Tag: Health

America Collection
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On Outliving Your Friends

by Fran Johns

How to cope with loss upon loss? What do you do about shrinking Friend Lists?

(Author photo)

My friend Carol (above) went to the E.R. late the other night after another fall. I sent her off with a heavy red sweatshirt and a good book but without my company; there are limits to friendship at 11:30 PM. She’s back now, with nothing but praise for the Kaiser E.R. staff; also with a brace to help the fractured vertebra heal and the makings of a doozy of a black eye that’s going to be with her for a while.

So I’m not losing Carol any time soon, I trust. This is good.

But I lost sleep thinking about her, and other friends in other hospitals and hospices and stages of decline. Almost without exception they are younger than I am, a detail that does not go unnoticed by anyone, especially my nonagenarian self.

In the past few months I’ve bid farewell to four longtime friends. Another, two years past her diagnosis with Bulbar ALS (I wrote about that recently) is talking with her family about the approaching date on which she will use California’s legal Medical Aid in Dying.

Another friend who plans to use the CA law obtained his life-ending medications (you must be a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to qualify for the law) about a year ago. Then he defied the odds, and his cancer, by staying alive. That’s the best part about “terminal” illness and nonagenarianism both: you can read statistics all day long but there’s only one you. 

Losing friends is tough at any age, but when you hit the 80s and 90s it can wear you down. So I offer three pieces of advice from a lofty, elderly viewpoint:

  1. Don’t let go. Being sick and dying, especially the dying thing, can be lonely business. Show up if you can, whether or not you know what to say. You don’t have to say a word beyond, “I wanted to be here.” If you can’t show up, send word. Call, text, send cards and notes. Drawings, pressed flowers, emails, one small sticker on a postcard. Care.
  2. Adopt. Specifically, a few people a few decades younger than you. No legal formalities required, just find some available young people and focus your interest and energies on getting to know them. Ask about their interests, joys, problems. Have them over for pizza. Send them texts and emojis, even things with actual stamps on them. Getting to know younger generations is eye-opening fun — and they’re not likely to up and die on you tomorrow. (With my kids and grandkids all over the globe I have an entire, ever-expanding West Coast Family.)
  3. Count your blessings. Then pay them forward. Reach out to survivors in days & weeks after a loss. Support causes the departed supported. Redouble any good works you’ve been doing in his or her honor. Be kind. If the world’s a little worse for their loss, make it a little better.

The thing that matters most about losing friends is what you do in remembering them. Some day others may remember you with kindness.

*. *. *

(I’m returning to WordPress in fits & starts; thanks for dropping by. While I struggle with this platform and my aged WordPress account I’m finding that Substack is easier and friendlier. You may find other writers there whom you enjoy, and you can always follow them for free — including The Optimistic Eye, which is my official franmorelandjohns Substack.)

America Collection/General interest
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On Being “A Writer for The Atlantic”

by Fran Johns

How to handle seeing my own words on these pages?

The bottom line? I have become officially insufferable.

I mean, I’ve had stories and essays in a lot of fine publications over the years of my long and happy career. But The Atlantic? Nahh, never going to happen. Yet there it is.

Up until now the pinnacle of my literary success was reached a few years ago when my Brooklyn lawyer friend Peter Flemming, with whom I had a running competition for most letters published in the New York Times, was going over fact-checks with a Times editor. He mentioned our competition to the editor who replied, “Oh, Fran — she’s one of our regulars.” Which, I had thought ever since, would be on my tombstone if I were planning to have such a thing (unfortunately, I am not.)

But now here is my byline, right smack on the same e-page with the byline of Anne Applebaum. Eliot Cohen. Hua Hsu and Jason Liebowitz. If that’s not literary validation I don’t know what is. They may not be writing home about being on the same page with Fran Moreland Johns; I get that. But they probably don’t have Big Head issues either.

