Elderly — Blog — Healy Chen

Too damn long

I was surprised at the amount of Chinese elders that were on my flight from San Francisco to Guangzhou. 14 and half hours is absolutely no joke to spend in a pressurized metal tube. Those of us in the peasant class are resigned to our fate of misery. The human body is not designed to sit that long whilst getting slowly dehumidified.

If our elders can endure that lengthy flight without complaint, then there’s nothing for my near 40 year old body to say. Then again, our elders are accustomed to enduring through tough times. Either suffering through the Cultural Revolution in China, or scratching out a decent living after immigrating to the States. A long intercontinental flight might as well be a cocoon of comfort in comparison to the hardships that came before.

Meanwhile, we can’t even stay still for a single minute without any sort of stimulation. Taking a dump without a using a smartphone at the same time might as well be a form of torture.

The magnetic call of home must be that powerful for octogenarians to willingly take a long-haul flight. The elder sat next to us was on her way back to her hometown to meet up with family. There’s another two hour bus ride waiting for her after landing in Guangzhou. A journey of an entire day when you factor in the waiting and transfers. I’ve great respect for that sort of dedication, especially when I cannot imagine doing the same myself when I am at that age. I am certainly endeavoring to be as fit as possible for as long as possible…

But maybe by that time, aviation would have figured out a way to make supersonic flight economically feasible. Even getting it below the 10 hour mark would make trans-Pacific flights far more bearable.

Take care of yourself now

Today a coworker told me the sad news of her elderly mother taking a fall. She is still at a care facility on the long road to (hopefully) recovery. Falling down at that age is absolutely one of the worse things than can happen. My own grandmother was never the same after an accidental fall. Not only are elderly bones more brittle, but they also have less growth hormones and repairing capabilities. It is best to avoid entirely. For example, a broken hip hugely increases all-cause mortality:

A recent meta-analysis revealed that women sustaining a hip fracture had a 5-fold increase and men almost an 8-fold increase in relative likelihood of death within the first 3 months as compared with age- and sex-matched controls.

This is something I latently worry about my parents, as they enter into their retirement years. I stress to them often that they have to remain constantly active, and to continue moving heavy things (cardio fitness alone is not sufficient). They also must eat plenty of protein, and less carbs. Obviously, I can’t physically force them to do anything, so whether or not they follow through with my heeding is beyond my control. I think in the near future I will buy for both my parents an Apple Watch: for the fall detection feature. I want to be alerted immediately if my mom or dad takes an unfortunate tumble.

Hearing anecdotes of the fragility of aging, and the ignominy of being mobility hindered and needing assistance to perform basic human tasks, is always a reminder for myself to avoid that outcome to the best that I can control. That means taking care of my body and building a strong foundation now, while I am still at the meat of my adulthood. The retirement years are only worth living if I can be as active and moving freely as the younger years (relatively speaking).

Having grandparents that suffered through it, I can say with certainty that being confined to a living facility for the last decade of life is not the way to go.