Getting Old

[2 For The Brew]

I’ve been on CPAP for close to 20 years. I’m so old my youngest is on CPAP.

I take my CPAP everywhere - including overseas business trips. Changed my life. Took me almost ten years to convince my Irish-tempered Polish-stubborn wife to get her fucking sleep study done. She’s been on it a few years and now she checks her sleep score first thing every morning. It totally changed her life as well.

My old man had sleep apnea much worse that I did. Like my wife he’d stop breathing. Sleep apnea is really bad. My advice to everyone is to get that shit handled.

I’ve got a cardiologist; I’ve had GERD and now I’ve got occasional a fib. Up to a baker’s dozen of pills a day. I’m good; just took a 6,000 miles solo driving vacay and hiked in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. If you take good care of yourself you‘ll eventually get sick and die (old Rodney Dangerfield joke). Like everything else in life you either pussy out and give up or say “Fuck THIS” (whatever “this” is), do what you can medically, improve diet / exercise and get on with it.

 

[KevinLoveFan]

I'll be 39 in less than a month. Health here is pretty good, but my ambitious plan to walk 3 miles for an hour every single day isn't quite going 100% because plantar fasciitis tends to take me out 2x a week. I'm still trying to get the recommended 300 minutes of moderate exercise a week done, which would be 5x a week of those hour walks. But there are days where my feet hurt too much for me to walk much at all. I can't do it every single day.

 

[bronko]

Leg and joint pain is a tough one. On one hand, exercising can help keep the arthritis at bay. On the other, the pain can keep you from exercising. I live on a big chunk of land and have plenty of work to do on it to keep me active, plus I'm a longtime hiker. To keep from wearing out my legs completely, I've taken to swimming for my fitness. It enables me to workout harder than I could on land, build strength to support my joints, while minimizing any additional damage.
I had to quit racquetball (the last of my strenuous exercise) at fifty because I couldn't afford to ruin my knees and ankles when i had a physical job. For a decade, I basically just gained weight and grew outta shape. The pool has at least reduced my pain levels and allowed me to resume most normal activity, while keeping my weight in control. Now, if I stop drinking beer, the weight falls off. I like beer, though, so the pounds go up and down.

 

[Phills14]

You guys are fucking old.
















So am I. Everything hurts. I don’t sleep enough. Over stessed. Over worked. Under appreciated. Under sexed.

 

[Tonedef75]

I think I’m going this route.

If I stay in good shape, I’ll look good with short hair. Lean face+ short hair looks good.

Just extra incentive to stay in shape.

That’s exactly what I did. Haven’t gone the shiny route but I keep it pretty much shaved. Other than tennis elbow that kept me out of the gym for 4 weeks, I’m now back to the gym 4 or more times a week and monitor my diet for maintenance purposes. And I’ll be 49 in a few months.

 

[buzzdog]

I'm approaching my 50th birthday. I am old.

In the past decade, my back hurt more often, my eyes went bad, and I didn't sleep for shit. I now wear readers (thankfully my distance sight is still great). This past summer, I finally went out and got a sleep study done, so I could get a CPAP machine. The machine arrived this past Friday, and I've been trying to get used to it. It makes me feel mildly claustrophobic, and I wake up at times and feel like I need to just rip it off.

However, the past couple of nights, I feel like I've had the best sleep that I can remember having. I still wake up here and there, but the sleep I do get just feels so much more impactful. I woke up two nights ago after being asleep 5 hours, and felt like I had just slept 12. I haven't felt like taking/needing a nap since this all started either. I used to have a dead zone around 3pm where I just was useless. No more. The app that comes with it still says I have 3-4 "events" an hour, but I don't feel them like I used to. I used to flip and turn over multiple times a night, and I don't seem to do that anymore either.

The two biggest things I've done to help my overall health lately is to get my heartburn taken care of and to get this machine. I don't know how much this will end up costing me, but it feels like whatever it ends up being will be worth it. Any of use have experience with a CPAP machine over a longer period of time?

This made me think about when I turned 50. I had just separated from my 2nd wife, mother of my children who were just finishing high school. For my 50th birthday my daughter joined me on a 2 day hike in the Beartooths, scaling a 13,000 ft. peak. When we got to town we went out to dinner to celebrate the fact that my ex had finally left a few weeks earlier, and stayed gone.

Fast forward- after playing the field for a couple of years dating women in their late 30s, early 40s (thinking it was going to kill me) I settled down with my current wife who is closer to my age. She insisted I get myself checked out, it turned out my blood pressure which had been super low was now high, and I had severe sleep apnea. She might have saved my life, IDK. I've used CPAPs for 15 years now, and I wouldn't want to sleep without one. It improved how I felt and my quality of life by a lot.

Someone mentioned the hair thing. I never liked screwing with hair so when I was younger I just grew it long, zero maintenance. I just tied it back or braided it for work and tucked it under my hardhat. Grew a beard until it bugged me, then shaved it off if I needed to wear a gas mask for work, then grew it out again. Damn near zero maintenance. Living in the northern Rockies this worked out just fine. When I started to get a genetic bald spot on the top of my head I just buzzed it all off with a trimmer, and I've worn it that way ever since. I just keep it around 1/4 inch, give or take, no barber, just a beard trimmer. Easy, and about as low maintenance as it gets.

Shit does hurt. I've done stuff over the years to deserve my scars, aches and pains that will be with me until I die. I have to do breathing/stretching/yoga for at least a half hour every morning just to be able to walk and function normally, otherwise things start to seize up and hurt worse.

Getting old isn't for pussies.

 

[Hurl Bruce]

My dad is 76 now.

