It's not always that we can't do it anymore (although that can become true), but that we can't do it the way we have always done it before now - “it” being a usually increasing number of things that become more difficult.

Earlier this week I was talking with my friend Jan Adams when this came up in conversation. Jan, who lives in San Francisco, has been blogging at Happening Here for as long as I have been doing that at TGB although Jan focuses on the much larger scale of human political and common good.

”I've been yammering here,” she writes on her home page, “about activism, politics, history, racism and other occasional horrors and pleasures since 2005. I intend to continue as long as the opportunity exists.

“In this time, that means activism and chronicling resistance. Perhaps it always has, one way and another.”

We were both a lot younger when we began our blogs 15 years ago. We had not run into many of the limitations that have creeped into our lives now. Jan is much more athletic than I've ever been so she has more joint and muscle pains than I. Nowadays, however, with COPD and cancer, I seem to be catching up in number if not in kind.

We decided to call our topic “adaptations” to old age. Jan reminded me in an email that I've been saying forever that old age is so much richer (maybe even wiser) than increasing infirmity. But that doesn't mean we can ignore the inevitable.

So here are some adaptations, adjustments and workarounds we have adopted. See what you think and what you can add to them.

LADDERS
Done. Finished. Gone. As Jan explained:

”Don't stand on a ladder to change a light bulb without a supportive friend present. :-) I did this the other day and fell; no damage this time, but I will not repeat the stupidity.”

I was a little ahead of Jan on the topic of ladders. A few months ago, I placed my foot on the bottom rung to change a light bulb and instantly thought, “Last time you did this is the last time you ever will have done this.” And so I saved myself a fall.

SHOPPING AND CLEANING
As I've published reports of my disease progression in these pages, more than a few of you have yelled over the internet, “get a shopping service” and “get a cleaning service”.

You were all correct, of course, and as of a few weeks ago, I've finally succumbed. What a difference. The only complaint I have so far is that the food shoppers do not seem to understand that if there is a wrinkle in the tomato skin, it is not fresh. But it's not inedible so I let it go.

STOPPED MAKING THE BED
I have never liked walking into my room with an unmade bed but now, it takes three sit-down rests just to tidy up the covers and pillows. So I don't anymore. And I have found that it doesn't bother me at all.

POTS IN THE SINK (OR ON THE COUNTER)
With COPD, I can lose my breath entirely just bending over for two seconds to pick up something I've dropped. It's worse after plowing around in a lower cupboard for the right cooking pan – five minutes of heaving to get my breath back to normal.

A friend in New York suggested I just leave the two or three pans I use most often in the sink after washing or on the counter. It works perfectly.

BATHTUB MAT
I have always hated those plastic bathtub mats but more than ever I need one to be sure I won't fall in the shower. The problem is that they get icky slimy on the bottom and they are really hard to clean and there is that pesky COPD bending/breathing problem.

So one day in a fit, I threw out the mat and decided to worry about it later. Well, later turned up the next morning and the closest thing to help was a hand towel. It works.

I stood on that in the tub, it didn't slip and it took only ONE second to bend over to pick it up, ring it out and dump it in the washing machine. Where has this idea been hiding my whole life.

TRASH, MAILBOX AND THE CAR
Sometimes, walking slowly, I can get to the mailbox and nearby trash bins without breathing too hard. That is, unless the trash I'm carrying weighs more than about five pounds.

And, sometimes, even lightweight trash is hard to carry without losing my breath. So I've given up my carport which is twice as far from my apartment as the parking lot and I leave my car there at the end of the walkway.

Now I take the trash to my car, drive the 300 or 400 or 500 feet (I've never learned how to estimate that kind of distance) to the bins and mailboxes. At first, I felt kind of stupid doing this but not anymore.

And now it is your turn. In the astonishing number and kinds of infirmities that can afflict elders, solutions must vary widely but I'm guessing there are plenty we learn from and share with one another.

Give us your best in the comments below.

I will get to Sitting in a moment but first:

Answers to Two Questions About Medical Aid in Dying Drugs

On Friday's post, there were two more questions about these drugs in the comments:

From dkzody:
Do your death drugs have an expiration date as so many of our compounds seem to have, and if so, and you don't use them before their expiration date, can you get a refill? I hope this doesn't sound crass.

Not crass at all, dkzody. Yes. The expiration date is one year. I hadn't thought to ask, if I live that long, about a refill. Just out of curiosity, I will do that. If I do need a new batch, I would expect to pay full price again as it was a straightforward commercial transaction between me, the customer, and the pharmacy.

From Martha K. Backer:
As I'm listening to you and Alex, I found your 8/12/19 Man Plans and God Laughs as part two today, you had said the cost is between $3,000 and $4,000 and doubted if Medicare Part D pays, a privilege to those with the funds.

I was operating on old information when I wrote that post a year ago, Martha, relying on what I had been told in 2017 or 2018. Since then, the drugs used have been changed as has the price. I paid $600 plus a delivery fee for the drugs this month and no, Medicare does not cover them.

If It Fitz, I Sitz

This meme, always written in that peculiar spelling, is a long-time feature of the internet and it still makes me laugh. It is such a cat thing to squeeze into the smallest available container to snooze. Why do they do that?

You don't need to answer. I mention it only because it is the image that first came to mind when I was considering the time I spend sitting these days - although not in seats too small for me.

Recently, I became a bit alarmed when I realized that I sit nearly every waking moment. At the start my day, after I've attended to morning ablutions, I fire up the computer, read the news and answer some email while sitting at my desk.

That can last for up to a couple of hours as I fuel myself with coffee for a long day of sitting.

After that, I'm on my feet for a short awhile to shower, dress and go through some light (sitting again) exercises. Then I'm upright again to make breakfast and, after sitting to eat, wash up the dishes. But soon I'm back to the computer (in a chair, of course) and then I move to another chair for a session with the nebulizer before I'm back at the desk for blog and other kinds of work (or play) involving the internet.

Throughout the day, I sit for meals and I sit to read or talk on the telephone or watch a movie in the evening. In between, I take a pass at dusting and other light housekeeping chores but it is easy to overdo (gasp!) by moving around to fast and I am finally convinced that I need help so will soon hire a regular cleaning service.

My major health difficulty is not cancer, the only symptom of which is (so far) is pain that is being well controlled with over-the-counter medications on a schedule set by my hospice nurse.

The hard part, and it is a big one, is living with advanced COPD. I have good days and bad ones but either way, walking anywhere much farther than the next room can leave me heaving for breath if I'm not careful. And I am not careful a lot of the time, forgetting that I have a serious lung disease and walking too fast.

Taking out the trash, a trip to the mail box or the one flight of stairs to visit a neighbor are undertakings akin to a 10-mile hike. I move through these “journeys” v-e-r-y slowly as I do the supermarket every 10 days or so.

The excellent nurses at pulmonary rehab last year taught me about preparing myself both mentally and physically while planning expenditures of energy – which is just about anything I do except sit. They gave me an entire binder full of tricks and tips on managing COPD.

Even so, I often forget. After all, for 75 years I led a remarkably healthy life mostly on bodily autopilot. When I said go, my body went, so it makes sense that I now stall sometimes due to over-confidence.

Which is not to say that it doesn't annoy the hell out of me. It's not for nothing that I still miss the pace of New York City.

Sometimes when I overdo (which to a healthy person can look like an extremely lowl level of exertion), it can take four or five minutes of heaving for air, even with the rescue inhaler, to be right again. When that happens it goes beyond annoyance to fear even though I always survive those bouts of breathlessness.

As I ruminate on this, I realize how lucky I have been that nothing serious happened to my health until these late years. It is frequently said that the common maladies of age – cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, etc. - begin to appear in large numbers among people during their 60s.

So, compared to a lot of others, I come to this physical extremity later in life, just lucky to have had so many years free of health issues.

For the 20-odd years or so that I've been studying ageing – while watching myself age from my mid-fifties to now – I have never wished to be younger than I am. There is no pride to be taken from that, only that I have been my own best guinea pig in tracking changes through the years.

So it is for the first time now that I occasionally long for my younger, healthier body that existed not all that long ago: when I could walk to the trash bins and mail box without pacing myself. Shove the vacuum cleaner around the house without needing to stop for breath every few feet. Carry ALL the groceries in from the car in one trip instead of three, short, slow ones.

