Nadene Goldfoot
Considering that our President Biden is considering running for another term and will be 88 at the end of it, I thought I'd talk about what it's like to be 88 since I'm 88 2/3 right now. I looked up a few facts.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says President Biden is unlikely to live to the end of a second term so his backers will have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris, age 68, b: October 20, 1964 to lead the nation.
Statistics back her up. Nikki was born January 20, 1972 and is only 51 years old.
Women's life expectancy was 79 years in the U.S. in 2021, while men's was about 73, according to CDC data. The U.S. has a higher rate of avoidable deaths, which is measured as death before the age of 75, among men than any comparable country. “As long as records have been kept in all countries, women have lived longer than men,” said Amelia Karraker, a program official at the National Institute on Aging. “Across, basically, almost every major cause of death, men are more likely to die than women are.”
That number for men could be blamed on all the deaths by guns that keeps on rising. Any little disagreement is solved by shooting at each other. Everyone's a cowboy.
They may have more muscle mass and can lift and carry more than women, but evidently we come with a better sense of staying alive due to the fact that we usually become mothers with hormones telling us to be careful.
The U.S. has a higher rate of avoidable deaths, which is measured as death before the age of 75, among men than any comparable country. But there hasn’t always been such a large gap between men and women. What became known as “the female advantage” emerged around 1890 and continued to grow throughout the 20th century, except for a decline during the 1918 flu pandemic.
As for me personally, I feel like I'm still 25 in spirit and me-ness but physically I've changed a lot. Whereas I spent my life until 25, let's say, it was all dancing classes and piano classes and school with enough energy for whatever I faced. Today, I'm short on energy.
I look at my exercise bicycle in the corner and feel ennui, weariness, lack of interest, fatigue, spiritlessness and yawn. That's just me. Music has always moved me; ballet music, Russian, Jewish, Spanish; emotional music that moves one .
I've had a knee replacement and on the right side of my chest lies a pacemaker because I'm left-handed. I take 12 pills every morning-9 of them for my heart. Every year I walk less and less until I've just reached the point where even a wee walk is a walk too far.
The one thing I can do besides having fingers that are numb next to my fingernails is type on my computer and that I do a lot, with the patience needed to make corrections, of course. I have been writing since 2004 in my blogs, and previously wrote 2 books. Gosh, computers are terrific!!
My thinking is still clear, better than ever, I think. I wish I had the wisdom I think I have now back in the days of making so many mistakes in life. However, this comes with problems, too. There's usually a word I can't think of and have to think of a synonym of it and google that to retrieve the word I want. When I'm talking to someone, the situation worsens. I can't think of names of people or things that I want to mention so many times. It's the fact of being under pressure. When I'm alone, these things can come to me easily.
My appetite is less; good thing considering how high grocery prices have raised, and my Social Security check certainly hasn't been able to keep up. Where it might increase by $10 per year in its monthly checks, prices rise immensely more. It's especially evident for me as I started teaching in 1959 at $4,000 per year and thought that was terrific since the month before my contract would have been for $3,700 per year. We don't stand a chance.
I say that because living through life is not without problems. Who has lived problemless? We go through with divorce or deaths, losing money and gaining money, the stock market rises and crashes, wars and peace to reach 88. Biden is no different. It all comes out in some physical ailment or another on the body.
We're an emotional people and it shows itself on our behavior of drinking, smoking, drugging, or not and I haven't done any of these things and was still in need of a pacemaker. That's because there is the DNA prospect for all of us. We inherit a lot of who we are. I was an unwilling patient that allowed my heart to be stopped and started once, and that was enough for me. Little did I know that that decision forced the doctor's decision for the next choice--pacemaker. My stubborness. Well, It's good on this battery until I'm 99.
November 17, 2011's report on aging: The nation's 90-and-older population nearly tripled over the past three decades, reaching 1.9 million in 2010, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and supported by the National Institute on Aging. Over the next four decades, this population is projected to more than quadruple.
Because of increases in life expectancy at older ages, people 90 and older now comprise 4.7 percent of the older population (age 65 and older), as compared with only 2.8 percent in 1980. By 2050, this share is likely to reach 10 percent. Joe Biden's next term is from 2024 to 2028, and 88 won't be a part of the 10% of the population yet.
The majority of people 90 and older report having one or more disabilities, living alone or in a nursing home and graduating from high school. People in this age group also are more likely to be women and to have higher widowhood, poverty and disability rates than people just under this age cutoff. This means that it's likely Joe Biden might have some sort of disability at age 88---like me.
“Traditionally, the cutoff age for what is considered the 'oldest old' has been age 85,” said Census Bureau demographer Wan He, “but increasingly people are living longer and the older population itself is getting older. Given its rapid growth, the 90-and-older population merits a closer look.
“Previously, relatively little research focused on this increasingly important population group, and this report attempts to fill that void,” she continued. “The American Community Survey, with its large sample size in multiyear data sets, allows an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of the 90-and-older population.”
An older person's likelihood of living in a nursing home increases sharply with age. While about only 1 percent of people in their upper 60s and 3 percent in their upper 70s were nursing home residents, the proportion rose to about 20 percent for those in their lower 90s, more than 30 percent for people in their upper 90s, and nearly 40 percent for centenarians.
Yes, I know. I'm lucky to still be living in my manufactured home-a home I chose after my mother died when I moved closer to my son. I left little Ontario, Oregon and moved back-not to Portland where he lives but outside it in a smaller community with a swimming pool which I used in my first few years here. My son drives here from Portland and occasionally I drive there. Yes, I'm still driving--my mother's Cadillac that I had inherited. I gave up my little cutie of a car for this; oh, it's SO comfortable !!! I couldn't afford to live in Portland anymore; even in a duplex.
" While nearly all people in their 90s who lived in a nursing home had a disability (98.2 percent), the vast majority (80.8 percent) of those who did not live in a nursing home also had one or more disabilities. Difficulty doing errands alone and performing general mobility-related activities of walking or climbing stairs were the most common types, which indicates that many who live in households may need assistance with everyday activities."
"The proportion of people age 90 to 94 having disabilities is more than 13 percentage points higher than that of 85- to 89-year-olds." Chances are, Biden could have a disability. His stance and walk show to me that he's not 25 anymore. Otherwise, he does stand up with a good back when he's standing which is a good point.
My mother, Mildred Elizabeth Robinson (1913-2005 Oregon) lived until 92. She had had a stroke and wound up in a nursing home. My father died at 59. I've outlived their average age. The doctor refused to prescribe Eliquis for her. It's what keeps me from having a stroke. Dad was in a business of wholesale meats as a meat packer that had the highest death average for men in 1967 in the states.
At 92 Mom had the most beautiful skin with nary a wrinkle in it, half Swedish she was and half English/Scotch/Irish, and still those gorgeous long legs. She did not drink or smoke either all her life. She didn't drive until about 65.
Her time was spent dusting and cleaning, washing, hanging up the wash outside, ironing, sewing, hanging wallpaper, cooking, baking daily, and shopping weekly all day long. She never sat down!!! The kitchen and basement were her hangouts. She knew how to hang curtains and make dancing costumes! She belonged to the PTA. She and her two children did take vacations at the beach every year where she checked out a book to read while on the beach, and picnics with her brother's family.
Resource:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/aging_population/cb11-194.html
No comments:
Post a Comment