This past spring, he had something go wrong with something in his left eye. It created a blind spot for him. Recently, his right eye had rapidly deteriorated. He is now at the point where he can barely see much of anything at all unless it is really close to him. He still gets blurs, but his effective eyesight is pretty much done. The doctors are not sure what is causing this and are waiting to see where it plateaus before doing anything surgical.

When I was leaving to come home after Christmas, he stopped by 11yo daughter, stood really close to her and just looked at her. He simply said, "I can see you." We gave hugs and left. My dad is typically a jokester, so in the moment I thought he was being goofy. On my three-hour drive home, it hit me that he was taking one last long look in case he would never truly see her again. I had to stop thinking about it because it was making tear-up each time I replayed it in my head. Still does typing this out.

I really hope there's a surgical/technological option for him. Getting old sucks.

 

[Lee]

My dad is 76 now.

This past spring, he had something go wrong with something in his left eye. It created a blind spot for him. Recently, his right eye had rapidly deteriorated. He is now at the point where he can barely see much of anything at all unless it is really close to him. He still gets blurs, but his effective eyesight is pretty much done. The doctors are not sure what is causing this and are waiting to see where it plateaus before doing anything surgical.

When I was leaving to come home after Christmas, he stopped by 11yo daughter, stood really close to her and just looked at her. He simply said, "I can see you." We gave hugs and left. My dad is typically a jokester, so in the moment I thought he was being goofy. On my three-hour drive home, it hit me that he was taking one last long look in case he would never truly see her again. I had to stop thinking about it because it was making tear-up each time I replayed it in my head. Still does typing this out.

I really hope there's a surgical/technological option for him. Getting old sucks.

my 80 year old dad was just here visiting for 2 weeks and stayed with me. I hate having my space invaded, but its a blessig he is still here and healthy. 16 years ago he had his hip replaced and he still hikes to this day, a year a go he had a quintuple bypass, and he is now back to full health.

Getting old really does suck.

 

[DirtyDan]

My dad is 76 now.

This past spring, he had something go wrong with something in his left eye. It created a blind spot for him. Recently, his right eye had rapidly deteriorated. He is now at the point where he can barely see much of anything at all unless it is really close to him. He still gets blurs, but his effective eyesight is pretty much done. The doctors are not sure what is causing this and are waiting to see where it plateaus before doing anything surgical.

When I was leaving to come home after Christmas, he stopped by 11yo daughter, stood really close to her and just looked at her. He simply said, "I can see you." We gave hugs and left. My dad is typically a jokester, so in the moment I thought he was being goofy. On my three-hour drive home, it hit me that he was taking one last long look in case he would never truly see her again. I had to stop thinking about it because it was making tear-up each time I replayed it in my head. Still does typing this out.

I really hope there's a surgical/technological option for him. Getting old sucks.

That is difficult to go through to say the least. I appreciate how you and your daughter are still involved in his life in a positive way. There are so many people that are not present in their older family members lives and some who just abandon them.

It really makes a difference in his quality of life.

I think my realization that my father was getting old was his minor heart attack which lead to finding out he needed a quadruple bypass. He's 69 now and still doing well, but it was scary for a couple months.

 

[2 For The Brew]

my 80 year old dad was just here visiting for 2 weeks and stayed with me. I hate having my space invaded, but its a blessig he is still here and healthy. 16 years ago he had his hip replaced and he still hikes to this day, a year a go he had a quintuple bypass, and he is now back to full health.

Getting old really does suck.

My wife’s cousin had her mother move in with them shortly after they got married. She lived to 100 or so and was there for 50 years or so.

Talk about Space Invader.

Getting old is better than the alternative.

 

[Criznit]

My father and I were estranged for many years.. For whatever reasons (he's a prick and I'm a douche) I finally told him off about 25 years ago.. Didn't speak to him for a long time after that despite his overtures, that conveniently left out any admissions of asshole-ry.... Later I found out (my mom) he believed you should never apologize to your children for your actions... It was always "I'm sorry you feel that way"... Fucked up..

Anyway... Fast forward a few years and then a few more. I realized without trying to I really wasn't mad anymore and I was a fucking adult and this was my world now... All that animosity was holding me down.. Affecting other members of my family... It was up to me to decide what it actually meant...

It's only value was how much I was willing to assign it.

He's softened up in his elder years, he's trying without admitting his anger/cruelty issues that he made things hard. I know he loves me, even if he sucks at it.

He can't wait to see/hear from me these days... I can, but also cannot stomach the thought of not seeing him again. Never saw that coming.

 

[KevinLoveFan]

My dad is almost 70 and lives about 75 miles from me. He's still able to work (like his mother, my paternal grandmother, he's extremely extroverted and energetic and plans to work well into his old age so long as he's able), but I know he has CKD. A few years ago, it was at stage 3. I don't know how well he takes care of it; he always told me I was better at keeping track of my own health than he was, so I sometimes have concern that it might advance rapidly without me knowing. He's the kind of guy who likes to live extremely spontaneously with few rules (he hates being told what to do, and hates telling other people what to do -- the ultimate live and let live kind of guy), whereas I live more deliberately and try to stay firm to principles. He's also of the generation that doesn't just share every detail about his health info with everyone, even family, so if his condition is now bad, I'm not going to know about it.

He did assure me a few years ago that when he gets too old or unhealthy to take care of himself and work, he'll check into a nursing home for the elderly. In this way, he's very different from my mom, who was always skeptical of strangers taking care of her (she passed in 2018 from COPD). So I can take comfort that, if his condition does deteriorate very soon, he will nonetheless check himself into appropriate care when he absolutely HAS to. Since he's so massively extroverted, I can also have some confidence that co-workers or friends will be able to sense when it's his time, since he knows so many people and they'll be able to tell him the truth about his health and capabilities.