Old

My mom got some bad news:  Her hearing loss is being made much worse by a problem within her inner ear, which is distorting the sounds she hears.  The doctor said her ability to understand sounds went from 90% two years ago to 20% now.  There's nothing that can be done about it.  Her hearing has gotten noticeably worse in the past few months, even with her hearing aid, but we were all hoping that a new hearing aid or an adjustment would help.

Every now and then on the phone she has to ask me to repeat myself, but mostly she can still understand me when I speak to her. It's harder for her if there is any background noise, or if the person speaking isn't clear.  Sometimes she holds the phone up to her answering machine to see if I can hear her messages, because she has so much trouble making out what they are saying.  It was tremendously upsetting for her to find out that it wouldn't get any better.

Overall, at almost 90, she is in pretty good shape.  Everyone at the retirement home just loves her, she is the "sweet" one who tries to help out and be kind to people.  Her mind is fine.  She walks perfectly well with the aid of a walker/rollator, which is really only there to keep her steady in case she needs it.  Her vision is good enough to do crossword puzzles and read the newspaper.  She gets tired easily, and her back hurts because of her osteoporosis, but she is in better shape, I would guess, than the average 90 year old.

I'll be driving up to visit her next week on September 28th, and we'll be going to a birthday lunch celebration with other family members on her birthday, Friday September 30th.  I know she misses Dad so much it's hard for her to celebrate anything.  Some days I can tell she just feels tired of living.  I hope her birthday celebration cheers her up, at least a little.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" ~ Satchel Paige

And now here I am, with BIFOCALS.

My eye doctor recommended I go ahead and get bifocals even though my need for them is relatively slight, because she thought this would be a better way to get used to them.  My sad, special eyes are terrible, I have a -10 prescription, which is pitifully strong.  I have a limited choice in eyeglass frames because of the thickness of my lenses, even if I get the expensive top of the line high index superthin lenses they are still way too thick for rimless or even wire rims.

So my "slight" bifocals -- and I got the "progressive" lenses so there's no visible line -- came in this past Sunday.  I had heard about people having trouble getting used to them, but I thought that was because you have to get used to looking down to read and looking straight ahead to walk, etc.  You obviously have to look through the part of the lens that has the correct prescription for where you are trying to see.

I had no idea that everything would be so distorted throughout the whole lens, though.  It's like getting new glasses with a stronger prescription, there is always an adjustment period, only this is way way way more intense.  In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to get the new glasses, and immediately drive to Walmart to go shopping.  Turning my head back and forth and scanning the shelves looking for cans of tuna and two-liters of Coke Zero and a loaf of whole wheat bread was just way, way, way too disorienting.

Greg kept looking at me, white as a sheet and dizzy, and suggesting that I might prefer to wait in the car.  Would there, in fact, be anything much worse than vomiting in a crowded Walmart on a Sunday afternoon?  It would have been interesting to see how many iPhones would have been whipped out and pointed at me, posting pics of my sad, sick moment on Twitter.

But I made it okay, and felt fine after getting home and lying down for a while.  Headaches have been minimal, too, although every now and then I still feel slightly queasy from the distortion.

So far I am not enjoying old age.

And, since I can only wear contacts once every week or two, contacts with bifocals are too expensive for me to justify so I got "reading glasses" for close-up vision when I'm wearing contacts.  I am now officially a person who carries old lady glasses around in her purse for when I need to read some small print on a menu or a price tag.

Also, I have a bunion.  I have old lady eyes and old lady glasses, and now old lady feet and, inevitably, old lady shoes.

Soon, I will stop listening to Nicki Minaj, and will begin tucking folded, used tissues into the wrists of my long sleeved nightgowns.