Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[Lean'n'mean]

But I absolutely *don't* want a long, miserable, lingering death.

Does anybody ?

In the end, it isn't the years in your life that count but the life in your years.....

 

[ChiTownScion]

I don't necessarily want a "long life" -- making it to 70 will be fine. That gives me another seventeen years to wrap things up and maybe get my spare room cleaned out. But I absolutely *don't* want a long, miserable, lingering death.

My own opinion is that the key is to keep active: physically as much as possible, but certainly, mentally. One of my lodge brothers will turn 91 next month. He still drives, takes care of his home and yard, and is an active member of our fraternity as a Certified Grand Lodge Instructor and Grand Lecturer- two positions that require a lot of memory work and constant activity than yours truly could ever accomplish. He flew up to northern Ontario this summer for a fly in fishing vacation with his son, and we'll be taking him out for dinner on his birthday. And then there's my other lodge brother in his mid- 80's who still travels to Europe, Asia, and around the Americas to ride and photograph electric railways and trams.

Myself- I want to enroll in university classes, learn German and French, and possibly earn another degree. And of course, I want to travel. Mrs. Scion was an Army brat and has always had a can- do attitude on travel and adventure... but getting her to go on a freighter for a round the world trip (or even a North Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2) may be asking a lot. I'll work on that. She's currently mastering kayaking at age 63. Longevity runs in our families, as long as the self destructive elements of smoking, drinking, or religious fanaticism don't intervene, so we'll hope for the best.

 

[Fading Fast]

I...But I absolutely *don't* want a long, miserable, lingering death...

My mother, 82, who's, based on her family line, got 30 or more years (never been sick a day in her life) tells me this all the time, which, after years of sensitive thoughtful answers from me now just provokes a "as opposed to all those who are praying for a long, debilitating illness ending in death." We stare at each other for a few seconds, one of us smiles, and then we go on with our conversation. Her point - I don't want to suffer; My point - no one does, but we ain't got no choice.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, if worse comes to worse comes to worse, we do have a choice -- George Eastman, the Kodak king, comes to mind with his "My work is over -- why wait?" approach --but you have to be really sure about it, because you can't change your mind later.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I'm in the camp of everything in moderation. So I drink (average a a drink or two a night - some nights none, some night [big night] three, but no teetotaler and no binge or excess drinking), I eat some fried foods (not everyday), work out, don't smoke (hate it, so that's an easy one) and try to get in some healthy foods along the way. I don't miss anything I used to eat or drink in excess because I still eat and drink them (just in smaller quantities and less frequently), but I feel better, am in better shape and enjoy life more not less because of that. Will I live longer - don't have a clue / don't worry about it as statistics are based on large samples, my life (like all of ours) is too small a sample to revert to the mean. But the "moderation" approach has improved how I feel right now - so that is an immediate reward. But I'll end where I started - I'm not preaching anything to anyone on how they should live.

I agree with moderation. Too much of anything, even if it's "good for you", isn't necessarily a good thing. Even being healthy, because...

My mother, 82, who's, based on her family line, got 30 or more years (never been sick a day in her life)...

"Never been sick a day in her life" was my mother as well. She had to have a hysterectomy in the mid-1960s (I was too young at the time to know why), but otherwise never got sick. Then she caught her first cold when she was in her early-80s and, because she'd never had a cold before and didn't know how to handle it, it developed into pneumonia and she ended up in the hospital for a week. She caught her second cold at the age of 88 and, again, was hospitalized because it developed into pneumonia. During her first night in the hospital this time she suffered a stroke, and at that point decided she'd had enough, so they gave her hospice care and she passed away three days later. So, on the one hand, I suppose you could say two colds in 88 years was a pretty good run. On the other hand, if she'd had colds throughout her life like most people that last one probably wouldn't have contributed to her passing. Or she may have had that stroke and passed anyway; who can say?

That being said, I do believe Mom was about as ready for death at that point as anyone can be--mentally and psychologically speaking, that is. She was the last remaining family member of her generation, she wasn't particularly happy during the last year of her life and often wondered aloud, "Why am I still here?", and...well, there are a lot of other reasons I could list but, based on several conversations my wife and I had with Mom during her last year, I sincerely believe she spent that time preparing herself for her final moments on this rock.

 

[Fading Fast]

Well, if worse comes to worse comes to worse, we do have a choice -- George Eastman, the Kodak king, comes to mind with his "My work is over -- why wait?" approach --but you have to be really sure about it, because you can't change your mind later.

I hear ya, I believe I know the choice I'm going to make, but I would never even walk around the edges of that one with anyone else. That's up to each person.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Sheesh. I just read this entire thread. What a way to spend a Saturday evening. As someone said "it's like visiting a graveyard." But thanks all, I'm taking comfort in the fact that I'm not alone in pondering these things.

 

[2jakes]

Based on the calculations made here , I should've been gone this Sept.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Glad you made it 2jakes. Docs said that I was really blessed 2 1/2 years ago when a blood clot suddenly decided to travel through my brain stem yet wasn't fatal. We both were very fortunate, huh........
HD

 

[Stanley Doble]

I was brought up to believe in orthodox medicine and laugh at health nuts, still and all they seemed to make sense. To decide the question I looked into some well known health nuts of the past and found out how they ended up. In other words did their kooky theories help them live longer better lives or not?

What I found out was very interesting. They didn't necessarily live longer than anyone else although they all seemed to live to ripe old ages at least their seventies, usually eighties or nineties. But what struck me was they kept their physical and mental faculties right up to the end. Still sharp and active to within months, weeks, sometimes hours of their death.

I am talking about people like J I Rodale, Paul Bragg, Jack LaLanne, Adele Davis, Gaylord Hauser and many others.

