When my wife and I were in our 60s, we thought we might live a long time if we just ate our veggies and exercised regularly. Getting older would simply mean getting more wrinkles and gray hairs or, in my case, having more hair fall out.
But now that we’re in our 70s, we’ve realized how naïve we’d been. Eating healthily and exercising are certainly important pillars in the foundation of health, but we’re going to need to do a lot more to extend our time of healthy longevity.
Additional pillars of the foundation of health include getting sufficient sleep and protecting ourselves with vaccines against such debilitating conditions as COVID, pneumonia, shingles, and the flu. It’s also important that we nurture a robust social network—it will not only enhance our enjoyment of life but it can provide logistical and emotional support when inevitable medical challenges arise.
There’s even more that we’re learning we need to do to stay vital and healthy in our later years.
We’re Spending More Time Managing Our Health
Now that we’re in our 70s, we’ve been experiencing various medical conditions that require more time and attention—some serious and some not-so-serious.
For example, my wife and I recently took a treadmill test and echocardiogram to establish a baseline for our heart health. I was surprised to learn that I have leaky heart valves, even though my heart is otherwise healthy with respect to blood pressure, resting heart rate, and cholesterol (and yes, I take a statin to help with this). Now, I’ll need to monitor this new condition annually to alert me to further deterioration that might need medical intervention. Without these diagnostics, I’d be flying blind with respect to my heart health.
We also had a double date for our every-10-year colonoscopies. My wife was startled to learn she had pre-cancerous polyps, which were removed. While she was understandably concerned, an internet search reframed her experience as a “successful colonoscopy” since these polyps were removed before they became cancerous. Now she’s been advised to have more frequent diagnostics.
The not-so-serious list of medical conditions for us includes hearing loss, acid-reflux, cataracts, and sciatica. Fortunately, all these conditions can be addressed with fairly straightforward solutions: hearing aids, changes in our diet, surgery, and physical therapy. These interventions will help us continue hearing, seeing, and walking as long as possible, all of which help keep our minds sharp and our bodies in shape.
Our experience has convinced us of the value of our early warning system of blood tests and baseline diagnostics. These tests can alert us to potential medical conditions that we can prevent or mitigate with appropriate interventions.
We’re also spending more time navigating Medicare and our Medicare Supplement Plan, Prescription Drug Plan, and Health Savings Account to get the most bang for our medical buck. In addition, we’re adding more “-ologists” to our medical team, including a cardiologist, urologist, gastroenterologist, audiologist, ophthalmologist, and dermatologist.
We’re Not Alone!
Previously we’ve generally kept our health conditions close to the vest, desiring our privacy and not wanting to burden our relatives and friends with unpleasant information. However, once we opened up about our medical conditions, we’ve found that all our same-age relatives and friends are grappling with various medical conditions, some different and some the same. It’s really helped to compare notes and tips regarding medical providers and possible treatments.
We were resentful and frustrated at first regarding the amount of time we were having to spend learning about these various conditions and navigating our health care system. But now we’ve accepted that the time spent is part of the new-normal for people in their 70s and beyond. And by preventing or mitigating serious medical conditions down the road, we’ll be saving a lot of money and reducing heartache during our retirement.
We’re grateful that we’re still able to easily walk in the new places that we travel to, see our grandkids, hear our relatives and friends when we visit them, and enjoy the healthy food that we eat. It’s all a part of healthy longevity.
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