I have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to thank for all this. The idea that I would ever thank RFKJr for ANYthing other than his retirement from public view is nothing short of ludicrous. The man is a threat to humankind. Evil doesn’t even begin to cover it, IMHO.

I said as much in a letter to The Atlantic in response to their excellent cover story (that piece was by Michael Scherer, but who’s name-dropping?) on RFKJr. In the same inbox with a message saying they would be running my letter was an email from an Atlanticeditor, my new best friend Adrienne, asking if I’d be interested in writing an expanded essay on the subject. Took me about seven seconds to hit Reply.

And thus began one of the happiest writing experiences of my literary life. I was asked almost apologetically if the fee would be sufficient — please don’t tell them I’d have done it for $25; later when I apologized on my own behalf for ineptitude with the online reimbursement forms I received an immediate response from an actual person telling me everybody had issues with those forms and that he enjoyed my description of them.

Over the several weeks of writing/editing/etc — these folks fact check their fact checkers — whenever I’d get a copy of something checked or edited its subject head would say things like “Your wonderful article.” I’m thinking of collaging and framing these.

I still haven’t seen my article in print, other than the page proofs (above.) Those of us in the dying breed of print magazine readers still don’t really believe anything until we see it on an actual piece of paper. But surely The Atlantic won’t change its mind and pull my article before the print edition goes in the mail?

Now if only Robert F. Kennedy, Jr were smart enough to read The Atlantic.

America Collection/General interest
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The Secret Weapon for Preventing Falls

by Fran Johns

AN OCCASIONAL UNAUTHORIZED UNSUPPORTED (BUT HEARTFELT) HEALTH TIP

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Look better . . . fall less . . . what’s not to love about good posture?

I had the great good fortune, a few eons ago, to study modern dance in college with a woman named Eleanor Struppa. “Struppa,” as she was universally addressed, had herself danced with the famed Martha Graham. You could spot her in any crowd — she’d be the person standing, or more often moving, with such fluid grace and effortlessly perfect posture that she commanded a space of her own.

Struppa’s students did not slouch. This was because we might be walking droopy-shouldered along some hall or pathway when a hand from behind would quietly grab a small chunk of hair on the top of our head and, as it was tugged upward, a voice would sing out, “A string! A string! Imagine a string is pulling you upward . . .” End of slouch.

The string trick alone doesn’t do it; there’s a lot of chin-tucking, muscle-strengthening, spine-aligning and proper exercise involved. Good genes are a bonus. 

Bone loss, physical afflictions and gravity have their way with the aging body, but concentrating on balance and posture can help us all stay upright. And here’s the pay-off: staying upright is the best way not to break bones.

In addition to a ridiculous obsession with posture, I am even more ridiculously obsessed with balance. I have a collection of balance exercises in my head that come into play in any given spare three minutes. You can sneak in a balance exercise anywhere, as long as you ignore the curious glances from everybody else in the wait lines. Extra points for executing rock-the-boats in a moving elevator —  near the railing, please, just in case. Fellow residents in my senior living building are all by now used to this. More than a few join in (though seldom in the elevator.)

So far, it’s working. The last bone I broke was about 50 years ago, playing doubles tennis with my then-70-something-year-old father. That time, I made a graceful leap at the net and wound up with a broken foot. I was in a walking cast for the next six weeks. What I remember best about that time was repeatedly having to tell the story, only to hear the listener ask, “Well, how’s your father?” He was, of course, just fine. His posture was impeccable until his death, at 90.

My posture has now outlived his by a couple of years, thanks in large measure to the lilting voice in my head:

“A string! A string! Imagine a string is pulling you upward!”

This post also appears on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye. C’mon over any time, it’s free

America Collection/General interest
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How to Get a New Toe in Twenty Minutes

by Fran Johns

THE WONDERS OF MODERN SURGERY, REPORTED IN REAL TIME

(TODAY’S DIVERSION FROM OTHER WORLD NEWS)

You’ve got to love modern medicine.