The thing is, COPD never gets better so unless I want to be annoyed to death - ahem, I need to take a cue from the cats: I sitz.

Whatever fairy tales the president of the United States repeats about a vaccine, the world has only three imperfect defenses against the COVID-19 virus: wear a mask, keep your distance, wash your hands.

What that means for millions of old people - the age cohort that dies in the largest numbers from the virus - is to stay home alone.

”I try to remember that I’m one of the lucky ones in all this,” 75-year-old Gloria Jackson who lives in Minnesota, told the Washington Post in May. “What do I have to complain about? I’m not dead. I’m not sick. I haven’t lost my job or gone broke.

“I’m bored and I’m lonely, and so what? Who’s really going to care about my old-lady problems? Lately, when I see people talking about the elderly, it’s mostly about how many of us are dying off and how we’re forcing them to shut down the economy.

“I tell myself I should be more positive. I should be grateful. Sometimes I can make that last for an hour or two,” she says.

She is not being unreasonable. We are all stuck in this hard place for an unknown length of time to come.

Experts have been telling us for years that there is an epidemic of loneliness among old people due to social isolation. Among the health risks are high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and even death.

Now, the three rules of dealing with COVID-19 exacerbate those risks while increasing the number of elders who are vulnerable.

Solutions provided by experts in my admittedly limited survey are mostly what you would expect. Here are the most common with some personal commentary.

• Regular Zoom (or whatever platform you prefer) visits with family members or friends.

Although it would not be considered a social visit, I like this for medical check-ins. I read of two women who, before the virus, had met at a coffee shop each morning to do The New York Times crossword puzzle together. They now continue on Zoom.

Last week, I joined my previous in-person current affairs discussion group via Zoom for the first time. It is a smaller group now – six or seven people. I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt more energized than usual when we were finished.

A drawback to computer-assisted visiting is that some elders do not use a computer or are not confident enough to set up an online meeting. But there is the old-fashioned solution for that:

• Telephone visits. I regularly talk with east coast friends by telephone, which we have been doing for all the years since I left.

Some are regularly-scheduled appointments, others are more ad-hoc but frequent enough that it is not exceptional – more like we just haven't had time in the past week or two to get together.

• Some organizations throughout the United States make a point to telephone their members regularly. Where I live, the Adult Community Center does that and in some towns and cities, people who deliver Meals on Wheels make time to stay and chat for awhile – at a distance from one another, of course.

• If you shop for an elder, dropping off the groceries can be an opportunity to stick around and visit for a bit. During good weather, a porch, if it is large enough to keep a distance, can provide a nice spot to sit and talk.

• Everyone likes surprises and another idea I found is to drop off favorite foods or candies or a jigsaw puzzle if that is an interest, and so on.

• Schedule, personal care and exercise. These seem to me to be especially important in maintaining a positive attitude while living under virus restrictions.

Getting out of bed at the same time as BV (Before Virus). Showering regularly, exercising regularly. If you cannot get out and walk, there are many workout routines for various levels of capability to follow along on television and on the internet.

And it helps a lot to focus on the current moment. That's not always easy for me: what should I write about for Monday's TGB? Do I have all the notes I need for a video meeting with my palliative care provider? But I work on it.

Because I control pain (and general well-being) by taking medications at certain times of day, I'm unlikely to break the schedule. Pain – or, rather, avoiding it – is a great motivator.

In addition to all the video and telephone calls, I have hospice home visits at least twice a week in my home. We both wear masks, keep our distance and wash our hands a lot.

Also, once a week, my neighbor and I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon on her lovely deck sitting six or eight feet apart. A little wine, some cheese and crackers and good conversation.

All of that doesn't count daily emails from friends, blog acquaintances and a variety of inquiries regarding TGB.

Plus there are your comments – I read every one of them, almost always on the day they arrive. It is another form of conversation and I learn as much from you as I do from other sources. It has been more than 16 years and I cannot imagine my life without the blog and you.

Now it is your turn. What is your experience with loneliness during this terrible time and how do you deal with it? What recommendations do you have? The virus isn't going anywhere any time soon. We must learn to live as well as we can and as safely as we can.

Remember: Whatever else, wear a mask, keep your distance and wash your hands.

With so many gigantic problems in our world and aside from the terrifying news that the Siberian arctic reached the highest temperature ever recorded – 100F degrees – last month, reports of extreme summer heat are hard to find .

That doesn't mean it's not happening and that there won't be a lot more before summer is over.

So at about this time each year, I post a reminder about how to keep ourselves cool throughout summer and how to know when overheating is a medical emergency that requires immediate attention. Although everyone suffers, extreme heat is more often deadly for elders than younger people.

For example, in France in August of 2003, during an extreme heat wave, 14,802 heat-related deaths occurred, most of them elders. In the U.S., it is estimated that about 370 deaths a year are attributable to heat, half of them elders. Do not take extreme heat lightly.

HOW TO STAY COOL AND SAFE IN HOT WEATHER
Here are the best suggestions for staying cool and safe during extreme hot weather.

Even if, like me, you dislike air conditioning, when temperatures hit 80F, it's time to pump up the volume of that appliance. Fans, say experts, don't protect against heat-related illness when temperatures are above 90 degrees; they just push hot air around.

Last year, I recommending going to a mall or a movie or a library during the hottest part of the day. Uh, well, that's up to you and also depends on your state's lockdown rules. I'm not recommending these things.

”I don’t think we can say for sure yet, but we don’t think this is a primary way the virus is spread...

“While there is no clear evidence at this time, fans and air conditioners do move air around in a room, so they theoretically pose a risk of spreading viral particles and droplets. More research is needed to understand the impact, if any, of air conditioning on the spread of COVID-19 in public places.”

Read more at the Cleveland Clinic or for more, google “is air conditioning safe during covid”.

• Wear light-colored, loose clothing.

• Drink plenty of liquids and make reminders to yourself to do so. Elders sometimes don't feel thirst (another thing that stops working well with age). One way to know if you are drinking enough water is to check the color of your urine. Light-colored is good; dark indicates dehydration.

• Do not drink caffeinated and alcoholic beverages – or at least keep them to a minimum; they are dehydrating. (Some people dispute this; experts do not.)

• Plan trips out of the house and exercise for the early morning hours.

• Eat light meals that don't need to be cooked. High-water-content foods are good: cantaloupe, watermelon, apples, for example.

• Keep a spray bottle of cold water to help you cool down. Or use a damp, cool towel around your neck.

• Close doors to rooms you are not using to keep cool air from dissipating.

• Some medications for high blood pressure, diabetes and other conditions can inhibit the body's ability to cool itself, so it might be a good idea to ask your physician if you can cut back during hot weather.

• Pull down the shades or close curtains during the hottest times of day.

In that regard, I have been quite successful in keeping my home cool during hot weather without the air conditioner. In the morning, when the temperature here in Portland, Oregon is typically in the mid- or high 50s, I open all the windows.

I keep my eye on the thermometer and when the outside temperature reaches 65F or 70F – usually by late morning - I close the windows and the shades. After several years of practice with this method, I only rarely need the air conditioner even on 90-plus degree days. It saves a lot of money, too, not using the air conditioner.

But, with the virus admonitions above, do turn on the air conditioner when it's really hot.

SERIOUS HEAT-RELATED CONDITIONS
Heat exhaustion occurs when the body gets too hot. Symptoms are thirst, weakness, dizziness, profuse sweating, cold and clammy skin, normal or slightly elevated body temperature.

Move yourself or someone experiencing this to a cool place, drink cool liquids, take a cool bath or shower and rest.

Heat stroke is a medical emergency. It can cause brain damage so get thee or the affected person to a hospital. It occurs when body temperature reaches 104 or 105 in a matter of minutes. Other symptoms include confusion; faintness; strong, rapid pulse; lack of sweating and bizarre behavior.

Don't fool around with heat stroke.

There now. That's pretty much the best of health experts' recommendations about protecting ourselves and others during extreme hot weather. If you have additional suggestions, please add them in the comments.

Oh, I almost forgot: Enjoy your Fourth of July.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: Crabby Old Lady was curious about how people react to COVID-19 news and what their impressions are if, unlike her, they don't read as widely. So Crabby took a break and cut her news consumption in half for a few days mostly in regard to the virus.

She didn't take notes and is relying on memory for this post which is probably more like most people read.]

