Senior moments, with good news

Rocking and rolling on the tram

     Last week Judy had medical tests at Oregon Health and  Sciences University Hospital.  Without being asked, a genius scheduler rearranged times so that Judy  could have two unrelated appointments back to back.  We took the aerial tram to the hospital, where Judy  was in familiar territory from the days when she worked on the development of the drug Gleevic.   I was fighting my usual hospital panic.

OHSU, the land of dread

      Judy had a CT scan to determine how much more of her lungs have been scarred by pulmonary fibrosis.   Thanks to OHSU's efficient system of  electronic medical records, she had the results the very next day.  There has been no substantial progression of the disease since it was first diagnosed in December of 2010.  When you get old, no progress can be the very best of news.

Happy day

    I made it to Medicare with relief.  Although I have always had health insurance, the spectre of medical bankruptcy  has  long lurked somewhere around the edges of my  insecurities.  So many friends have their lives shadowed  by the  need to provide for adequate health care.  It reminds me of the early days of the draft for the Vietnam War, when people's decisions about  marriage or  graduate school or  defense jobs or  alternate service were colored by the dictates of the Selective Service. We lost 55,000  Americans during the long Vietnam War; the deaths of 45,000 Americans every year are associated with not having health insurance.   Everybody should have Medicare.

Best present ever

      A package arrived from Illinois for my birthday.  My fine grandsons Jack, age 8, Charlie age 6, and Sam, age 3, sent me a scroll they had made entitled 65 Things We Love About Grandma.   Jack printed in small, precise letters  things like,  #18 She made Daddy, #38 She taught us how to walk on stilts, #63 She tells fun Billy Bob and Raymond Rob stories.  Charlie printed every fifth entry: #15 She sings nice songs, #40 She is smart and, from this middle child, #30 She always has time for me.   Sammy contributed #2 She is cute, and #29 I love her because I kiss her.   

    

Curt Hanson

          In Oregon, people over the age of 55 who take the AARP's Driver Safety course can receive a discount on their auto insurance premiums for three years.  GEICO informed us that it was time to take the course again.  It is a 6-hour classroom session aimed at having older drivers think about when it's time to retire from driving.  (Men outlive their driving ability by six years, and women by ten, says the AARP.)  For this, our third go around with the course, Judy and I looked up our last instructor.  Curt Hanson is a retired sheriff's deputy who is also a Shakespearean actor.  He is still getting royalties from a part  he played in the movie Goonies, ca. 1985.   He looks a little like my cousin Deke.  If anybody can make 6 hours of drivers' ed bearable, it is Curt.  Nevertheless, as I told my friend Sheila one morning while we were walking, "You know you're old when you become a follower of your AARP driving instructor."
       Sheila didn't miss a beat.  She said, "Next stop, Branson, Missouri."
       I don't think so.