You know you’re getting old when you check your MyChart as often as you do your email. I feel like I’m at the doctor’s every other week for something. I have degenerative this and degenerative that in my back and knees, my GI tract can’t tolerate dairy or gluten anymore, and my bowels are as angry as I am most days. And the diagnoses of all my ailments can range from you need more fiber in your diet to you have terminal cancer. That is why it is not good to ask Google or my new friend, ChatGPT, about my symptoms. Because it is in my neurotic nature to always focus on the negative. You have no idea how many times I was certain I was dying of something, just because one bullet point on the internet said it could be a tumor. “It’s not a toom-a!” Does everyone say this in an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent when they hear the word tumor, or just me?

 It’s bad enough that I find myself getting CT scans, ultrasounds, and bloodwork done every other month, but now I find that it is entirely up to me to make sure I am, in fact, not dying or something. Remember the days when you got a follow-up phone call from the doctor? When you got to say to a friend or family member, who was waiting to hear about their test results, “No, no, don’t worry, it’s good that they haven’t called, no news is good news!” There is no such thing as a follow up anything anymore. You get a notification in your MyChart. This is a summary of what the test revealed in a language that no one could possibly understand unless they went to medical school. So, if you weren’t already nervous about your diagnosis, you certainly are now because long words that you’ve never seen before seem scary. Words like Arthrocente, Pericholecystic… shit, that sounds like cancer…hold up, I see Hemoglobin…that means blood, right? My last MyChart report was from an ultrasound I had done on my gall bladder. The Radiologist report used the word, “remarkable.” Wait… is that good or bad? Remarkable in any other setting implies that something is good, but what if it means bad here! Are you kidding me? The only word I recognize and I have no idea if it means good or bad.

 So I sit there reading this report and it does nothing but make me more anxious. So you wait for the doctor’s comments to come (usually days after the lab nerds sent in their stats), only to find that the doctor, who was incredibly articulate at the office visit, is also a lab nerd and can only write in “medical speech” as well. Do I have cancer or not? What’s the prognosis? Do I still have time to go to Europe with my family or should I start making my funeral wishes known now?

 I guess I’m going to have to call the doctor to find out. After being on hold for 3 days, I learn that I have to “make an appointment” with the doctor to get an explanation about what is or isn’t wrong with me. I cannot believe we have to make appointments, and pay for them might I add, to simply have a doctor explain what the test revealed and what the plan is going forward. And what kills me is that there are a lot of people who aren’t neurotic like me and won’t call to follow up! Some may not even check their MyChart. So what, they just live with their diagnosis until something else bad happens and they have no choice but to make an appointment again? This MyChart thing is nice in the respect that your medical visits and test results are all in one place, but I think it’s become the lazy doctor’s crutch. As long as they type up a report, (that only their colleagues can understand), they’re done. Their hands are washed clean of any legal or otherwise responsibility to their patient because it’s in the chart.

And it’s not just doctors! Since when do we have to make appointments for everything? Remember when you could just call someone at their place of work and talk to them right then and there? Why must everything be scheduled for discussion at a later date? That doesn’t seem productive at all. It’s like the whole world has a bad case of procrastination disorder. You can’t even talk to a real live person anymore when you call anywhere. It’s all automated with ten thousand menus of “press 1 if you need this or press 2 if you need that.” By the time the menu is done, I forgot why I was even calling. I’m like, was I supposed to press 4? Or was it 3? Crap.

 The thing is, I am all for technology when it enhances and improves our experiences as humans. I find AI so enticing and interesting that I want to learn as much as I can about this. BUT…our world is starting to lose the value of humanity. When it comes to our health, people cannot be treated like a self-checkout line at the grocery store. Doctors, sure, your cryptic message in MyChart may end your day, but to the person on the receiving end, it’s cruel. What is sufficient to you, still leaves room for worry and concern for someone toiling about their health or a loved one’s. My request for all doctors today – don’t check your patients’ receipts at the door hoping that they did the right thing like they do at Walmart. Check them out yourselves!

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou 

 But what happens if they forget who you are entirely? What if they forget that you ever even existed?

A few days ago was the anniversary of my dad’s passing. He died 11 years ago from complications due to Parkison’s disease. This disease also affected his brain, so he experienced bouts of dementia as well. My mom passed away in 2021 from Alzheimer’s disease and then my mother-in-law in 2023 from dementia. Over the course of a long, harrowing decade, I believe I learned, the hard way, just how poignant and powerful the word in Maya Angelou’s quote truly is – and that is “feel.”