Wearing a mask any time a person is among others and keeping a distance of six feet between any two people make sense to Crabby. Especially so when you know these two practices along with frequent hand washing are the only tools we have to help prevent COVID-19 infections.

But the information we get is inconsistent, confusing, changes frequently and sources of it are not always trustworthy.

MASKS
Remember a hundred years ago – oh, all right, three months ago – when they said we the public don't need masks, that they are for healthcare workers? It turns out that was lie told, according to some, only because there were not, in the beginning, enough masks to go around.

Others say masks protect others, not one's self. Crabby has never bought that but she wouldn't bet money on what she know about science or medicine. What she does understand is that she feels more protected wearing one and is happy to help keep others healthy.

Masks are becoming more available now and there is a fairly large cottage industry of home-made masks throughout the United States. Still, Crabby has questions.

Every recent mention of wearing masks specifies “cloth” masks. But Crabby sees people wearing black face masks that appear to be made of rubber or pliable plastic. Are those better than cloth? What about the usually blue-colored paper masks with the folds? Do they do the job? No one is telling Crabby.

SOCIAL DISTANCING
They say we should always be at least six feet from other people. That is, Crabby guesses, unless you are a White House reporter. Last week, the White House moved the Rose Garden chairs for the press corps close together because, according to reports, the president not only refuses to wear a mask, he doesn't like seeing crowds all spread out.

Like mask wearing, social distancing seems to have become a personal choice. Crabby doesn't go anywhere these days except to the pharmacy and the supermarket - all in one building in her case.

There are arrows on the floor making aisles one way streets. Handy, but most shoppers appear to see this as a suggestion only, and the two shopping-carts between people rule? Hardly anyone does it except at the check-out counter where checkers refuse to continue until a too-close second person backs away.

It's frustrating. In the apartment complex where she lives, Crabby spends a lot of time stepping off the pathways to avoid other residents not wearing masks on her way to and from the mail box and trash bins.

WHO IS MOST AT RISK?
At first, they said old people and those with compromised immune systems were most in danger of infection and death. Then some little kids became seriously ill and some have died.

There are some new reports that younger adults, age 20 to 40 are now considered equally susceptible to the virus but others maintain that it is still elders who are most at risk. Crabby has no idea what is correct.

Over last weekend, Crabby read several reports that current spikes in infection numbers are not the so-called “second wave” - that we're still in the first wave.

Then on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the United States may not see a second wave in the fall and that the number of hospitalizations is more important than infection numbers in determining that. But as of Monday, it was reported that several states are running short of hospital beds.

So where are we? First wave? Second wave? Getting worse? Getting better? As far as Crabby Old Lady can tell from conflicting reports, there is no way to know.

OPENING THE ECONOMY
In the past couple of weeks, a whole bunch of states have allowed restaurants, hair salons, gyms, bars and other businesses where people congregate in close quarters to reopen under certain rules. The rules were broken as soon as the doors opened and the number of infections is skyrocketing.

Crabby could go on but it's repetitive. There is no one source of reliable information and as soon as one “expert” says XXX is so, some other “expert” says no, YYY is so. Is it any wonder Crabby is confused? How about you?

AN UNRELATED NOTE FROM RONNI
On Monday's post, quite a few of your responses repeated my “bugger that” comment. It is not a common phrase of mine and I suspect it reveals that I have been watching way too many old episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles.

“Bugger that” or “bugger all” is a favorite epithet of Hetty Lange, played by Linda Hunt, when she's pissed off.

Among the few things understood about the coronavirus is that it hits old people harder that younger adults and children.

In addition to elder deaths from the virus at home and in hospitals, at least 20,000 deaths due to the virus have been reported in U.S. nursing homes but the number is undoubtedly much higher because many do not release the number of such deaths.

So much else is wrong with the U.S. official response to the virus, I cannot in good conscience focus only on the people – old folks – this blog generally addresses. Everyone of every age is at risk.

Although a few countries and some U.S. states show a slight reduction in the number of new coronavirus cases in recent days, thousands are still dying.

Nevertheless, local governments are allowing certain retailers, some beaches, restaurants and other venues to reopen. And even when governments do not yet sanction openings, there are business owners who just defy officials and open anyway.

Some reports are telling us that even without this loosening of restrictions, the number of deaths per day, now averaging about 1,000, is expected to double by early June.

And I haven't even gotten to those armed, masked men at the Michigan statehouse. I'm still not clear what they were protesting but those gigantic guns they carried were shocking enough to scare me about what could happen.

A better kind of leadership, I am convinced, would bring the country together rather than leave it open to threats of violence. (President George W. Bush after 9/11 comes to mind. Also President Barak Obama after the church shootings in Charleston.)

For myself, I gave up on Dr. Deborah Birx when she declared a few weeks ago that the president has a deep understanding of the science of the pandemic. She confirmed my misgivings about her further when she tried to defend the president's Clorox delusion.

Meanwhile, the closest thing the U.S. has to national leadership that can be believed is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo but he, rightly, is focused on his state.

Certainly we cannot pay attention to President Clorox and anyway, on Tuesday, The Guardian headlined a story thusly: “Trump Gives Up on Virus Fight to Focus on Economic Recovery – and Re-election.”

So I guess we can move on from the fantasy some might have entertained that he would ever have anything useful to contribute to a future triumph over our global health predicament.

In recent days, Trump has also withdrawn U.S. funding of the World Health Organization (WHO), refused to join world leaders in funding COVID-19 vaccine research and announced the intention to “wind down” the White House coronavirus task force.

Here is something else Trump is working on. As reported in Common Dreams (and other places) on Monday,

”President Donald Trump on Sunday said he will not approve another badly needed Covid-19 stimulus package if it doesn't include a payroll tax cut, a policy that would strike a blow to Social Security and Medicare funding while offering no relief for the more than 30 million people who have lost their jobs over the past six weeks.

"'I told Steve just today, we're not doing anything unless we get a payroll tax cut,' Trump said during a Fox News town hall Sunday night, referring to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. 'That is so important to the success of our country.'”

In case anyone is in the dark about what payroll taxes are, they are deductions from every employee's paycheck to fund Social Security and Medicare. Employers match the payroll tax.

It's hard to keep up. As I am writing this on Tuesday, it is being reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, following a Republican lunch, told reporters that the Senate is in no hurry to pass any new legislation related to COVID-19.

I guess that means we can, for now, relax about Social Security and Medicare cuts. More broadly, it means that individual states are on their own without anywhere near the resources of the federal government.

In the history of the United States, I'm pretty sure there has never been such incompetence and dereliction of responsibility. This is a horror show.

Judging from comments on this blog, a lot of us live with chronic conditions. The National Council on Aging tells us that

”Approximately 80% of older adults have at least one chronic disease, and 77% have at least two.”

Eighty percent! Think of it.

Unless you grew up with a grandparent or two living in your home (not uncommon to our generation but not so much since then), you probably had little first-hand knowledge of how old people are (and are not) different from younger adults.

For most of my adult life, I didn't know any old people – that is, older than 70 or so. There were a couple of neighbors at different times who were well into their eighties. We exchanged pleasantries in the hall or at the mailboxes, but we were not friends; we didn't hang out together.

Otherwise, it was usually in the subway or the markets that I saw old people. What I mostly noticed is that they were slow. Very slow. I remember wanting to sprint up the stairs from the subway one rush hour but being stuck in the crowd behind an old woman who took the stairs one at a time with a little rest on each step. To my shame, I know I rolled my eyes to myself. It can't be the only time I did that.

On the other hand, you know those old folks – they keep confounding you. When I visited one neighbor about some local issue our block association was dealing with, he – then about 85 - showed me how he had expanded his living quarters by building a sleeping loft and used a ladder to get up and down.

These days, as I fast approach my own eighties, I'm overly cautious even with a small step stool. I quit ladders entirely about a year ago and should have done it sooner.

(This is the same man who, as I was on my way to work one day, said good morning and then, walking along with me to the corner, eagerly told me, “Viagra works.”)

These days, I am like the woman slowly climbing the subway stairs. One of my two conditions, COPD, is forever pulling on my metaphorical dog collar. It doesn't quite order me to “heal”, but if I'm walking at my old, pre-chronic conditions pace, it steals my breath forcing me to stop walking for a minute or two. It happens way too frequently.

I also tend to forget that I can no longer carry anything weighing more than about five pounds without heaving for breath after a few yards, even when I'm walking slowly.