I arrive at the Kaiser Musculoskeletal Medicine Department a few minutes early for my 9:30 appointment. After all the ominous worst-case scenario documents are signed and promises made (in writing) not to sue if they happen, enter the surgeon. She confirms which of my knobbly toes it is that we plan to un-knobble a little, whips out a magic marker and writes herself a note: “Yes!” . . . with arrow just in case.

Re-enter the assistant.

The assistant has more to do than the surgeon it seems to me. She was responsible for getting my signatures on all the right pages, and now she’s busy making my foot look ready for the barbecue pit.

Enter the surgeon again, suiting up in blue paper and whipping blue paper over and under the scene of the action. After that she starts erasing her messages to self and playing around with Q-tips, while the assistant is discussing cataract surgery she (the assistant) has scheduled for tomorrow. “Eww,” says my toe surgeon, “shot in the eye! That sounds awful!” I’m hoping we don’t start mixing up eyes and toes here, but having had cataract surgery myself I join in with the assistant to assure the toe surgeon that cataracts are no big deal. Just to be clear, my own eyes are closed by now; I did not choose to watch. But couldn’t resist holding my phone up to record what was underway.

The surgeon has gone for the X-acto knife. Is there a desk drawer in America without an X-acto knife? Surely not. But I’ve been watching the assistant pour Betadyne over my foot and everything else around including the instrument tray, so I’m assuming this isn’t just any old X-acto knife. My guess is that the X-acto people have a surgery division which churns out knives for toes exactly the same as the ones for crafting that are in every desk drawer, but the ones for toes cost some 500 times more. God only knows how much the ones for hearts cost.

Approximately 10 minutes later, the deed is done, the surgeon has congratulated us all and departed, the assistant pulls a sock over my bulkily bandaged foot, finishes up with a stylish new boot and voilà! I am into a Lyft and back home for coffee at 10.

Next week: resumption of the 3 or 4 mile daily walk, all ten toes in synch.

America Collection/General interest
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I’m Exhausted! Can We Talk?

by Fran Johns

SCARY SYMPTOMS WE SHOULD ADDRESS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

I’m telling you, it was BAD.

I could hardly stay up long enough to make coffee. Got a little better, thought I’d go to the grocery store — less than a mile walk with my customary grocery bag/backpack, something I do several times a week. Halfway home, I had to call a Lyft.

Maybe you’ve had similar struggles, and you understand? Even if you’re not a Certified Old Person as I am — costant fatigue, nagging anxiety not unlike a headache that’s about to crash land just behind your temples? 


After a couple of total-exhaustion days, I figured maybe it was a blood pressure issue. I have a fancy BP machine stashed in a cabinet that was bought long ago for some obscure reason. So I took my blood pressure throughout the day. 130/70. Maybe a little low? I don’t pay a lot of attention to these things as a rule.


Suddenly, however, it shot up! It was 160-something over 80-something! Now I’m really worried. After getting these sorts of readings, or worse, throughout an hour or so, I’m hearing alarm bells.


By then it was nearly 8 p.m., but I was sure I might go into cardiac arrest or something at any moment.

So I called the Kaiser advice nurse. I love the Kaiser advice nurse. He or she will always listen patiently to my complaints and either offer guidance or send me straight to the ER as the case may require.


We talked at length about my medical history and my symptoms. I described the exhaustion, my life in general over the past few days, my increasing concern over what seemed to me some sudden wild BP swings. As usual, I liked the advice nurse a lot and felt she was carefully internalizing my information and analyzing the situation.

After a few moments of reflection, she made a diagnostic recommendation.


“Have you tried turning off the news?” she said.


Imagine.


I’m better now.






America Collection/General interest
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Smoker’s Lungs are Forever

by Fran Johns

LOOKING BACK AT AN ADDICTION THAT STARTED DURING WORLD WAR II

Photo by KAIBING FAN on Unsplash

I was 13 the year my older sister left for her senior year of college, just before World War II came to an end. Unfortunately for my lungs she forgot about a carton of Lucky Strikes on the closet shelf. By the time I was halfway through those ten packs I was hooked.

