Feeling my age

nexus63

i had bowel cancer 6 years ago and they removed it all but i was left with only half of my bowel, they gave me the choice of having all the lymph nodes from my groin area, this has left me with lympoedema, in the last 2 years i have gone from being able to walk to using a walker and a wheelchair when my son takes me to any of the large shopping centres. the lymph veins in my legs burst open and they leak and have damaged the nerves, i have maybe 2/3 years before i am in a wheelchair all the time, i will need to move house as i have stairs. i feel 40 in my head and 80 in my body, i will be 63 this year, i am so glad i survived the cancer but when i am crying with pain, a tiny little bit of my brain does say....was it worth it, i never learned to drive and walked everywhere and i so miss that.

You are young enough still. I advise you to move house as soon as you can. Get a place all on one level , such as a bungalow, or a ground floor flat.

Some interesting reading here.
I think all of us get a “wake up call” aka reminder of our age at times- and a dismal January/February is probably when most are at their lowest ebb.
I find I think I can do anything but when I get going I realise I get out of breath, I have slowed down, I need a handrail at stairs (especially in places like Tube stations) and I get anxious about being late, so I am often early, which has become a bit of a family standing joke!
Then with my sensible head on I think, what’s wrong with feeling the age I am? 78 is good enough going and why despair when I can’t keep up with my 50 or 40-something AC?
But I have also realised that if I am not to go down that slippery slope of retreating to my kindle I do need to “feel the fear and do it anyway” sometimes!
So a 3 1/2 hour drive to Somerset on Christmas Eve turned out to be no problem - although wading trough the shingle on Chesil Beach on our Boxing Day walk eventually defeated me.
Yesterday I went down to London to see my GS in his school assembly- train and tube, but no probs, I really should do this sort of thing more often.
One thing I notice though, one day out and
So it’s the chair and Kindle for me today!moving at a different pace and I am zonked the next.

Seapebble - those "fake" videos (ie the AI ones) are a right nuisance and just in the last few months or so there seems to be an avalanche of them turning up on YouTube and a lot of them just repeat each other. So - yep...one does have to watch out for them. Not to say one doesn't pick up the odd snippet of useful info. from them - but most of them seem to be just "content grabbed from elsewhere" sort of format very much (which I guess they are - being AI). Guess it's just a "greedy little someone somewhere" that is just sitting there gloating about having a "passive income stream" as they doubtless call it.

Someone upthread (sorry forgot the name 😂) said that the Doc said she was too old at 80 to have an operation. Rubbish !!!
Get a second opinion

Be careful with all the tai chi promotion online. It's targeted to seniors (through the clips we watch; the algorithm) and about 95% of it is AI generated click-bait. It's a massive, co-ordinated ad campaign by fitness app companies. Some of these apps are scams. Much of it is laughable- a guy with rippling bare chest saying "I'm 65 and doctors hate me". Most of it is reworked yoga and not tai chi at all but they build up views and income every view - especially if people comment. Tai chi is an ancient system and works but it's best to join a local group with someone who knows what they're doing. You can get decent honest advice about building muscle (vital at our age) from various physiotherapists on YouTube. I know from experience that it works. Just ten minutes a day of strength building exercises with weights (start with water bottles or cans of beans if you don't have weights). I started out like that and now use a 4kg weight in each hand. If you can lift a small shopping bag you can do it. Glutes (butt muscle) exercises are a great place to start as those help to keep us upright when we walk. Our bodies are so forgiving and it's rarely too late to do something about loss of strength.

There's a UK physiotherapist on YouTube who works exclusively with older people. His name is Will Harlow - just put that in the search box of YouTube. No music, no trying to sell you products. Clear, calm instructions. He has lots of exercises to help with fighting off the things that can hold you back in older age - like sarcopenia. The first exercise I would recommend is "sit to stand". Basically just standing up and sitting down - repeated. That has helped me so much. Please keep moving - it's vital as we get older.

Good points Flippinheck take it easy and I hope you regain a spring on your step by spring😊
Your experience reminds me of my partner who; so keen to convince the doctors -(after a pleurectomy for a punctured lung) that he was serious about a making a swift recovery, that he “over did” the excercise bike they put next to his bed.
They took it away! 😅 he was fine after that. Moderation in everything.

I was 80 last week and on my birthday I got a gum infection and went on antibiotics. I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday for an ongoing shoulder and back pain, and have x ray and ultrasound appointments coming up. Also I had a telephone appointment about my IBS on Wednesday, so, yes I am feeling my age. But having said that, I have had IBS since 1962 when I was 16!

I am 75. After a holiday in lovely Edinburgh in early September, with my super fit daughter and her partner I realised that I was not as fit as I thought I was.
I already walked regularly, but less so in winter weather. So, I bought a step machine and after a couple of weeks I already had more stamina in my legs. And then, at the end of Sept, I overdid it and tore my Achilles tendon. For weeks I couldn’t walk without pain. My GP was rudely dismissive. I consulted Dr Google which warned of long, patchy, recuperation. And that is exactly how it has been. My ankle feels almost ok around the house but walk for more than a couple of hundred yards and it is agony. The plus side is that it now recovers-ish by the following day.
The effect of all this is that my fitness is worse than it has ever been and, having no car, I am almost housebound. It is very frustrating but hopefully I will be fully recovered by Spring.
So, be careful, exercise is wonderful, but don’t be stupid like me and overdo it.

Petra, I just went down a rabbit hole of memories after clicking your link. So many beautiful songs listed (and listened to - and possibly massacred by singing along very loudly as I remembered all the lyrics ) below it. Best music ever thank you!