These (and others that I will spare you) are not new phenomena in my life. They have been accumulating for three years now and you would think I would be done with the annoyance they continue to cause me. But no. I keep making the same mistakes.

Earlier this week, I found myself thinking about the old woman climbing those subway stairs so long ago.

Grocery shopping since the pandemic began is a fraught enterprise for me. Once I've gathered my nitrile gloves, face mask, left disinfectant supplies on the patio table to clean the packages when I get home, I am compelled to sit down. Scared. Am I doing enough to avoid the virus? Is it this time I will get it?

So I sit for 10 or 15 or 20 minutes practicing some calming breathing techniques until at last, I'm on my way.

With COPD, shortness of breath can be caused not only by over-exertion but by anxiety too. And that day, I found myself in the ice cream aisle heaving to get my breath. I stood leaning against the shopping cart when I heard, behind me, “Excuse me, I need to get by.”

Because the aisles are not six feet wide, there was nowhere for me to go but forward and so I pushed the cart – slowly, still trying to breathe normally – until I could get out of the other shopper's way. And that's when the memory of the old woman on the stairs kicked in.

When I saw that the woman behind me was a couple of decades younger than I am, I imagined her rolling her eyes at me.

Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. But I also didn't care. And later, I thought it was a not unreasonable payback for my own impatience with the woman on the subway stairs who, I hope, would not have cared either if she had seen me roll my eyes.

Among the various virus demons, time has gone all squishy on me. Many times a day, five minutes feels more like 15, or it can be the reverse – clock hands refuse to move forward. Either way, I'm usually confused about time and I've been wondering if it's stress.

It's been about three weeks since lockdown got serious. I had been telling friends that being mostly housebound is probably easier for retired people because we've had time to organize daily routines around something other that a job. Now I'm not so sure.

Perhaps stress – not to mention fear – are causing life, including keeping track of time, to go wonky. I've never believed all stress is bad. For most of my working life, I needed to meet several deadlines a day. Often, these were not suggestions. They were your television set (that's you, currently reading this) going black if I didn't do A, B and C. It could take a good deal of tension to make that happen on schedule.

Many years ago, when I was producing a daily, live television show, as the stage manager was about to count down the five seconds to air, he got the attention of everyone in the studio with, “Okay, everybody, tense up.”

And so we did, alert to any- and everything that could go wrong during that hour while keeping the show moving smoothly. And it worked. But lots of other stress and anxiety isn't as successful or benign.

Increasing numbers of media stories are advising us about mitigating stress. It's all pretty much the same which doesn't make it less important. These are the highlights:

• Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories and social media about the virus

• Take deep breaths, stretch, meditate – whatever techniques work well for you

• Eat healthy, well-balanced meals

• Exercise regularly to the extent that you can

• Get plenty of sleep

• Make time to unwind. Do some other activities you enjoy

• Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling

• Call your healthcare provider if stress gets in the way of your daily activities for several days in a row

Most of these instructions are part of my day. Eat well, exercise daily (except weekends), sleep at least seven hours (with the help of edible cannabis), practice deep breathing, talk with friends and there's always this blog to work on when the news gets to be too much.

However, it is not like we have any practice at maneuvering through a deadly pandemic. No one alive remembers the 1918 flu when it has been estimated that at least 50 million people worldwide died with about 675,000 deaths occurring in the United States.

If that doesn't scare you...

What's more, an increasing number of people in the U.S. are protesting against stay-at-home orders, saying they will take their chances with the virus.

The problem with that attitude, of course, is that it is not just their own lives they are putting at risk, it is anyone in their vicinity. Reports such as that along with the president's continuing failed leadership sometimes leave me terrified.

Jane Brody, writing in The New York Times reminds us,

”Sustained anxiety increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, digestive problems, clinical depression and, ironically, infectious diseases like Covid-19 by weakening the immune response to a viral infection.”

Brody also tells us that doing something good – for neighbors, essential workers and strangers who lack adequate resources – can help bolster positive feelings.

”I've gone through closets and bagged tons of clothing to give to those in need,” she writes, “and I’ve contributed to a GoFundMe site that is raising money to provide meals for workers at the neighborhood hospital, which also helps support local restaurants now limited to takeout only.”

That really works. I told you recently about the food delivery person who texted me a heartfelt thank you after I left a $20 tip. I did that because I had no smaller bills but there is no price on how good it made me feel and now I keep $20 bills in hand just for that purpose.

Another thing I do to calm my mind is tell Alexa to play Gregorian chants. I keep them going in the background sometimes for several hours.

And there is this. Here is what the Youtube page tells us:

”Each year a large herd of sheep visits Shafer Vineyards during springtime here in Napa Valley. They come to naturally mow the abundant cover crop that grows in our vine rows, which is an important part of our approach to sustainable farming. Everyone at the winery loves it when the sheep arrive.

“There's something about their presence that is calming, cheering, and peaceful. During the upheaval and uncertainty in the world right now, we wanted to share the pastoral beauty of this with you.

“These images of beautiful sheep grazing in our vineyards are set to the music of songbirds, the vineyard breeze, occasionally the geese on our pond, and of course the sheep themselves.

We've repeated one hour of footage to give you a total of six hours of wine country tranquility.”

It works for me. Maybe it will for you, too. And maybe you could share what it is you do to keep the virus demons at bay.

As I walked back from the mailbox a couple of days ago, I stepped off the path about six feet to keep the prescribed personal distance between me and a neighbor walking in my direction.

“How are you doing?” I said, as she passed.

She answered slowly, “This is really hard”.

No kidding. The rules for surviving this pandemic aren't necessarily unclear. It is that there is so damned much to keep track of and that makes it easy to screw up.

That day I had faced my usual mailbox confusion. Do I need a mask for the 200-foot walk and back? Should I wear nitrile gloves? I wore the gloves and mask that day. Sometimes I don't.

Back at my apartment, I dumped the two envelopes and one package on the porch table where I had left a bottle of antiseptic spray, paper towels, a trash bag, a paper shopping bag and scissors.

After cutting the package's plastic wrapper open, I dumped the contents into the clean paper shopping bag and stuffed the wrapper into the trash bag.

Then I opened the two envelopes, dumped them in the trash bag (recycling has become less of an issue these days when I am concentrated on avoiding the virus), and wondered if I needed to wipe down the contents.

I decided that since it had taken several days for them to arrive in my mailbox, any viruses were probably dead so I didn't need the antiseptic spray after all. Then I took the paper shopping bag, scissors, spray bottle and paper towels into the house, leaving the trash bag on the porch.

After removing the gloves into the kitchen trash, I started washing my hands to the tune of Happy Birthday when fear hit me: I had not taken off my shoes before entering the house and I had held the package, as I walked home from the mailbox, against my sweater.

Holey moley. I stepped out of my shoes and walked barefoot back to the laundry room where I ditched the sweater, my cloth mask – and, for good measure, my pants - in the washing machine.

All that after just a five-minute trek to get the mail.

I will spare you the details of the much longer cleaning routine after grocery shopping. But even on this short foray outdoors I screwed up, so you can imagine how badly it goes with the more complicated, twice-monthly food runs involving both store and home with many more possibilities for contamination.

Never yet have I done all this without mistakes - it doesn't help that I am constantly refining the routine. And so I worry then, for a week, waiting to see if symptoms appear.

My neighbor is right – it is hard trying to keep ourselves and those around us safe during a dangerous pandemic. Of course, this is new to us. We've never done it before which may account, in part, for the mistakes I keep making.

Another part is that it takes so much time from, for me, an already shortened day just because I tire so easily and it takes me much longer than during most of my life to do all the ordinary tasks I hardly noticed before: washing up dishes, sweeping the floor, folding laundry – you know, just normal, daily stuff.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Long-time readers of TGB probably yawn when they see this headline about falls prevention. I do it twice a year because falls are so serious for elders but at the same time, relatively easy to prevent. It's that time of year again so here goes. Please take a moment or two to refresh your knowledge.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tells us, via caring.com,

”...falls among older adults are extremely common with an estimated 2.5 million older adults treated for fall injuries in the U.S. every year.

“An estimated 25,000 of those fall injuries result in death. Justifiably so, our research showed that 8 out of 10 caregivers are worried about fall prevention for their loved ones.”

Now that many of us are stuck at home due to COVID-19, we can make good use of some of that time be sure our homes are, as much as possible, fall-proof.