In my defense — or by way of explanation — chain-smokers were more common than non-smokers in the 1940s, and in small-town America the sight of young kids smoking on school steps would have raised few eyebrows, if any. (The eyebrows of my parents would have been another matter altogether, but my sisters and I were sneaky enough to conceal these habits for years.)

The above is why my own eyebrows went up over this beginning line of a Quora story that just crossed my screen:

“If you’re a daily or heavy smoker it takes about 7 years for your lungs to clear themselves.” That sent me straight over to the website of my friends at the Cleveland Clinic where they said “if you can stop smoking for several years, your risk of cancer and other health conditions reduces or even returns to the same level as someone who doesn’t smoke.” 

This is not to say everything will just be hunky-dory from then on. Read on for what the Cleveland Clinic says, or check with the American Cancer Society or the American Lung Association . . . we know a lot more about nicotine today than in the days when cigarettes were glamorous and chic and omnipresent.

But I can’t help looking back on those days, and telling the story of my poor, once-innocent lungs.

Well into the 1960s, when I was balancing ashtrays while feeding my first two infants, smoking was generally accepted — okay, nobody said it was good for you, but you weren’t labeled a Bad Mom. Gradually, in the 1960s, smoking lost its cool. (Related factoid: for years, bad colds had simply forced me to switch from Marlboros to Kools.) By 1971, when ads were banned and smoke-free areas began to edge smokers out of the way, the reality of nicotine’s multiple harms to the body also began to break through and into the public consciousness.

In 1964, pregnant with my last child, I was so sick that for the first time in my addictive history I could not even manage a smoke. After she arrived I had a moment of clarity: I knew it would be impossible to quit, but since I had temporarily suspended the habit maybe I could manage not to restart. Sixty years later I am still managing not to restart.

You can do this math: I am now sailing into my 90s, still of sound mind and walking three or four miles on most days — so I’m living proof that a history of chain smoking doesn’t always shorten one’s lifespan. Here, though, are a few details within which the devil nicotine may lurk:

Macular degeneration? Maybe I wouldn’t be getting that periodic shot in the eye had I not accumulated 17 long-ago years of chain smoking.

This raspy voice finally curtailing the public speaking I’ve done in behalf of several causes for decades? Vocal therapists have helpfully offered exercises that take 20 minutes three times a day — when I can’t find five extra minutes to finish a blog post. I should never have dropped out of the church choir.

How about that breast cancer I had back at age 72? Virtually every day another link between smoking and cancer is established.

Or unexpected issues with altitude? Without my nicotine-infused history I might still be tackling historic enclosed spiral staircases or visiting Machu Picchu. As is, my daughter brings along a can of oxygen when she meets my plane in Bozeman, MT.

But the cruelest blow of all is when, puffed with pride over a history of sixty years cigarette-free, I wind up a routine exam with the ENT doc to the sound of his muttering voice from behind the X-ray screen:

“Mm-hmmm. Smoker’s lungs.”

General interest/Optimism Collection
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After Earth Day, Dirt Day!

by Fran Johns

Plant, dig, create — getting grimy can do you good

Photo by Karen Maes on Unsplash

Freedom! Dirt lovers are uprooted and exonerated.

A recent New York Times story confirms that dirt is good. (The real kind, not the political or social media kind.) Dirt even contains microbes beneficial to our mental & physical health. Who knew?

Actually, I did. Mud pies were always my beloveds. You can express yourself in mud: Pressed-leaf creations, happy faces or sad. If you’re angry you can just splat it back down with great force. Digging restores the soul, and occasionally creates gardens.

I taught my kids to wash up before meals, but otherwise to love Mother Earth. Even a little on the inside floors if I’m being honest. Didn’t Native Americans build immunities by ingesting bits of bad stuff? Don’t you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die? (Take your time.)

Please accept this seal of approval: Go ahead. Get grimy.

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