A lot of their ideas on diet, exercise, not smoking, laying off junk food etc. are commonplace and mainstream today.

So it is possible to live a long healthy life if you work at it a bit. Lizzie I think you stand a pretty good chance. Are there any old Yankee cranks in your background? The kind who lived to 95 on crabapples and codfish balls and were a complete pain in the ass? Those are the relatives you should emulate.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most of my relatives packed it in somewhere in their 70s, but my Aunt Edie, the former longshoreman, made it to 92. She died the same day as Osama Bin Laden, and if there is any justice in the universe, she was one of his "forty-two virgins."

 

[HudsonHawk]

I plan to live forever. So far, so good.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I agree with moderation. Too much of anything, even if it's "good for you", isn't necessarily a good thing. Even being healthy, because...

"Never been sick a day in her life" was my mother as well. She had to have a hysterectomy in the mid-1960s (I was too young at the time to know why), but otherwise never got sick. Then she caught her first cold when she was in her early-80s and, because she'd never had a cold before and didn't know how to handle it, it developed into pneumonia and she ended up in the hospital for a week. She caught her second cold at the age of 88 and, again, was hospitalized because it developed into pneumonia. During her first night in the hospital this time she suffered a stroke, and at that point decided she'd had enough, so they gave her hospice care and she passed away three days later. So, on the one hand, I suppose you could say two colds in 88 years was a pretty good run. On the other hand, if she'd had colds throughout her life like most people that last one probably wouldn't have contributed to her passing. Or she may have had that stroke and passed anyway; who can say?

That being said, I do believe Mom was about as ready for death at that point as anyone can be--mentally and psychologically speaking, that is. She was the last remaining family member of her generation, she wasn't particularly happy during the last year of her life and often wondered aloud, "Why am I still here?", and...well, there are a lot of other reasons I could list but, based on several conversations my wife and I had with Mom during her last year, I sincerely believe she spent that time preparing herself for her final moments on this rock.

Sometimes after reaching a certain age some people simply get tired of living. I believe that was the case with my grandmother who was active -- she was even the manager of the apartment complex where she lived -- until just before her passing at age 89. She had been a heavy smoker most of her life and when she developed emphysema she had to have an oxygen tank at which point she decided to stop taking her medication and let nature take its course, which it did on May 17, 1999.

 

[Zombie_61]

Sometimes after reaching a certain age some people simply get tired of living...

Lately I've been feeling that way every time I've had to brave the freeways here in the Los Angeles area. For some reason it's as if California's population has suddenly quadrupled in the last couple of months, and the freeways are so congested during the daylight hours that you're fortunate if you can get even half-way to the posted speed limit.

 

[Fading Fast]

Most of my relatives packed it in somewhere in their 70s, but my Aunt Edie, the former longshoreman, made it to 92. She died the same day as Osama Bin Laden, and if there is any justice in the universe, she was one of his "forty-two virgins."

Very funny.

 

[GHT]

I plan to live forever. So far, so good.

Yeah right, middle finger up to The Grim Reaper. We were out Boogie Woogie-ing until the early hours, and plan do so again next Friday. (If my dodgy hip permits.)

 

[ChiTownScion]

Most of my relatives packed it in somewhere in their 70s, but my Aunt Edie, the former longshoreman, made it to 92. She died the same day as Osama Bin Laden, and if there is any justice in the universe, she was one of his "forty-two virgins."

You've mentioned your longshoreman aunt before. She sounds like a helluva lot more interesting character than any 42 virgins I could name.. and right now, I can't name any.

 

[2jakes]

You've mentioned your longshoreman aunt before. She sounds like a helluva lot more interesting character than any 42 virgins I could name.. and right now, I can't name any.

I can only think of one.
My English teacher .
And she could spank like a longshoreman !

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I was brought up to believe in orthodox medicine and laugh at health nuts, still and all they seemed to make sense. To decide the question I looked into some well known health nuts of the past and found out how they ended up. In other words did their kooky theories help them live longer better lives or not?

What I found out was very interesting. They didn't necessarily live longer than anyone else although they all seemed to live to ripe old ages at least their seventies, usually eighties or nineties. But what struck me was they kept their physical and mental faculties right up to the end. Still sharp and active to within months, weeks, sometimes hours of their death.

I am talking about people like J I Rodale, Paul Bragg, Jack LaLanne, Adele Davis, Gaylord Hauser and many others.

A lot of their ideas on diet, exercise, not smoking, laying off junk food etc. are commonplace and mainstream today.

So it is possible to live a long healthy life if you work at it a bit. Lizzie I think you stand a pretty good chance. Are there any old Yankee cranks in your background? The kind who lived to 95 on crabapples and codfish balls and were a complete pain in the ass? Those are the relatives you should emulate.

I find that one quality shared by the "health nuts" of yore, such as W.K. Kellogg and publisher Bernarr McFadden, was obsessiveness. They were totally dedicated to their theories and to propagating their message. McFadden, father of "physical culture" every morning walked barefoot for miles to his editorial office (in downtown Manhattan!). Kellogg preached the gospel of nutrition and good digestion and built a huge "sanatorium" in Battle Creek, MI. It didn't hurt that their manias made them very rich. I think such obsessives live so long (McFadden died at 87, Kellogg at 91) because their work is never finished, making them reluctant to die.

 

[Stanley Doble]

An odd thing I noticed when reading the biographies of these health nuts was that most of them suffered from some deadly disease in their youth which they cured by natural health means. So they went from dying in their twenties, to living well into their eighties and nineties when large numbers of men were washed up or dying in their fifties.

In other words they did not start out with an advantage, they started out with a severe disadvantage yet outdid their contemporaries in health and vigor by a rational mode of living.