I'll repeat some of my usual suggestions and ideas below but first, here is a new item - a reliable, well-researched, up-to-date guide to the best medical alert systems for 2020 from caring.com. As explained on the website,

”Medical alert systems allow seniors to retain their independence at home and in their communities, while minimizing the risk of further injury or death from falling [and] being unable to receive immediate help.

“While there are many quality, above-board companies in the home medical alert industry, there are also those that are overpriced, misleading or profiting from hidden fees.

“We’ve created this review to shed light on the top home medical alert options so that seniors and their loved ones can easily choose a reputable and affordable home medical alert company that works for them.”

Here are caring.com's top eight choices with reasons for their recommendation:

• Medical Guardian – Best for Premium Features
• MobileHelp – Best for Those Without a Landline
• LifeFone – Best Standalone Mobile App
• Life Alert – Best for Industry Experience and At Saving Lives
• Bay Alarm Medical – Best for Low Monitoring Costs
• Medical Care Alert – Best for EMT/EMD Certified Monitoring
• QMedic – Best for Compliance and Activity Monitoring
• BoomerAlert – Best For Advanced Fall Detection

It's not just a list at caring.com. They provide initial prices for each service and monthly cost for monitoring, how and why they chose each service, pros and cons of each service and more.

So if you or someone you know is considering a falls monitoring service (or should), certainly check out caring.com.

In last September's falls prevention story, several people mentioned the risk of falling that pets and small children can cause. I don't know a solution for people who have pets, but I have had a personal run-in with a kid running at top speed at the entrance to a hospital.

He nearly knocked over a man in wheelchair and almost crashed into me. But his mother did nothing to slow him down or stop him.

It's been about two years since that happened but when I'm in public, I am still warily watching for and nervous about free-range children especially since parents seem to take no heed of their kids' behavior in crowds. (I am well aware that I sound like a “get-off-my-lawn” old man, but I'm only reporting what is, in my experience.)

So, here is a general overview of the things you can do to help fall-proof your home.

There is an excellent website about fall prevention that I had not seen before last fall: Health in Aging.org. It is extraordinarily clear, concise and useful. Here are links to the main sections:

Basic Facts

Causes

Diagnosis and Tests

Care and Treatment

Lifestyle and Management

Unique to Older Adults

That is not the only good site on this subject - there is an abundance of information online about falls prevention. We should make good use of it because unlike cancer, dementia, COPD, heart disease and other conditions that affect so many elders, we can each have a direct effect on preventing falls.

The anniversary in the headline is that of this blog. It was born on this date 16 years ago. In that first post, I answered a reader's question about the difference between being 40 and 62.

If you check it out, fotolog mentioned in the story was an early social media website although I don't think the phrase, “social media” had yet been coined. Way back when, I posted photographs there. As the captions got longer and I had read about a then-new platform called a weblog, I started Time Goes By.

If anyone had asked back then, I would never have believed it would still be going 16 years later.

VIRUS
It was Friday morning last week that the full impact of the Corona virus finally hit me. Before then, I thought I could wash my hands a lot, leave home as infrequently as possible and when I must go out, wear nitrile gloves while keeping a distance from others. Inconvenient, but not difficult.

Then an email arrived suspending my twice-monthly current affairs discussion group until further notice. Shortly after that, a friend canceled our upcoming lunch date and I read a news story online that grocery shelves are being emptied and not always restocked.

My freezer suddenly looked chillingly empty.

So I got serious about thinking through how the virus will affect me and by extension, those I come into contact with.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
Here is an additional measure I have added to the list in Friday's post to help me try to avoid becoming infected.

On Saturday, I ordered a supply of four prescription drugs that are essential to my well-being. An unknown percentage of U.S. drugs and/or their ingredients are manufactured in China (and some other countries), much of which has been shut down for many weeks so I am concerned about a shortage.

Vox reported a week ago that due to the spread of the virus, manufacturing in China has been disrupted,

”...taking factories offline that are only now slowly ramping back up. That’s all increased fears of potential drug shortages in the United States.

“But how worried should we be? Experts say the answer largely depends on how long these disruptions continue in China and whether the outbreak becomes widespread in other countries critical to the drug supply chain, including India.

On the other hand, reports Vox, many drug companies have backups in place and the U.S. keeps a Strategic National Stockpile of some critical drugs and medical supplies.

I am not deeply worried (yet) but have ordered my drugs in an abundance of caution. Read the Vox story, which is excellently reported, to see what you think.

GROCERY SHOPPING AND CREDIT CARDS
I made Saturday grocery day and, suited up in my nitrile gloves, went early hoping to avoid crowds. The first issue was missing carts – none in the usual storage area so I tracked down one in the parking lot. What was that about? Did someone tweet that the carts cure the virus?

Traffic inside the store was light. Still, it was hard to keep six feet of distance between me and other people. Repeatedly, other shoppers sidled up near me – within a foot or two – perusing the shelves. I moved on and if the item was important to me, I checked back when the aisle was empty.

Frozen vegetables were entirely sold out, freezer cases empty except for the veggies everybody hates like lima beans. I grabbed the last bag of broccoli and cauliflower and another of green beans.

The meat counter was empty. Nothing. There were no cooked chickens either. Fresh produce was hit and miss. Three cucumbers remained on the shelf but no blackberries and only four containers of raspberries. I checked four cartons of eggs before I found one without broken eggs.

Checking out, I used my new rule for payment: credit card only. I like to pay cash for most daily purchases because a quick glance at my wallet lets me know whether I'm on budget for the week. But now it's a card so I don't need to touch money which, even without a virus floating free, is one of the dirtiest things we handle.

HAND SANITIZER
There has been a lot of confusion about whether hand sanitizer is helpful against the virus with many false claims that it is not. The Centers for Disease Control says that if the sanitizer is at least 60 percent alcohol, it can be useful against contracting or spreading the virus.

You can read more about hand sanitizers at FactCheck.org.

Few of us have any experience at this and in the U.S., confusion and negligence within the federal government make it clear that we do not have a trustworthy leader.

The governors of individual states and mayors of cities seem to be stepping up well, however. Even so, to a large degree we are each on our own.

Oddly, at a time when we must separate ourselves from one another to help ensure the health of everyone as much as possible, we need one another more than ever. To protect ourselves is to help protect everyone and for the foreseeable future, we each have a moral duty to live by the recommended precautions while holding one another in our hearts.

Let us know in the comments how your community is coping and what you are thinking about this unnerving cataclysm.

This is a longer post than I would usually do but I also think that we should not stop talking about COVID-19 and keep reminding one another what we must do to stay healthy.

So, here are some of those reminders from me, a poem about our predicament and the latest episode of The Alex and Ronni Show which is also about the virus this time. I know, it's a lot. Choose what you want and leave the rest.

But let's do talk about this below in the comments.

It's a pandemic now, says the World Health Organization (WHO). That doesn't change anything - it just means that the virus has been formally declared to be a worldwide problem.

Whatever the president says, this Corona virus is not a small thing. It will not, as he told us on television, fade away next week. It is here for the long haul. No one knows when it ends.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified in Congress on Wednesday in stark terms: “Bottom line,” he said, “it’s going to get worse.”

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

Every person must do their part to try to keep the virus at bay. But particularly if you are old or your immune system is suppressed or you have an underlying condition such as heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, cancer, diabetes or high blood pressure, you are at greater risk of dying from the virus than children and younger adults.

Because the U.S. government has so badly botched testing for the virus, all statistics are dubious but according to Fauci on Wednesday,

“The [seasonal] flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This [COVID-19] has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

Here's another important thing Dr. Fauci has said: “Every infected person will, on average, infect two-to-three more people who each will infect two-to-three more people and so on.”

So you see how this goes and how quickly the number of infections multiplies.

Because I am 78 years old and have two serious conditions – cancer and lung disease – that make COVID-19 more dangerous to me than if I didn't have those conditions, I've gone full-tilt boogie on prevention.

• Washing my hands constantly.
• Close to succeeding at not touching my face.
• Using hand sanitizer whenever, wherever it's available.
• Not going to crowded places.
• Not shaking hands.
• Not hugging.
• Keeping six feet away from other people, if possible.
• Mostly staying home.

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

Doing all this is tricky. I am down to one travel-size bottle of hand sanitizer and can't find any (I trust) to buy online or off.

