the surprising interests of the older generation

My office is near to Syracuse, New York.  Syracuse University athletics are followed by a variety of people.  One of our secretaries is a season ticket holder for football & basketball.  The other day, SU lost (badly) to UCONN.  That morning I heard the recap on the local public radio station.  I listen to NPR in the morning while getting ready for the day.  The basketball team was a dismal 17ish % from 3-point range.  UConn was (obviously) better.  I don't follow SU sports per se, but this is something that makes the news and is almost unavoidable.

That afternoon, one of our last patients was a very wonderful 80-something lady who has been a patient of my doc for several years.  I've known her as a patient for 8 years.  Her husband is now in a nursing home, and she's still staying strong.  Had a fracture of her pelvis (I think it was pelvis) and apparently gave the staff at the rehab facility hell because she was not one to be limited by her condition.

As we were chatting, I opened the door to the waiting room.  Nobody was there.  I asked her if she still drives.  She told me yes, she does.  It's one of the easier things for her to do.  As she's now getting around with a wheeled walker with a padded seat, I asked her if she needed help getting out to her car.  The only thing she wanted any help with was getting the walker into the trunk of her car.

As she was getting her coat on, she saw me tidying up the waiting room, collecting the sections of newspaper.  The SU/UConn game was front page of the sports section.  She saw that, and said "they lost that game.  I could have shot better threes than they did".  Amazing on many levels.  And an excellent reminder that an older age doesn't equal a retreat from life's enjoyments.

And, she also has her own Facebook page.  True story.

inaugural post

The doctor's office I work at has a cradle to the grave population.  Our youngest patient is 16 days old.  Our oldest patient is 100ish.  The 101 year old patient passed away, and I don't know which patient now holds the honor of most senior member.  From a medical standpoint, the things our patients say are at times ironic, hilarious, profound.  The staff also say things that meet that criteria.  We started a book five years ago to document the best (and worst) of it all.  Sometimes the day is hectic and later on we can't recall just what was said.  Sometimes the things that are said are so amazing we want to remember it later.  It's not just the patients that make our book; it can be staff, it can be other providers, it can be  support staff.  This stuff really should be shared.  Many people in the medical field will chuckle, some will scoff.  Some will tell their co-workers what went down.  Lots of people that are simply a part of the human race can relate.  Here's the 1st of many things I can pass along.

We had a female patient in her  60's say when she was being seen for a sick visit that she felt like she was being dragged into a rat's hole backwards.

How does one have a frame of reference for this?