In other news this year…
Mervyn died — bit of a shame, really...
“In other news this year, Mervyn died — bit of a shame, really. He always said, people tend, on average, to live six months too long… ”
This was my friend announcing the death of her husband of forty years.
How best to describe her tone? Cheery? Pragmatic? Sensible? She wasn’t saying it was a shame that he died. Just that it was a shame that he died rather later than he would have liked.
Fair enough, I thought. ‘There is a time to live and a time to die...’ as I believe Ecclesiastes says.
But then I reflected – her tone was entirely at odds with the letter I received from the NHS at the same time. It was another screening summons; I get these frequently now I’m officially at the age when ‘things go wrong.’
They are all urgent in tenor, insisting that immediate action is required to stay alive.
It’s like having my very own, well-meaning, hectoring health official peering through the letterbox and shouting at me through a megaphone:
“Book your mammogram today! It might just save your life! Poo on a stick! Bowel screening means successful treatment and a cure more likely. Smear test due! Don’t stop until you’re seventy! Statins! Get that cholesterol down, fight off heart disease!”
I review all the statistics quoted in the letters. Each invitation seems to be offering at least 25% reduction in my chances of dying. I wonder: if I’m a good girl and do everything I’m told, can I aggregate all the gains together and reduce my chances of dying by 100%?
I mean logically, I know my chances of dying, whatever I do, remain at a firm 100%. All the same, I do feel under huge pressure to aim for the (apparently) perfectly obtainable goal of immortality and book the latest scan.
Then I wonder, what if I get something else? One of the things they don’t scan for? Parkinson’s like my mother at sixty, or dementia like my father at seventy? I’m sure I’ll then wish I hadn’t wasted so much time sitting on plastic chairs, in airless hospitals, catching more germs. How many diseases should I try to knock on the head before giving up and facing the inevitable?
Should I decide to ignore all these screening calls, live my life and leave the NHS to support the young people, ones who haven’t yet had as much chance to live? Or am I then letting other older people down, ‘giving in’ and ‘seeing aging as a burden to society,’ which isn’t allowed either.
And what about all those ‘minor’ conditions that just make life difficult as you age? Piles, arthritis, frozen shoulders, bad backs, bad hips, knee problems, bunions? I don’t seem to have much in the way of offers to deal with these.
My pondering is interrupted by a call from my father’s care worker. Dad is eighty-eight and went into hospital after a fall. He’s been released after a series of lengthy investigations into his heart rhythms and blood pressure. Over the weekend, he had some pain in his left side. He doesn’t remember this now, but the care worker does, and she phoned the GP where the receptionist said he should go to hospital for more investigations.
“Bugger that,” Dad says. “I’ve just come home.”
I explain to the care worker that Dad used to be a doctor. He’s generally very interested in his health and hospital is usually his happy place. If he doesn’t want to go this time, I think that’s fair enough.
His care worker tells me she must take Dad to hospital if she’s told to, because she has a duty of care and calls her manager for advice. I ask the GP to call, so Dad can talk to another doctor.
We wait for Dad to receive a call, so that he can benefit from standard advice that he’s going to ignore.
Dad suggests having a chocolate biscuit while we wait. I refuse, as I’m trying to lose weight, following advice at my over fifties’ health check.
I read an article that suggests by standing on one leg whilst brushing my teeth, I can improve my chances of staying alive by 20%. I wonder, does it count if I stand on one leg whilst I eat a biscuit? I feel that staying alive shouldn’t be quite this complicated.
Dad died yesterday. I think about the care worker and her comment about her “duty of care.”
I wonder about writing Christmas cards that start with the message:
”In other news this year, Dad died. Bit of a shame really — he had to spend an awful lot of time fending off well meaning attempts to keep him alive when he was just trying to enjoy a biscuit…”
I feel that dying, at the age of eighty eight, in your own home, shouldn’t be all that complicated either…
It takes some strength to resist medical demands to attend hospital, especially when you know it means staying there, when you want to die at home. Good on your dad for sticking to his own wishes. Didn't happen for my mum. Condolences Margaret.
My sympathy, Margaret. But well done to your dad for resisting pressures to get him back in hospital and dying at home.