At the market one day this week, the sanitizer dispenser was empty so now I keep nitrile gloves in my car so I will have something between my hands and whatever I'm buying that an unknown number of people may have touched.

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

In his Oval Office speech Wednesday evening, Trump's big announcement was a ban on travel from a bunch of European countries. However, the U.K., where Trump owns three golf resorts, is exempt. There are other loopholes too.

But, really, what is the point of the travel ban even without loopholes and exceptions? The virus is already in the United States and most other countries with the number of infections growing daily from community transmission.

The most important thing the U.S. needs to do is test, test thousands of people as other countries do to give us an informed look at what we are up against. But Trump did not mention testing in his speech on Wednesday and the next morning, Vice President Mike Pence could not say how many tests have been done or what any results are.

I don't know about you, but I am now officially terrified.

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

Yesterday, both remaining Democratic presidential candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, delivered addresses to the nation covering the policy proposals they would institute if they were president. Both behaved as a steady, normal leader would do facing such a pandemic.

My god I wish one of them were president.

It's hard to live without hugging or touching the people we love but we are stuck with that for the foreseeable future during which we will not be congregating at ball parks, theaters, museums and all the other places in the public square we like to go.

Daily life is dramatically changed now and, probably, for a long time to come.

What to me is obvious as we live through this virus is to help one another with all the care and love for one another we have within us.

TGB reader, Ann Burack-Weiss, who contributes to Reader Stories now and then, sent this yesterday from poet, Lynn Unger. It is titled, Pandemic.

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love-
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

As Ann said to me in her email, I find this comforting.

Now, here is the latest installment of The Alex and Ronni Show – also about the Corona virus. (I keep asking if he can't find a better still shot for the static image; he says he can't. Oh well.)

GO WASH YOUR HANDS

In a follow up to their 2016 study, researchers at New York University Langone Health (NYU Langone) announced in January that

”...cancer patients who were given psilocybin reported reductions in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, demoralization, and death anxiety more than four years after receiving the [single] dose in combination with psychotherapy,” reports CNN.

"'Our findings strongly suggest that psilocybin therapy is a promising means of improving the emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being of patients with life-threatening cancer,' said Dr. Stephen Ross, associate professor of psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health.”

Wow. It was considered a landmark finding when those participants reported continued relief from symptoms at just six months after their psilocybin sessions.

As many of you know, in December 2018, I spent a day on a psylocybin “trip” with a guide. The purpose was directly related to my terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. You can read about that session here and here.

In recent years, multiple studies have found benefits of psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) in treating not only people with terminal cancer but depression,

anxiety, PTSD and other psychological disturbances.

This follow-up study is the first to show long-term positive results.

”Fifteen of the original participants were then followed up 3.2 and 4.5 years later and showed sustained long-term improvements,” reports CNN, “with more than 70% of them further attributing 'positive life changes to the therapy experience, rating it among 'the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives,' according to the study published Tuesday in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.”

To be clear, this is was a small study with 29 original participants in 2016, and 15 of them in the recent follow up.

No one knows how psilocybin works in the brain yet but evidence that it does work is growing.

"'These results may shed light on how the positive effects of a single dose of psilocybin persist for so long,' said Gabby Agin-Liebes, lead investigator and lead author of the long-term follow-up study, and co-author of the 2016 parent study.

"'The drug seems to facilitate a deep, meaningful experience that stays with a person and can fundamentally change his or her mindset and outlook.'"

It has been only 14 months since my psilocybin experience but so far it has worked that way for me. The black, paralyzing fear of dying is no longer with me although I have recently been feeling a profound sadness when I think about leaving our world. But I've had a good life so I think that's appropriate and it's not debilitating.

Psylocybin is illegal, a Schedule 1 controlled substance and researchers must get permission for their studies with it. But a growing number of top institutions are doing so including the University of California, Johns Hopkins and the home of this study, NYU Langone.

People in several states in the U.S. are working to get local measures for decriminalization of psilocybin or its use in medical settings on the ballot in November. My state, Oregon, is among them. The Oregon Psylocybin Society has worked to develop the 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative:

“The intent of the 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon is to advance a breakthrough therapeutic model currently being perfected in research settings at top universities around the world,” states the Initiative.

“The service model involves a sequence of facilitated sessions, including assessment and preparation, psilocybin administration, and integration afterwards. We envision a community-based framework, where licensed providers, along with licensed producers of psilocybin mushrooms, blaze trails in Oregon in accordance with evolving practice standards.”

You will find more information at the PSI-2020 website.

Here is a video from PSI-2020 of testimonials from people who have undergone psilocybin therapy.

UPDATE: This blog post is not an endorsement. I'm just explaining a surprising result in my case. I have no idea or any way to know if it would be helpful for anyone else.

Do you know what this is? Or what it is for?

Stick with me here and I'll tell you.

Until 2017, I spent 76 years being so healthy that I hardly noticed my body. The occasional cold, the even fewer influenzas over decades repeatedly confirmed my long-settled expectation that good health was just how I rolled in life.

I didn't even think my health was particularly remarkable. It just was. Until it wasn't anymore.

Until cancer and, subsequently, COPD too, I thought of medical treatment in terms of big, serious stuff – hospital, surgery, prescription drugs. It turns out (and maybe you already know this) that much more mundane, ordinary remedies do a lot of good.

In January, I told you about my first big surprise in this regard – pulmonary rehab. With simple exercises and breathing techniques, the nurses moved me within a few weeks from being incapable of walking between the bedroom and kitchen without stopping once and sometimes twice to catch my breath, to sailing along the hallway.

Okay, not sailing. But it's been a long time now since I even thought about my breathing in and around the house.

A second problem has been neuropathy pain in my feet – tingling on my soles but worse, huge pain in my heels, particularly when I wake in the morning or get up from a chair after sitting for more than 15 or 20 minutes.

I mean really bad pain. I'd been gritting my teeth while I walked around like a crab for a couple of minutes until the pain subsided a bit and I could almost function.

Two weeks ago I found myself with another rehab therapist who specializes in feet, only feet. In addition to some exercises, she handed me a therabrush, also called a therapressure brush. (See image above)

My new therapist showed me how to use the brush in a circular motion on my heels - while I tried not to laugh out loud. How could what looked like a small, oval shoe brush keep pain at bay, I wondered.

I was just as skeptical at home when I placed the therabrush on the table next to my bed, and tried it for the first time the next morning sitting on the side of my bed.

After a few rounds of pressure on one heel and the other as I moved the brush round and round, I put my feet on the floor and stood up. I took a tentative step. And then another. And another.

And there was no pain. Or, rather, so little that it didn't matter.

Once again, one of those physical therapy folks showed me who's boss. If I had only read about this and not been directed by a therapist, I would never have tried it. Now I use it every day.

Mostly, in the news and on medical television shows, we hear only about the heroic means of healthcare and saving lives. They don't show us what a new way to breathe or 30 minutes of morning exercises or a cute little brush can improve our lives. A whole lot.

It's a good thing for me that these wonderful professionals don't withhold their expertise from non-believers like me, and I am most grateful for that.

A short and shallow trip around the internet shows me that there are other uses for these brushes but you're on your own to track down those. (Just search “therapy brush”.)

Surely you remember movies from childhood and maybe a bit later showing the patriarch of the story dying in his bed as family members hover around?

I sure do. It was such a common scene back then that images of several different ones are stored in my head still, although I can't name the films.

For eons, dying at home was the norm. And then, beginning in the early 1900s, it wasn't anymore.

Now, for the first time since then, more people in the U.S. are dying at home than in hospitals and nursing homes. As CNN reported in December:

”The researchers looked at the number of natural deaths in the United States based on data collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics.

“They define natural deaths as when a medical condition leads directly to death, meaning people died from heart problems or cancer, among other diseases, rather than dying in a car accident, for example. The authors looked at data from 2003 to 2017.

“They found that hospital deaths are still common, but that number is declining. There were 905,874 hospital deaths in 2003, 39.7% of deaths. And by 2017 there were 764,424 hospital deaths, 29.8% of deaths.”

As veteran science and medicine journalist, Gina Kolata, reported in The New York Times,

”In Boston in 1912, about two-thirds of residents died at home, [Dr. Haider J. Warraich, a cardiologist at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System and a co-author of the new research] said. By the 1950s, the majority of Americans died in hospitals, and by the 1970s, at least two-thirds did.