It’s been my experience that the beginning stages of the forgetful years aren’t so bad. There is a lot of frustration as one realizes that their memory is going. I can attest to this even at this somewhat “healthy” stage in my life –  forgetting why I went into a room or wondering where my phone is when it’s clearly in my hand, CAN be a bit frustrating. Now imagine forgetting your loved one’s names and how they are even related to you. The decline can be rapid or in my mom’s case, a long one. Seven years. She had such an awareness of it in the beginning though, and an acceptance that I found so courageous. We would be at church or out shopping and run into people who she had known for years. Being the confident, intelligent, articulate woman I’d looked up to my whole life, it didn’t surprise me when she’d politely say, “Forgive me if I don’t know who are, there’s something wrong with my brain.” I feel like it took us, her family, to accept what was happening to her harder than it did her. After a while we learned to appreciate and celebrate her good days and tried to find humor to lighten the dark days. Sometimes her clarity would go in and out like a light switch within the same day. Like when she had lunch with my daughter and asked her all of the normal questions you’d ask a teenager in high school – “where do you want to go to college, do you have a boyfriend, what’s the name of that play you’re in again…” Then 10 minutes later followed up with, “So, are you married?” Just like that, something turned the switch off. It was alarming at first, bizarre at times, but we eventually became used to it and found ways of bringing her back.

After a few years, her disease progressed and personal safety, personal hygiene, and a plethora of other things became challenges. People with Alzheimer’s and dementia get confused about what’s safe to eat, where it’s safe to go, very much like a toddler who requires constant monitoring. Many of my friends have asked me how and when do you know that extra care is needed. I always say that it’s similar to knowing when your baby is or isn’t ready for table food or like climbing up the stairs. You just know by watching them intently. I’ll never forget when I found my mom in her kitchen eating pretzels with milk in a bowl. I was taken back needless to say and said, “Mom, that’s not cereal, it’s pretzels.” She brushed me off, took another bite, and said, “What? It’s good.” Red flag. That was a sign to start paying attention to what she ate. Although I was happy, and equally disgusted, that she was at least enjoying her breakfast.

 Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is all about keeping their dignity intact, for it is what I imagine to be a soul crushing experience… losing oneself. But it is also a lesson in humility for the family as well. There comes a point in the progression when you have to stop trying to make them remember you. You have to stop asking them if they know who you are and accept the fact that they don’t. You are saving their dignity by denying your ego. You have to accept that you are forgotten and are now simply a kind and loving person visiting them and THAT’s what makes them feel good. And that is all they need in the moment because they now only live in the moment. The past doesn’t exist to them, nor does the future.

When this realization sets in there is simultaneous grieving. Grief that must be experienced in order for acceptance to occur. I can’t pinpoint the year, day, or moment when I knew we had lost her, but I do remember the sadness I felt. I think it happened gradually over a long period of time. I remember feeling like I was saying good-bye to her every time I saw her. The person I knew and loved and who loved me wasn’t there anymore to talk to or get advice from. So, we had to find creative ways to help us stay connected to her and ways for her to stay connected with herself.

My mom had a baby doll that she loved to rock back and forth and sing to. Baby dolls are often recommended to Alzheimer’s patients because it bolsters in them the one thing that this horrible disease cannot take – “the feels.” I believe an innate sense of love and nurturing stays within us even after all of our other faculties are gone. Babies bring about feelings of innocence, security, warmth, and that is so healing to someone who has lost everything else. My mom also loved music and dancing. My sister had her dancing up until the day she couldn’t walk anymore and we had her favorite songs playing up until her last moments of life. She may not have known who we were, but we did everything we could to make her feel good up until our final good-bye. All five of us children were there, lifting her up in prayer and love as she took her last breath here on earth.

I like to think she got her memory back in heaven and those seven years, as painful as they were, are remembered by her. She could remember two things that came out of those seven years. One, that pretzels do not in fact taste good with milk. 😉 And two, that she was loved so very much by her children, their spouses, 12 grandchildren, her sister who cared for her, and her caregiver who was an absolute angel on Earth. If all she remembers is that, then I guess Maya Angelou is correct… it’s the feelings that will never be forgotten

If you haven’t guessed from my previous posts, I’m a Gen X baby. I’m in my 50’s with two kids, two dogs, and two personalities. One is the “real” me and the other is the one I was programmed to be. I absolutely love the generation I grew up in and I think my kids just made it under the radar of when they were born before the world went to shit. Phew!! But that’s for another post.

