Review: Never Say Die

I have put off writing this review for weeks and weeks.

I had decided to try to read up on things people middle-aged should do in order to help themselves age gracefully. I collected a list of books and started checking them out from the library almost randomly.

First up: Gail Sheehy's Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life. Surely I have some more of these left, and maybe I can learn about them the easy way. Or maybe a pop psychology book from the 1970s would just hurt.

The opening was gripping. After that, it wasn't crazy painful, but, well, now I barely remember it.

Next up: Susan Jacoby's Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age. She states in the preface: "I hope that this book about the genuine battles of growing old will provide support for all who draw their strength and courage from reality, however daunting that reality may be, rather than from platitudes about 'defying old age.'" I'm a big fan of reality. After all, that's where I live.

But this book terrified me. If you live long enough, you are likely to suffer from disability and/or dementia. And, unlike the disabilities and dementia we've been suffering all our lives, some of these aren't temporary. You have to ask for help. For the rest of your life. Or at least accept help. And that's if you're lucky.

I'm hereby officially pro-assisted suicide (for some situations) and am thankful we have a couple of states where that's legal. I'm also opposed to expensive last-ditch efforts to save people if they involve very little chance of success or if even success will only prolong an unacceptable life. I'm not just talking about for other people spending my insurance company's and government's dollars, I'm talking about for me. I am now willing to risk losing my chance at life-saving medicine developed in the nick of time when I am already a vegetable or otherwise not myself. Perhaps my favorite thing about Obamacare is that it pays for research on the effectiveness of treatments. I have asked questions about the effectiveness of treatments before, but I'll make sure to do that always in the future.

I'm sickened that Medicare will not pay for in-home help when it will pay for institutionalization. That's backwards (unless you think it should pay for both or neither). I'm sickened that the default is to do everything that might have the slightest possible chance of making the slightest possible difference, no matter how much it costs. We can't afford that much longer, and if we try, we might end up turning to rationing. I don't want care to be based on something semi-random like age; I want it to be based on whether the person wants it, whether it's likely to work, and whether it's likely to help enough. Obama wanted health insurance to pay for short talks with doctors about issues like these kinds of medical preferences, but that was too controversial and didn't pass. Everything is getting stamped "Death panel," as if some of us can escape death.

The book is mostly about how we try to fool ourselves that we will always be happy and alert if we just eat well, exercise, and maybe take the latest miracle drug. It's about how we refuse to face the reality of extreme old age by only talking about 60-year-olds (who look young and active) and never talking about people over 80 (unless they are skydiving or otherwise amazing).

We should start making plans for the day we start really breaking down. My favorite idea the author had was to move to New York, where everything is delivered, and neighbors are always close by. Not that I'll do that (so expensive!), but I do like that idea. D & R's Aunt Margaret and Uncle Don have bought their way into a housing arrangement where they can move toward more and more assisted living as they need it. Again, expensive. Another good idea I've heard elsewhere is to automate your finances as much as possible to protect them from any future feeble-minded self.

I am now officially tired of this idea of looking into graceful aging and have decided to stop reading any more such books. (Unless highly recommended by friends, I guess.) It is way too depressing. But...

Well this book inspired me to look up the autobiography of Jimmy Carter, which she pointed out as a rare example of wisdom. She says most books like that are defensive, but Carter admitted to problems and worked through them. (Her point was that getting old doesn't necessarily make you wise. Some people are wise throughout their lives and some never find wisdom.)

And I also decided to read letters written between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. (Her point was that people worried about old age problems and preferred youth long before the industrial revolution, despite myths about a relatively recent youth culture.)

But then what did I find in the library? Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life." Uh, oh. I checked it out.

Cake of the Day

Ha, earlier today I was singing along to Lyle Lovette's song about his beloved hat:

Mama told me,
Son, to be polite,
Take your hat off
When you walk inside.
But the winds of change,
They fill the air.
You can't take your hat off
Just anywhere.

So, if you plead, "Not guilty,"
I'll be the judge.
We don't need no jury
To decide because
I wear a seven.
And you're out of order.
I can tell from here
You're a seven and a quarter.

This hat is also not safe because it is edible. (Though, admittedly, it does not look tasty to me. Still, I'm imagining various pets I've met nibbling on it--especially bunnies and rats.)

This cake has the added bonus of pictures of the "during." Enjoy.