“Americans have long said that they prefer to die at home, not in an institutional setting. Many are horrified by the prospect of expiring under fluorescent lights, hooked to ventilators, feeding tubes and other devices that only prolong the inevitable.”

But it is not always easy to die at home. Dr. Warraich, writing recently in the Washington Post, notes how difficult it can be for both family caregivers and the dying person.

”...as more people die at home, it also means that much more responsibility falls on the shoulders of patients and their caregivers. Caregiver burden is a growing problem in America. As a doctor tending patients with heart failure, I am keenly aware of how hard managing care can be for both patients and family members.”

He says, too, that many people feel strongly about where at home they want to die, and there are other practical and personal considerations:

“Nearness to a bathroom is key. Sometimes, light remodeling, such as installing handrails in bathrooms or ramps, is helpful.

“A person at the end of life will probably have feelings about who they want to spend time with — or who they don’t want — so it is important to discuss in advance who will provide caregiving, along with who might provide occasional backup for regular caregivers.”

According to the study, there has also been an increase in the number of people who die in hospice facilities.

”In hospice,” explains CNN, “an interdisciplinary team of professionals that specialize in end-of life-care address the whole person. They work to help manage pain and the person's physical needs, as well as their mental and spiritual distress. Hospice also helps the family and coordinates care.”

Medicare (and other insurance) covers hospice care which often takes place at home. Last year, an internet friend had been under home hospice care but was grateful in the last few days of her life to move to a hospice house where she could receive additional care allowing her the time to let go.

A home hospice worker can't do everything the patient and family need and there are other options. Kelly Sanders, who is an RN and end-of-life doula in Michigan, told Healthline,

“'Hospice does a great job taking care of the medical aspect of dying, but due to the changing nature of healthcare compensation, little time was left for the other aspects of dying that are just as important for a peaceful passing,' she said. 'End-of-life doula services fit that need.'

“She said there is a big misconception that hospice provides the same services as a death doula.

“...a death doula can fill a gap in care. People can work with a death doula before they reach a point where they qualify for hospice. And an end-of-life doula is able to devote themselves to a single person, going in without an agenda to fulfill that person’s needs.”

When I started pulling this story together, I intended to give you these new statistics about where people die, and let you know how people – medical professionals, families, those who are dying – deal with the choices. But there's a lot more to it than I had considered for one short blog post.

So. Let's stop here for now and over the next while I will post additional information about such issues as advance directives, hospice at home and at a facility, doulas, etc. that we can discuss individually.

Today, I'm curious about how much thought you have given to where and how you want to die. Do you think it is morbid to talk about? (Most old people don't.) Have you talked with your family about end-of-life issues? And so on.

(I urge you to follow the links within the story above. They have a great deal more good information.)

It usually goes something like this:

There is a whole bunch of stuff piled on a chair in the living room. It's been there too long and it is high time I sort it out to make the chair available again.

There are three or four cloth bags that should be in the car for shopping. That book I've been searching for over the previous week too. A bottle of hand sanitizer. A Theraband that belongs in a box across the room. A teeshirt that has no reason to be in the chair. A whole lot of loose pieces of paper with notes on them...

There's more, but you get the idea. I decide to walk the teeshirt to the laundry room (I can't remember if it was clean when I dropped it in the chair – hell, I don't even recall leaving it in the chair).

The washer is half full but, I figure, if I add what's in the laundry basket, I could get a good-sized wash done and be ahead of the game. I head for the bedroom.

The closet door, behind which is the laundry basket, squeaks – as it always does – so I check the cupboard to see if there is a can of WD40. Nope. Maybe it's in the storage room – I head in that direction.

On the way, as I pass the desk, it pops into my mind to check email – it will take only a couple of minutes - which is where I find myself a hour later at lunch time. That chair is still piled with stuff.

All too often these days, that is how it goes for me.

Relatedly, just a week ago we were talking about how greedy old age is, stealing our time in so many little ways – concentration among them - that I've been checking out what science knows about concentration in old age.

We are not imagining this phenomenon. From Harvard Health:

”...scientists now see the brain as continuously changing and developing across the entire life span. There is no period in life when the brain and its functions just hold steady. Some cognitive functions become weaker with age, while others actually improve.

“Some brain areas, including the hippocampus, shrink in size. The myelin sheath that surrounds and protects nerve fibers wears down, which can slow the speed of communication between neurons.

“Some of the receptors on the surface of neurons that enable them to communicate with one another may not function as well as they once did. These changes can affect your ability to encode new information into your memory and retrieve information that's already in storage.

There have been a few studies targeting distraction itself rather than the brain in general. Psychology Today reported on a study showing that compared to young adults, old people have decreased brain activity in areas that enable concentration.

Other studies reveal that old people tend to have difficulty ignoring distractions and irrelevant stimuli that younger people easily tune out.

There are easy ways to improve concentration most of which we could figure out for ourselves (if we could just focus):

• Do not multitask
• Try meditating
• Exercise regularly
• Try caffeine (don't overdo)
• Take breaks
• Turn off distracting sounds
• Get a good night's sleep

One report tells us that about half of the older adults do not have this problem, and Harvard Health reports that as we age,

”...the branching of dendrites increases, and connections between distant brain areas strengthen. These changes enable the aging brain to become better at detecting relationships between diverse sources of information, capturing the big picture, and understanding the global implications of specific issues.

“Perhaps this is the foundation of wisdom. It is as if, with age, your brain becomes better at seeing the entire forest and worse at seeing the leaves.”

Now I'm going to go tackle the mess on that chair again.

After a serious nuts-and-bolts post on Wednesday about surviving possible Census fraud, I had intended a lighter, more fun post today but world events have intervened.

As happens with many infectious diseases, the hardest hit, those who suffer the largest number of fatalities, are old people. In the research attending the Corona virus, that is abundantly clear again.

Ian M Mackay is an Australian virologist who keeps a website called Virology Down Under which has the best information I've seen about the Corona virus including general interest and advice.

(Thank you to Jan Adams who blogs at Where is the Way Forward?)

On Tuesday, Mackay published an extensive (and easily understandable) story on this not-yet-pandemic.

As with seasonal flu, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus are old people and others with compromised immune systems which applies directly to most of us who hang out at this blog.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) this week, so far the good old fashioned seasonal flu is more dangerous to Americans than the new caronavirus from China. That will be true until it's not anymore but the precautions work for both illnesses.

There is so much to say about the coronavirus let's get to the most important information first - how to protect ourselves – and then I will pass on some of the peripheral information.

WHAT IS THE CORONAVIRUS?
There are other coronaviruses. This one has never been seen before and it has jumped species from animals to humans – most likely from seafood. The first to be infected were workers and customers at the Wuhan wholesale seafood market.

Human-to-human transmission of the virus has been confirmed in China, in the United States and in Germany. Tests elsewhere are ongoing.

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF THE CORONAVIRUS?
The Guardian online newspaper has been doing excellent “explainers” of the illness. Here is their information on symptoms:

”The virus causes pneumonia. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In severe cases there can be organ failure.

“As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. If people are admitted to hospital, they may get support for their lungs and other organs as well as fluids. Recovery will depend on the strength of their immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health.”

To state the obvious, this year's seasonal flu vaccine is not effective for the c0ronavirus.

PREVENTION
As of Tuesday when I am writing this, there are only 11 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. That doesn't mean it won't change. Here are the recommended prevention measures. We all know them but we don't always follow them.

• Avoid close contact with people who are infected

• If you're sick, avoid interacting with other people - stay home

• Do not go to work if you're sick

• When you sneeze, cover your nose and mouth

• Do not touch your eyes, nose, and mouth

• Regularly clean and disinfect surfaces and objects that could be contaminated with germs (like your phone)

• Regularly wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds or more, or use an alcohol-based sanitizer with 60% alcohol or higher if you can't get to a sink.

WHAT ABOUT FACE MASKS?
China is reporting that face masks are sold out all around China, as they are in other countries as well. However, face masks are not as effective protection as the list above, according to the CDC, and health experts mostly advise against using them.

Last week, David Heymann, who led WHO's [World Health Organization] infectious disease unit at the time of the SARS epidemic in 2002-2003, told CNBC that wearing masks can be useful if you’re sick in order to prevent you from sneezing or coughing into somebody’s face.