I am a proud Gen Xer, not just because it was a fun time to be alive, but because… umm… yeah, that is exactly why. The 70’s was a fun time to be a kid! All the nostalgia you may have heard is all true. We did in fact drink from hoses on the side of our houses when thirsty, we played Kick the Can in the street and Ghosts in the Graveyard at night. We rode our bikes 2, 3 towns over without our parents knowing. We used the streetlights glimmering on at night as our signal to head home after a fun filled day of outside adventures, which included climbing trees to jumping over each other’s bodies with dirt bikes and none of it involved any parental supervision whatsoever. Even if we got hurt, were bleeding, and needed a grown up, pals patched you up with a stick of used chewing gum or something like that to act as a Band-Aid because if we went home to our parents, there would be a lot of questions followed by a lot of yelling.

The 80’s was when I became a teen. It’s been referred to as the decade of consumerism and materialism, as exemplified with Madonna’s huge hit, Material Girl and the fact that I spent all my allowance on Rick Springfield records and Aqua Net hairspray. We were living the good life, but as teens, our parents became a little more interested in what we were up to on the daily, as they probably should have.

Let’s talk about their generation. Dun dun dun! The BOOMERS. Yikes. They definitely got a bad rap from every generation that followed. I sometimes wonder why and then I hear one of them crankily yell at the most inappropriate moment, like at a Christening, “Kids today are too ‘soft,’ they don’t know the value of a hard day’s work!” etc.. Thanks Uncle Frank, I don’t think the choir in the balcony quite heard you. And if it’s an older boomer, a displaced sexist or racist remark could follow. You never know. So, how does one describe a Boomer if that little anecdote didn’t paint a picture? Well, intolerant comes to mind. Close-minded. I mean I don’t know, I was a kid… but what I do know is that their children’s “emotional” needs weren’t always at the top of their parental goals. We as kids were often told to shut up. No really. Not, please desist from talking, but “Shut up! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” We were actually called stupid when we were, in fact, acting stupid. There was no worry about our mental health or self-esteem. I mean they did use some filters. Like if you were overweight, Aunt Rose called you “big boned” or “husky” if you were a boy and girls… well we got the old, “but you have such a pretty face” comment. They were never subtle about it so you basically grew up with either a really thick skin or an eating disorder.

But the one thing I think all us Gen Xers became was people pleasers. This is a dirty word in psychology today I’m learning. People pleasers are the most messed up people on the planet they say. You have to “work on” that. You have to stop that. Well that’s hard to do when you grew up running up and down from the T.V. and back, changing the channel for your parents before remote controls were invented. If you questioned their reasoning on anything, you got hit with the all too familiar, “Because I said so.” And you took that answer without further probing or it would lead to, “Stop or I’ll give you something to whine about!”

Now I know I’m making Boomer parents sound like ogres. They weren’t. They were very loving, caring… I was going to say attentive, but there was this T.V. commercial that aired at night in the 80’s that actually asked parents, “It’s 10:00 pm. Do you know where your kids are?” For real.

So, this morning on my way to work I was at a stop light. I’m in the right lane, so I could certainly turn on red if able. But I’m stuck there sitting. And sitting. And I have no idea why the car in front of me isn’t turning right. Then I see that the oncoming traffic from the other side of the road is also at a hault. They could be turning left but aren’t. What the hell is going on? Then I finally see this young woman walking across the walk way. Everyone is waiting for her to cross. Two huge lines of traffic coming from both directions at a major intersection are waiting. I suddenly feel hot under my coat. I’m annoyed. I find myself questioning myself…Why, why are you so bothered? Hello? It’s traffic, you’re used to this. But it isn’t the waiting that bothers me, it’s the why I’m waiting.. This young, 20-something year old woman with ear buds in isn’t walking across the street, she’s strolling. She. Is. Taking. Her. Sweet. Time. She is not bothered in the LEAST that there are two lanes of traffic waiting for her. Is she carrying packages that are so heavy that she can’t maneuver her gate properly? No. So I look for a limp. She’s gotta have a limp or some reason for taking her sweet time. Nothing. So, I find myself cursing out this perfectly healthy young lady, who I’m sure is lovely. If this was me, who had to cross a busy intersection with many cars waiting for me, I’d have sprint across the street. I also let the person with only one item go ahead of me in the grocery store line. I have this thing about holding others up, like their time is more important than mine.

