an anesthesiologist gave me a shot in the
back three times, roughly a week apart. Result: blessed pain relief. It's
called an epidural steroid injection. Just hope it lasts so I don't have
to revert to more of those "take every four hours" pain pills.
Before my back went out, my lower
legs had gradually -- in my eighties -- numbed up. That's called
peripheral neuropathy, and there's nothing to do about it -- so far. It
limits my walking to a block or so.
These back and leg problems make you
wonder about living to 100, let alone to the advanced age of 120 or 125 or
whatever the futurists are now talking about. It won't work unless
something can be done about that disintegrating body first.
In plain numbers
Number of people 65 or older:
35 million
Number of people 85 or older:
4 million
Percent of the
population
65 or older: 13% (2000 projection) 85 and up: 2% (2000 projection)
Marital status
Married, 65-74: 66%
Married, 85 and up: 26%
Living with spouse
Men, 65-74: 77%
Women, 65-74: 51%
Men, 85 and up: 46%
Women, 85 and up: 11%
Living alone
Men, 65-74: 14%
Women, 65-74: 30%
Men, 85 and up: 29%
Women, 85 and up: 59%
Those who consider
themselves in good to excellent health
65-74: approximately 75%
85 and up: approximately 65%
Living below the
poverty line
65-74: 9%
85 and up: 14%
Nursing home
residence
All persons, 65-74: 11 /1,000
All persons, 85 and up: 192/1,000
Paid employment
Men, 65-69: 29%
Women, 65-69: 18%
Men, 70 or older: 12%
Women, 70 or older: 6%
Life expectancy
Percent of persons age 65 expected to reach age 90: 26
Mortality
Annual death rates, all causes
Men, 65 to 74: 3,190/100,000 Women, 65 to 74: 1,969/100,000 Men, 85 and
up: 17,243/100,000 Women, 85 and up: 14,455/100,000
Annual death
rates, heart disease
Men, 65 to 74: 1,031/100,000 Women, 65 to 74: 532/100,000 Men, 85 and up:
6,589/100,000 Women, 85 and up: 5,997/100,000
Median net
household worth
Head of household 65-74: $157,600 Head of household 75 and up: $132,000
Sedentary
Lifestyle
Men, 65 and up: 28%
Women, 65 and up: 39%
Those with moderate or severe memory impairment
Men, 65-69: 5%
Women, 65-69: 4%
Men, 85 and up: 37%
Women, 85 and up: 35%
Sources: U.S.
Census Bureau; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Federal
Interagency Forum on Aging Related Statistics, "Older Americans 2000:
Key Indicators of Well-Being"
However, neither back nor leg problem
interferes with my driving. And being able to drive, of course, is vital
to our way of life -- my wife's and mine -- because we still live at home.
Oh yes, we've talked about the various retirement places, visited some
too. But so far we're doing okay at home with some help every day:
Monday-Friday, 9 to 2, Saturday-Sunday 10 to 4.
Now, of course, much depends on the
health status of one's spouse. My wife, Lois, in her high eighties took a
tumble in the bedroom and broke a hip. That greatly altered our way of
life. We had to move the bedroom downstairs to what had been built as the
kids' playroom and then had become my retirement study. Lois had to learn
to get around with a walker which she is never without, except when,
occasionally, she uses a wheelchair.
The physical disability changed many
habits, too. She completely gave up cooking: I now do it all. And the
shopping. We gave up the second car: I'm the chauffeur. All this means I
spend more time helping my wife, and less on myself alone. C'est la vie.
Meals are simple. Breakfast is O.J.,
toast with jam and coffee, with fruit variations. We have the luxury of
lunch being served: soup or, say, a quiche and cut-up fruit. Dinner I cook
myself. Tonight, baked potatoes, French beans, filet mignon with mushrooms
and a nice Australian Merlot. Maybe fruit or ice cream or a cookie, if we
need dessert.
Driving is fundamental to this. The
Giant is close, the rebuilt Safeway will be closer, Sutton Place and Fresh
Fields easy to reach. No beltway driving for any of that but in some cases
it's necessary to reach doctors and dentists. One important doctor is my
urologist because the male curse of the prostate is a close equivalent of
the female breast cancer threat.
So far I've been lucky; checkups show
no signs of cancer. The urologist has me on "watchful waiting,"
an unmedical-like phrase. It simply means the doc figures I'm more likely
to die from something else at my age than from the slow-moving prostate. I
hope he's right.
While I was writing that last
paragraph, I ran into a mental block trying to remember the term
"watchful waiting." This happens more and more. Like writer's
block. Worst is a block of names. It involves old friends, even close
friends. But if I just sit there and truly concentrate -- bingo -- the
name usually, eventually, pops into my head. But it's a strain.
I suppose the key to living in your
nineties is to reach that state of serenity that implies a sort of
"above it all" tranquility, that is, unruffled by the exigencies
of life, being at peace with the world. Maybe it's just an acceptance of
the idea that you've already done your damndest, there's nothing more to
do, so take it easy.
This requires life lived as a
regimen, not necessarily "early to bed, early to rise," but some
pattern. We usually are in the sack by 9:30 and don't get up until 8:30, a
long sleep. If we're not watching TV (as we did day and night during the
post-election playoff), I like to read. Best thing I've read lately was
"Galileo's Daughter," Walker & Co., 1999) a marvelous
account of the 16th-century genius and the twin perils of the Inquisition
and the plague.
Of course, an an old political junkie
-- the first presidential campaign I covered was 1936, FDR v. Alf Landon
-- I'm an avid Post reader and I read almost all of it, consuming,
usually, all the morning hours. I'm intensely interested right now in
Hillary Rodham Clinton's apparent drive to become the first woman
president. I hope I live long enough to see that campaign. Might even be
another Clinton v. Bush campaign!
Friends do die, so there are not as
many as before with whom to talk about such things.
I'm not much interested,
incidentally, in any afterlife: I just don't believe in it.
Naps also figure in our lives. After
lunch, when I've propped myself up in a comfortable recliner, drowsiness
often turns into half an hour's snooze, or more. Then it's five o'clock
before you know it. Dinner has to be prepared so we can have our ritual
five o'clock drink. I don't drink at lunch at home -- maybe if we're out
with friends but that is growing rarer. At five I pour my wife a daiquiri
from the jugful I keep in the fridge and I pour myself exactly an ounce
and a half of Stoli, the Russian vodka. On the rocks. Some days we also
have a snack as we watch CNN's five o'clock news.
A decade ago, when I was marveling at
reaching 80, I wrote a little book aptly titled "How Did I Get Here
So Fast?" (Warner Books, 1991). In it, I said it all came down to
"keeping your heart pumping, your noodle active, and your mood
cheery." I find that still true, at 90. Only slower, more relaxed.
Tranquil.
At 60 I looked forward to 70, at 70
to 80 and at 80 to 90. But at 90 I'm not really plugging for 100. Too many
old friends have made it into their nineties and that's it. Why not? It's
a challenging age. And worth every bit of the effort it requires.
Chalmers M. Roberts was chief diplomatic
correspondent of The Washington Post from 1953 until his retirement in
1971. He played a key role in the Post's publication of the Pentagon
Papers, the government's secret history of the Vietnam War. He was patted
on the head by president-elect Warren Harding when he was 10 and has had
some relationship with all the presidents until George W. Bush.
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