“But, 'a mask that is used to stop getting an infection is sometimes not very effective because people take it off to eat, many times they are worn improperly (and) if they get wet and somebody sneezes on that mask it could pass through. So, there is really not a lot of evidence (to support wearing masks).'”

Except that masks are recommended for health care workers treating coronavirus patients.

IS THE U.S. PREPARED FOR A WIDESPREAD OUTBREAK?
Not according to a variety of news outlets. Reuters reported on Sunday that President Donald Trump seemed to downplay the impact on the United States,

”...telling Fox television in an interview, 'We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.'”

We shut it down?

In an announcement on the Health and Human Services (HHS) website last Friday, Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared the coronavirus a public health emergency which allows states, tribal and local health departments to temporarily reassign some personnel under certain circumstances.

QUARANTINE
Americans in China have been scrambling to return to the U.S. before a two-week quarantine goes into effect. According to The New York Times,

”The Trump administration ordered that as of Sunday afternoon, any American citizen who in the last two weeks had visited the Hubei province, whose capital city is Wuhan, was subject to a quarantine of up to 14 days after arriving in the United States.”

As is too often the case with this administration, facts and details about the extent of the quarantine and who it applies to vary. One person returning from China tried to avoid quarantine by leaving the military base where his private plane landed. (What is the matter with people.)

There may be other impediments to a swift government response. According to Laurie Garrett writing in Foreign Policy magazine last Friday,

”For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.

“In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion.

“If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is.”

INSTANT HOSPITAL
Meanwhile, back in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus first appeared, a 1,000-bed hospital was build in 10 days and is open for business. Here is a time lapse of the construction which involved 7,000 workers:

A second instant hospital for coronavirus patients is currently under construction.

The important thing here today is that list above of how to help prevent infection. Let's all follow it carefully and diligently.

We've discussed this several times before but I think it is worth coming back to because use of cannabis among elders continues to increase but I keep meeting people (in a state where it is legal) who are interested but hesitant to try it.

The little wicker basket next to my bed holds several brands and types of edible cannabis I use for sleep. It's quite a collection now. Currently, there are two kinds of chocolate, four of fruit-flavored gummies, one of lemon hard candies and a bottle of tincture.

Even when they contain the same dosage of THC, the effectiveness of each differs with me depending on how frequently I use it. One of my physicians and several marijuana dispensary employees have confirmed my experience, that the same product used every night will eventually stop working – which happened to me.

So now I keep that nice little variety around to mix it up from night to night.

Currently, 33 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis to a greater or lesser degree. Some restrict usage to what is called “medical marijuana” that for purchase usually requires a card from a physician. Many other states now allow recreational marijuana.

Here is a map of current legal availability as of 25 June 2019. Follow this link for more information by individual state.

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize marijuana use and later legalized it for people 21 and older – first for medical use and then expanded to recreational use.

In the past month or two, I've noticed that my local Safeway supermarket is now selling CBD products. CBD is the non-psychoactive chemical in cannabis. It's counterpart, THC, gets you high.

When I first started experimenting with cannabis for sleep, I tried CBD. It worked about as well as a glass of water so I switched to THC which not only puts me to sleep, it keeps me there for seven to eight hours which I hadn't slept in a decade or more.

Other people say CBD works well for them.

When the subject of marijuana use comes up in conversation, it is predicable that someone will say, “Oh, but I wouldn't want to get high.” To which I can only say, “Why not?”

Mostly I'm asleep before the high kicks in because that takes about two hours with edibles as opposed to smoking pot which is almost immediate. (No smoking for me with COPD.)

I patronize several cannabis dispensaries in Oregon all of whom have told me that the majority of their customers are old people. WebMD reported on a 2018 survey of elders who use marijuana for chronic pain.

”...it reduced pain and decreased the need for opioid painkillers.

“Nine out of 10 liked it so much they said they'd recommend medical pot to others.

"'I was on Percocet and replaced it with medical marijuana. Thank you, thank you, thank you,' said one senior.”

Many say that marijuana doesn't eliminate pain but it does make it manageable.

Dr. Mark Wallace, a board member of the American Pain Society, told WebMD,

"'The geriatric population is my fastest-growing patient population. With medical marijuana, I'm taking more patients off opioids,' he said.

"'There's never been a reported death from medical marijuana, yet there are 19,000 deaths a year from prescription opioids. Medical cannabis is probably safer than a lot of drugs we give,' Wallace said.”

I've made sure my cannabis use is included on my list of medications so that doctors can consider drug interactions when/if they prescribe something new.

The body of scientific research suggests that cannabis is useful in treating a variety of conditions and diseases such as

• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
• Anorexia due to HIV/AIDS
• Chronic pain
• Crohn's disease
• Epilepsy or seizures
• Glaucoma
• Multiple sclerosis or severe muscle spasms
• Nausea, vomiting or severe wasting associated with cancer treatment
• Terminal illness
• Tourette syndrome

Note that they don't list sleep but I can't be the only old person who has discovered that use.

The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) which has been lobbying for legalization since 1970 reports that

”According to national polling data compiled by Gallup in October 2019, 66 percent of the public - including majorities of self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents - favor adult-use legalization.

"Bipartisan support among the public for medical marijuana legalization is even stronger.”

I was in high school when I smoked my first joint. I enjoyed it then and, presumably, I still would if I could stay awake long enough to feel the high.

But what I can't figure out is how, through the decades, I had so much time to fool around - it's not like you get much done when you're stoned. Who knew, back then, that weed would be my key to getting a good night's sleep.

Certainly some TGB readers use cannabis. Let's hear from you, and if you want, feel free to use an alias in place of your name.

For many years, regular readers of this blog have heard me bang away at the boring-sounding but important fact that people age at dramatically different rates.

Unlike infants, whose normal walking, talking, feeding themselves, etc. development can be tracked within a month or so, people grow old at different ages. Some are creaky in their fifties while others may retain the stamina common to a young person well into their eighties or even nineties.

It is important to know that, to understand that in ageing, one size does not fit all. Now it appears that it may not be true of only of ageing in generalized.

If research published last week in Nature Medicine [pdf] holds up under further testing, discovery that our individual organs may age differently from one another shows promise for future development of personalized medicine.

As journalist Sharon Begley reports in STAT, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers

”...conclude that just as people have an individual genotype, so too do they have an 'ageotype,' a combination of molecular and other changes that are specific to one physiological system.

“These changes can be measured when the individual is healthy and relatively young, the researchers report, perhaps helping physicians to pinpoint the most important thing to target to extend healthy life.”

Biologist Michael Snyder, who led the Stanford study, explains that within an individual, some systems age faster or slower than others:

“'One person is a cardio-ager, another is a metabolic ager, another is an immune ager,' as shown by changes over time in nearly 100 key molecules that play a role in those systems. 'There is quite a bit of difference in how individuals experience aging on a molecular level.'

“Crucially, the molecular markers of aging do not necessarily cause clinical symptoms. The study’s 'immune' agers had no immune dysfunction; 'liver agers' did not have liver disease. Everyone was basically healthy.

“If aging is truly personal, understanding an individual’s ageotype could lead to individualized, targeted intervention. 'We think [ageotypes] can show what’s going off track the most so you can focus on that if you want to affect your aging,' Snyder said.”

So far, the research team has identified four ageotypes: immune, kidney, liver and metabolic but there are really more, they say, because some people may meet the criteria for more than one ageotype.

Obviously, there is a lot more work to be done before ageotypes can be used to create personalized medical treatment for patients. As LiveScience reports

”Snyder and his co-authors plan to follow the study participants to see how their aging profiles morph over time.

“They also aim to develop a simple ageotype test that could be used in the doctor's office to quickly assess a patient's health status, and potentially point them toward the best possible treatment options.”

The study was small, just 43 participants. So why am I telling you about this when it is unlikely to be developed enough to help most of the people who read this blog?

The first reason is that in the days after I read about it early last week, I kept going back to reread the news stories. Then a long-time blog friend, Chuck Nyren, sent me one of the stories.

And most of all, I'm posting this because I read a lot of health news about old people and it's not often I feel researchers are on to something as important as this could be.

Science breakthroughs almost never happen full-blown. If you recall the story from school, it is said that Thomas Edison tried 1,000 times before he came up with a viable light bulb.

When a reporter confronted him with all those failures, Edison said, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

I figure the Stanford scientists have a lot of steps to go and I wish them well. What a great difference this would make for health care.