I now think of the Gen Xers more as Gen PPs. Generation People Pleasers. When I think about the obligations imposed upon us as children, not just physically or academically but socially, it’s just so different from what we have passed down to our own kids. We have made sure that our kids don’t live with the same guilt we grew up with. If you grew up in a large family like I did, you were expected to say hello and good-bye to every single relative in attendance at a party. And if you grew up in a big Italian family, like my husband’s, ppph.. forget about it. You had to plan your departure an hour before you were planning to leave because if you didn’t make mindless chit chat with each relative for at least 10 minutes a piece, you were shunned. Lots of kiss hellos and kiss good-byes. Didn’t matter if it made you uncomfortable, you had to allow whoever wanted to plant one on you do it and pretend you liked it.

We don’t inflict as many etiquette rules on kids today. We have taught them to be independent thinkers. This has as many positive attributes as negative. I think the key to good parenting is finding the correct balance between “do what’s important to you” and “be respectful of others.” I think the young generation today may not be getting that balance.

Being a “people pleaser” is more than just being thoughtful and considerate. It becomes a problem when our responsibilities become skewed into indebtedness. It’s easy to lose oneself trying to be selfless. Again, BALANCE. I think with every generation comes more introspection on mental health, which is a good thing. As long as the Golden Rule is still taught by parents and schools everywhere, I think generations to come will be fine.

Gen PP’s parents may have been strict with their rules and harsh with their words, but they had to be. They couldn’t check their Life 360’s to see where their kids were at all times. They couldn’t call or text us wherever we were whenever they wanted. All they had were warnings to give. I still use with my kids one of my dad’s favorite warnings, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” The respect I now have for my parents raising five kids, not knowing if we were “lying dead in a ditch somewhere,” has come full circle. Yes, we got yelled at often and had to hear crazy phrases and warnings all the time, but what other choice did they have? Like the commercial reminded them every night, they did not know “where we were” at 10:00 pm. For that especially, I give them grace.

I had my children in the late 90’s, early Y2K. “Helicopter Moms” became a buzz word in the Gen Z era. Parents were becoming too involved with their kids and not letting them just be kids. But some of us parents didn’t think of it that way. We, or I should say I, thought of it more as being the “emotionally attentive” parent that I didn’t necessarily have as a kid. I did want to know what my kids were doing at all times, who they were with and why. I wanted to know my kids’ friends and their parents. I vowed to ask my kids every night how their day was and if it wasn’t so good, then why and what could they do to make it better. Their mental health was as important to me as their physical health. I wanted them to know that as important as it is to be respectful and disciplined, it is equally important to set boundaries in your relationships. I think one great piece of advice I gave to my kids is “Listen to your gut. If your instincts tell you something’s not right, get the hell outta there or stand up for yourself! It doesn’t matter who you may disappoint.”

For some reason the previous generation considered compliancy as a strength, not a weakness. Disappointment “builds character.” That may be true, but a character that is afraid to excel and experience things out of fear builds nothing. God bless our 80’s heroes for women. I can’t imagine how hard it was for Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Sally Ride, the first American woman to travel space (RIP), and let’s never discount Oprah. Come on girl, she blew up in the 80’s and is still, well, Oprah. No need to say more. Compliancy is something that all of us “people pleasers” learned as a child. But I truly think that most of us GenX-ers have learned and grown from that. We may stumble back into old ways by trying to please everyone around us, but deep within us, we know better. Like when my mom told me to check my guest towels during a party because they do get wet so it’s important to swap them out mid party. I still do that, btw.

Teaching strength and bravery to the next generation is the complete opposite of “soft”. Sure, kids today may have their Door Dash and water bottles, (they don’t even know what a hose is), but if you take the time to really know them, you’ll realize that they care a hell of a lot more about our planet and equal rights than our Cheeto eating, RC Cola asses did while watching Dallas on a Saturday night. I didn’t raise “people pleasers,” I like to think I raised Whitesnake “Here I Go Again On my Own” kids. They may not need me much anymore, but I’m secure in knowing that they will be okay. I’m pleased.