on 10-01-2012 06:23 AM
"This is for the Senior members of CS, those born before 1947. Baby Boomers and Generations X & Y are welcome providing you are over 18 🙂
But this is definitely for people who are facing the last long haul. We have survived babyhood, childhood, being teens and twenties... We have learned to read and write, to drive, have probably been married and the women have survived child birth.
The challenges are constant and the near misses of death are also there. If we have become a senior we have learned to survive so much, and along the way we have, of course, gathered a great deal of knowledge about life.
The belief that age diminishes us is not true, it changes us and not all of it is bad. Yes there can be various forms of dementia for some, but that is also a disease that can happen in younger people. Alzheimer's can also occur - it is another form of dementia and generally occurs in people over 65, although that can occur much earlier too and not everyone is going to get it.
Most of us keep our mental alertness up to the moment of death, even if we lose our hearing and our eyesight, but of course this can happen at any age too.
What changes is our physical strength, which diminishes but our mental strength and patience grows, it has to of course, to deal with this aging thing.
Arthritis, heart trouble, strokes - all these things associated with age can happen at any time in your life - arthritis can happen when you are a child but they don't like giving out new hips and knees until you are in your 50s and 60s or later. We can talk about that too.
Cancer can happen any time and that is also something we can discuss here if you like.
The point of this thread is to give the Seniors a chance to talk about how they are coping with age, the challenges it presents and the fears that can come with it... loss of hearing or sight, aging spouses, living alone, retirement villages, even death...
So I will ask that the Juniors treat us in kindly fashion and remember, all this is going to happen to you too - providing you avoid death before you get here 🙂
So, onward and upward. Let's go...."

on 08-08-2012 09:11 AM
Things do change purple, and I bet the swallow has too. Try not to jump fences before you get to them even tho it's hard not to.
One of the things I have learned is that, no matter how much we dread things when we are not in front of them, it is much easier when we have arrived at the place and have gone into the right gear to cope.
We get into the atmosphere of it all and can get on with it. It's much harder when we are at home dreading it 😞
Once this is over and you know what is going on you will feel much better about it all and, hopefully, they find nothing for you to worry about 🙂
Thankyou Darki, I know you are right.......
I will have the blood tests this morning, then then take paperwork for the barium to xray, then forms for day surgery to admissions.
The only thing I dread is the barium swallow, but like you said surely it has improved by now.
on 08-08-2012 09:12 AM
no...think it's more like a down the throat o freshy:^O
on 08-08-2012 09:15 AM
I had quite a few barium meal swallows as well as innuendos in my time....disgusting tasting milkshake...do hope they've improved it over the years.
on 08-08-2012 10:19 AM
I just remembered something....a nurse once told me the trick to swallowing stuff like barium meal and that stuff befpre an innuendo is to suck on an ice cube until your tongue is numb and right away swallow 'the stuff'.
on 08-08-2012 02:38 PM
Hasving the barium swallow at 9.30am tomorrow and for those wanting to know, I asked had the taste changed over the yrs, and she said no:_|
I have to fast from midnight, and procedure takes 30mins.
I wonder what tastes worse, the barium stuff or the drink you have for a colonoscopy.
on 08-08-2012 02:39 PM
I just remembered something....a nurse once told me the trick to swallowing stuff like barium meal and that stuff befpre an innuendo is to suck on an ice cube until your tongue is numb and right away swallow 'the stuff'.
How can you suck on an iceblock when you are in the hospital having this procedure?
on 08-08-2012 02:45 PM
Easy purple, ask one of the attending nurses to get you a cup of ice. There is usually some in the staff fridge or the kitchens and there isn't any reason why she can't get you some. 🙂

on 08-08-2012 03:32 PM
Thankyou Darki & freshwater........would never have thought of ice, but I will certainly be asking for some:-D
on 09-08-2012 07:59 AM
Good morning gerries 🙂
Thinking of you this morning purple and hoping the procedure goes like clock work and you are home before your feet have touched the ground :-x
Well another day another dollar (for some ;-)) I am going out to lunch today with a friend today to a lovely hotel that overlooking the Derwent River and Kingston.
Hope you all have a good day too.

on 09-08-2012 08:21 AM
morning all
num darki.....have some seafood for me please