I walk quite slowly now and I am 'only' 72. I have a walking stick where the handle converts to a seat (not a very comfortable one) but it means that I can have a rest if I need to.

Mutti Tai. That really cheered me up. Thank you to all who have taken the time to send advice and reassurance

MuttiTai

You go gal! Take no prisoners and keep up that sense of humour.

Vito

Caraidagain, absolutely.
Dad did exactly what the physios told him to do. He worked hard at his exercises, was so worth it. Thanks to him,if ever I'm in the unfortunate position I need a new hip, I don't have any fear .

The cautionary note I would say here is ask - in detail - re the replacement hip itself.

I think those exercises helped - but it wasn't quite the recovery scene planned on and I asked why.

Turned out that I'd been wrong in assuming that they very carefully make sure a replacement hip is exactly the size that particular person needs (ie custom-made). They make a range of off-the-peg sizes (think it was 8 of them - but can't recall the number for sure???). Not a dressmaker crafted to that one individual person set-up.

So though my mother was one of the ones that the NHS took off their list and put into a private hospital - I am not convinced they used the right size hip replacement part for her. I thought they'd measure her up carefully and think "Right - we've got this tiny short little woman here. She's slender build and 34B-24-34 figure (1970s size 8 and would probably have to find child clothes for her normal size figure these days)" and make a teensy one specially for her (indeed make ones individually specially for everyone).

They have to be watched - even if there is an element of private about the care. So she had her own room and edible food - but I checked for the surgeons name on that hospital website and found several (but it didnt include his) and it was a private room and I went to sit on an armchair there and realised it smelt (someone hadnt made it to the loo in time!) and needed to be replaced. Then we came to the question re hip size - and I found out it had been "off the peg" and not custom-made.

So things need to be checked on in detail - before the event.

Hi Maggie and everyone else on here, I am also 77 this year and I think that the emotional:psychological hit of passing years can be felt quite deeply. I had a TKR two years ago, ghastly, and I think I started to feel older as from then. I do think that we are probably doing more than “granny” did from a couple of generations ago. When my daughter wonders why I’m slower I just tell her that I haven’t been 77 before and I’m still practicing. When my memory lets me down I tell folk that my hard drive is full and the retrieval system is slowing down. The surgery that’s keeping me going has info on classes/exercises for balance so that could be a good place to start. I have just started t’ai chi and I’m going to stick with it for a while because I know my balance is very poor. My Apple Watch takes great delight in telling me so. The David Lloyd Centre in Bristol is offering a tranche of free classes for folk of a certain age. I think you have to commit to the course and use of the pool and gym is free for the length of the course. There may be a waiting list but I know people who have used it and feel the benefit. In the final analysis we just have to keep on keeping on and I also wish that WD40 had been invented first for human use. Wouldn’t that be great. Until there is a golden bullet for pain I will just keep on going, hopefully with a smile on my face and a lipstick in my pocket.

I did t’ai chi before Covid and found it helped immensely with balance and our teacher also got me into the self defence as well.

Nexus.

Have you given swimming a go?

Fantastic tune Petra! You were so lucky to see them live….
Those were the days!

We have Tai Chi classes run by Age UK in our area. The same teacher also takes free classes that are organised by the Council. I will be 80 this year, a friend of mine is 86 this week and we both go twice a week. I find that if if I miss a week I really start to stiffen up.

Caraidagain, absolutely.
Dad did exactly what the physios told him to do. He worked hard at his exercises, was so worth it. Thanks to him,if ever I'm in the unfortunate position I need a new hip, I don't have any fear .

TBH I’ve never liked exercise as I’ve never been any good at it, any attempts since being a child have often resulted in mild disaster (caught little toe in trampoline in school and broken it, done bench work in gym, managed to get a large wooden splinter break off in my rear and have to have it removed at A&E, broken ankles several times falling out of doorways, standing on dog toys)
Anyhow hubs and I have recently joined a chair yoga class and we’re actually both enjoying it and feeling the benefit, I’ve also dug out WII from the loft and are awaiting delivery of a yoga disc to do at home (we’re both 69yrs)

DollyD

Yes! Feeling a bit stiff and walking slower but I don’t think this cold weather helps.
Also, some days I’m more lively than others, I suppose depending on how well I’ve slept.
I still walk my dog around the park every day, no matter the weather, which is “something” but I know I will be walking faster and further come Spring.
Some days if I’m feeling particularly stiff, I’ll have a little dance to Absolute radio, especially if it’s a song from when I was young, such as Junior Walker and the All Stars and Smokey Robinson, takes me right back.
My motto to myself is Just Keep Going.

That name, Junior Walker took me back years. They were playing in a club in Southend. We walked in and he was playing the opening bars of What does it take.
Listing to it live you blew me away.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5gYBBL4rGk&list=RDx5gYBBL4rGk&start_radio=1

Vito

Sewingpruso

I have arthritis in both knees and one hip; I have to go upstairs on my hands and knees. Saw the doc, who said I can't have an op as I'm too old - I'm 80.

Bloody hell, that's terrible. I would insist on a second opinion. My father had a hip replacement in his late 70s, digging his allotment 6 weeks later. I hope you get the help you need and deserve 🤗

...and don't forget about physiotherapy thereafter.

My mother had a hip replacement operation back along and cue for a work colleague I was friendly with saying "When I had one = I had physiotherapy afterwards". On asking my mother - no-one had made any plans for physio for her at all!

Cue for I booked her in with a suitable physiotherapist and paid for a course of physio for her - to make sure she got it.

Nexus